The head office of national broadcaster PBS was temporarily redecorated to turn it into a branch of Labour media outlet ONE on Monday morning, with the Nationalist Party dubbing it ‘Super One 2’.

PN representatives affixed a placard bearing the ONE logo onto a column at the front of the PBS building in Gwardamanġa, as a stunt to highlight its concerns about the station’s impartiality.

A court ruled last week that both PBS and the sectoral regulator, the Broadcasting Authority, breached the PN’s rights in the way in which they handled complaints filed by the party.

Standing outside PBS offices, PN broadcasting spokesperson Graham Bencini and general Secretary Michael Piccinino said the party would continue to demand accountability for the PBS decisions to muzzle PN perspectives.

Bencini noted that PBS was financed using taxpayer money, while Piccinino said the public broadcaster’s role was to lay out facts in a balanced manner, not favour one side over the other.

The national broadcaster and Labour media, they said, were now one and the same. 

"PBS has become Super One 2," they said, referencing ONE's old name. 

PBS is state-funded through an annual budgetary allocation that is at the government’s discretion. The BA is composed entirely of representatives of the Labour and Nationalist parties.

Complaints about PBS favouring the government of the day go back decades and continue to this very day. PN leader Bernard Grech has regularly highlighted the lack of balance in broadcasting, with that issue featuring prominently in the party’s 2022 general election campaign.

Correction March 6, 2023: A previous version misstated Bencini's surname.