For years, Israel’s media market has been shaped not by freedom or competition but by layers of regulation that protect the main TV channels, preserve monopolies, and limit diversity and pluralism.
The broadcast reform initiated by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi aims to reverse exactly that: fewer barriers, more players, and a media landscape defined by audience choice rather than bureaucratic control.
At its core, the reform replaces a heavy-handed licensing regime with a simple registration model. This shift opens the market to competitor outlets, new creators, diverse voices, and independent producers, who until now faced regulatory obstacles built for large corporations.
When the state decides who gets a license, it also decides who doesn’t. Registration ends that “gatekeeping” and allows competition to work as the main filter.
A basic correction
Economically, the reform answers a longstanding public frustration: Israelis pay for oversized broadcasting packages they barely use. Allowing households to choose and pay only for the content they actually consume is not a radical innovation – it is a basic correction.
Less regulatory burden means more competition; more competition means lower prices and better content.
Critics of the reform argue that the new regulatory authority expected to be established under the law will be political in nature and controlled by the communications minister and the government.
Yet the current Second Authority for Television and Radio is already political: All 15 of its members are appointed directly by the minister. Under the reform, only one appointment comes from the ministry’s director-general.
The new authority also lacks a power the current regulator holds – the power to remove content from broadcasts. Its mandate is strictly economic: competition, transparency, and fairness. Far from tightening political control, the reform dramatically reduces it.
Opponents also invoke “structural separation,” but nowhere in the world does such a rigid separation truly exist, and even in Israel it has never functioned in practice.
Recent cases – such as journalists influencing the appointment of a CEO at Israel’s Channel 13 – prove that the supposed barriers were always porous and selectively enforced.
The reform does not dismantle an effective system; it exposes the fiction that such a system ever operated as claimed.
Public transparency
One of the reform’s quiet but meaningful innovations is full public transparency of audience ratings. Content providers will publish viewership data directly to the public, with no government involvement in the numbers themselves. This strengthens accountability and empowers creators and audiences alike with real, immediate information about performance.
Much of the resistance to the reform stems from discomfort with competition. Established broadcasters fear losing privileged status, guaranteed bundles, and regulatory shields. But protecting bureaucracy and unified content is not protecting journalism.
A system where content must win viewers – rather than rely on regulation – is one that encourages better reporting, stronger editorial standards, and greater responsiveness to public needs.
Karhi’s reform is not a revolution against the media but a correction of a bureaucratic field that has grown too insulated, too centralized, and too dependent on government-constructed frameworks.
By reducing political influence, eliminating unnecessary barriers, encouraging variety, and shifting power back to consumers, the reform offers a vision of a healthier, more pluralistic, and free media environment.
It is a shift from monopoly to competition, from regulatory privilege to audience choice, and from bureaucratic control to genuine pluralism.■
Omer Dostri is a fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and a senior strategy and communication adviser. He served as the spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024-2025.