Tel-Ad

Tel-Ad began as an independent production company and became one of the three firms licensed to operate Channel 2 when full commercial broadcasting began in November 1993. Under the original arrangement, Tel-Ad, Keshet, and Reshet each received two broadcast days per week, while the seventh rotated among them; the franchisees also shared the channel's news division.[1]

The company later combined local production with broadcasting services and, after leaving Channel 2, foreign-channel representation and management of its program archive.[2][3]

Tel-Ad was established in 1973 as Tel-Ad Jerusalem Studios Ltd. by Uzi Peled together with Discount Bank's investment company.[2] The company's name was a composite of "television," Peled's advertising company Idan, and Discount Investments. It was chosen after a legal restriction barred the use of "Jerusalem" in a company name without an accompanying word, ruling out Peled's original choice of "Jerusalem Studios."[2]

Before entering commercial broadcasting, Tel-Ad operated as a television production company and accumulated a substantial body of work. It produced more than 500 films for television in Israel and abroad, including a program about the group FAME that aired on NBC across the United States, a live special on international terrorism shown on U.S. public television networks, and an Emmy-winning production featuring Dinah Shore.[2]

In 1985, Tel-Ad began producing The Big Restaurant (המסעדה הגדולה), its first production for Israel's Channel 1 and Arabic-language television.[2] The show ran for three years and 39 episodes, airing on Saturday nights, with performers including Jacques Cohen, Bassem Zuamot, Abdo, and Maarouf. Filming halted after the First Intifada began and Zuamot disappeared from the production.[2]

During Channel 2's experimental broadcasts, which began in 1986, Tel-Ad agreed to produce programs without payment in exchange for airtime.[2] The company also produced the children's program Zanav LaHadashot for Channel 1 in 1987 and its first Channel 1 drama, Triangle and Everything Else, in 1989.[2]

On May 25, 1993, Tel-Ad, Keshet, and Reshet were selected as Channel 2's three franchisees.[2] Sources differ by one day on the beginning of commercial broadcasts: Ynet dates Tel-Ad's opening broadcast to November 4, 1993, while a Globes account gives November 3. Both place the start at 2 p.m. with a news bulletin presented by Yaakov Eilon.[2][4] Ynet identifies Kol Sheni VaHamishi with Rafi Reshef as the first original program shown that day.[2]

Under the franchise arrangement, each company received two days of airtime per week, with the seventh day rotated among them.[1] Channel 2 broadcast 22–24 hours a day and produced 40% of its programs locally; its news division was shared by all three franchisees.[1]

Tel-Ad was described as a Jerusalem-based franchisee that placed documentaries and investigative programming at the center of prime time.[5] Its notable productions included The Comedy Store, HaChartzufim, Uvda, Florentin, Ramat Aviv Gimmel, Laila Gov, The Cameri Quintet, Masa Olam, and Ha-Chaim Ze Lo Hakol.[2][5] The company's acquisition department brought the U.S. series The X-Files to Israel in 1994.[2]

Tel-Ad's practice of changing broadcast times, skipping episodes, and cutting seasons prompted viewers to coin the nickname "Tel-ood" (טלעוד), a pun on the company's name that remained in circulation through its final week on air.[2]

On November 20, 2000, Tel-Ad won an International Emmy in the documentary category for Kapo, a film presented as part of Ilana Dayan's Uvda.[2] The film examined violence by Jewish prisoner functionaries against fellow prisoners in concentration camps, drawing on diaries, testimonies, interviews, images, researchers, and legal documents.[2]

Beyond its Channel 2 output, Tel-Ad operated a broadcasting-services subsidiary. Tel-Ad Broadcasting launched the History Channel and E! in Israel in July 2000 and the MGM movie channel in July 2001. The MGM channel was broadcast from Tel-Ad's Jerusalem studios to 30 countries, around the clock and in local languages.[2]

In the first quarter of 1997, Tel-Ad's profits fell by 84% to NIS 1.4 million, a decline attributed to an economic slowdown and a reduction in its weekly schedule from three broadcasting days in the corresponding period of 1996 to two days in early 1997.[6] Despite that downturn, the company had earned more than Keshet and Reshet in 1996. Shareholders included Discount Investments with 23%, Maariv with 18%, and Harel Hamishmar with 15%.[6]

The Second Authority for Television and Radio announced the results of the renewed Channel 2 franchise tender on April 13, 2005.[5] Keshet and Reshet won ten-year franchises beginning November 1, 2005, ranked first and second with scores of 92.555 and 88.790, respectively.[5] Tel-Ad ranked fourth with a score of 78.81, behind the new bidder Kan, which scored 78.996.[5]

Tel-Ad's financial bid of NIS 93 million was below Reshet's NIS 124 million and Keshet's NIS 171 million. Ynet reported that the bidders' content scores were close and that the winners' economic proposals and commercial strength proved decisive.[5]

Tel-Ad ended its Channel 2 broadcasts on October 29, 2005, after 12 years as a franchisee.[2] Its programs subsequently dispersed to other broadcasters: Uvda moved to Keshet, Ktzarim moved to Reshet, and Amnon Levy reached an agreement with Channel 10 to present an investigative program in the format of Shomer Masach.[2]

The company did not cease operations after losing the franchise. By 2011, Tel-Ad was focused mainly on representing foreign channels in Israeli multichannel television, including E!, the Biography Channel, MGM, and the History Channel. It also held an archive of programs it had broadcast, including HaChartzufim, The Cameri Quintet, Uvda, and Florentin.[3]

In October 2011, NMC United agreed to purchase Tel-Ad. Reports identified Moshe Gaon as the controlling shareholder and chairman and listed Uzi Peled, Robert Factor, and Yehoram Gaon among the other shareholders.[3][7] Calcalist estimated the transaction at NIS 16 million, while Globes reported a value of NIS 15 million.[3][7]

Tel-Ad was at the center of two significant controversies during and after its years as a Channel 2 franchisee.

On March 2, 2002, during a televised football match, Tel-Ad received news of a Jerusalem terror attack. Rather than immediately end the match, the channel used a split screen to show reporting from the attack scene while the game continued.[8][2] Ynet reported that the Second Authority for Television and Radio convened an urgent meeting the next day and condemned Tel-Ad's conduct.[2] A later Times of Israel account said the split screen placed attack coverage on two-thirds of the screen for ten minutes and reported that Tel-Ad lost all franchising rights for three years.[8] The relationship between that reported penalty and Tel-Ad's separate loss in the 2005 Channel 2 tender is not clarified by the cited accounts.[8][5]

A separate controversy arose from Uvda's 2004 coverage of the criminal case of an IDF captain connected to the killing of 13-year-old Iman al-Hams. A special broadcast on the day of the captain's indictment included evidence related to the case; the captain was acquitted a year later.[9] In 2009, the Jerusalem District Court ordered Tel-Ad Television and journalist Ilana Dayan to pay the captain NIS 300,000 in damages and NIS 80,000 in legal expenses and required Dayan to broadcast a clarification.[9]

The subsequent appeals substantially changed that outcome. In 2012, the Supreme Court accepted Dayan's appeal concerning the report but held Tel-Ad liable for NIS 100,000 over the program's promotional segment. In September 2014, an expanded nine-justice panel upheld the operative result by an 8–1 majority, finding that the reports were protected as responsible journalism while the promotional segment was not.[10]