Empresa Brasil de Comunicação – EBC

Empresa Brasil de Comunicação S.A. (EBC) appeared to fill an existing gap in constitucional norms, that assured the complementarity between the public, the private and the state-owned systems of communication. It is, therefore, a federal public company, whose management would be exercised with the participation of society, according to the legislation of its creation.

Empresa Brasil de Comunicação consists of: TV Brasil, TV Brasil Internacional, Rádio Nacional AM of Rio de Janeiro (1.130 KHz), Rádio Nacional AM of Brasília (980 KHz), Nacional FM of Brasília (96,1 MHz), Rádio MEC AM of Rio de Janeiro (800 KHz), Rádio MEC FM of Rio de Janeiro (99,3 MHz), Rádio Nacional of Amazônia OC (11.780 KHz and 6.180 KHz), Rádio Nacional AM of Alto Solimões (670 KHz), Rádio Nacional FM of Alto Solimões (96.1 MHz), EBC portal, Brasil Agency and Radioagência Nacional.

The company also provides services of governmental communication by means of the TV NBR channel, that executes the coordination of the federal state communication system. The radio show A Voz do Brasil (The voice of Brazil), however, with a duration of one hour and broadcast at 7pm by all Brazilian radio stations from monday to fridays, except on holidays, provides communication services to the Three Federal State Powers (Executive, Lesgislative and Judicial). EBC is still responsible of managing the National Network of Public Communication (RNCP), which comprised nowadays by 48 partner TV stations and four owned generators - located in Brasília (DF), São Paulo (SP), Rio de Janeiro (RJ) and São Luís (MA). Specifically in TV Brasil, the owned production makes up for 35,1% of the programming grid. Recently, the station broadcast the parades of Samba Schools during Carnival and the Paralympic Games, increasing its ratings.

EBC was instituted by Provisional Measure 398, of 10/10/2007, converted into the Law 11.652, of 07/04/2008 – in turn, altered by Law 13.417/2017. It is organized under the form of anonymous society of closed capital, represented by ordinary nominative actions, of which at least 51% must be under the Union’s control. According to the legal mark of creation, the company must contribute to broaden the public debate on relevant national and international themes, fomenting the construction of citizenship with an educational, inclusive, artistic, cultural, informative, scientific and public interest programming. Besides that, EBC’s model of governance must follow the principles of coorporate transparency, equity and responsability.

A provisional measure published in september 2016 altered the Law nº 11.652 of 2008 and emptied the publich character of Empresa Brasileira de Comunicação. These changes occurred soon after the conclusion of the impeachment political process of president Dilma Rousseff, while the vice-president Michel Temer got into the Presidential Palace by means of articulations performed with conservative sectors of the National Congress and with support of the private national media. The PM 744/2016 by Temer managed at once: to extinguish EBC’s Curator Council, that, out of 22 seats, had 15 occupied by civil society representatives; to extinguish the guarantee of a four-year tenure to the director-president, that under current rules is freely nominated and exonerated by the President of the Republic, a fact that harms the company’s autonomy; and to increase to six seats the participation of the government in EBC’s administration Council, formerly consisted of four nominations, increasing the subordination of the company to the interests of the turn government. The resulting law of this PM 13.417 was approved and sanctioned in 2017.