ABSTRACT
Television was introduced to Indonesia in 1962 as part of President Sukarno’s flurry of nationalistic ‘symbol wielding’ associated with the Fourth Asian Games (Feith 1963). Televisi Republik Indonesia’s (TVRI) legal status as a creature of the president was reinforced further in Presidential Decree #27, 1963, when it was absorbed after the Games into the ‘Spirit of Sukarno Foundation’, a highly personalised institution under the direct control of the President. TVRI was established as a Foundation in its own right on 20 October 1963, with the President as General Manager (Presidential Decree #215, 1963). Article 3 nominates TVRI as the sole organisation authorised to establish and develop television stations in Indonesia, a highly significant provision which made the commercial broadcasters established in the 1990s dependent on TVRI. TVRI’s status as an activity of the TVRI Foundation was not formally revoked until the enactment of Broadcasting Law #24, 1997, although in administrative practice it came under the control of the Department of Information in 1966.
