This article essentially shows how the development of commercial television in Indonesia has conflicted with the country’s media democratization, as illustrated by the growth of local media in the past 15 years. Compared to print media and radio, which are decentralized, Indonesia’s television industry is dominated by five large media corporations that are all based in the capital city of Jakarta. As a consequence, this fails to leave much growing space to television stations at a local level, which would be needed to strengthen Indonesia’s democratization. Media owners have successfully influenced the government in establishing a set of policies that sustain their dominance of the industry. Players within the television industry have even successfully swayed the direction of the broadcasting decentralization mandated by the Broadcasting Bill during Indonesia’s early political Reform period. The influence of these ‘Jakarta television stations’ stunted the development of television stations outside of Jakarta. Not only it deprives local actors of the economic value of developing their own television industry would bring, it also has resulted in the the loss of television's potential in functioning as a public sphere facilitating social control over democratic processes. Although the Reform era promised a new age of media democratization, the centralization of commercial television actually worsened media monopolies that were thought to have been done away with in post-Suharto Indonesia.

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Although the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) supervised all of the television programs, there are a lot of programs getting a warning because of breaking the rule of P Broadcasting Code of Conduct (P3) and Broadcasting Program Standard (SPS). Focusing on program Pagi-Pagi Pasti Happy, this research investigated the authority of KPI in terms of being a watchdog of television content in Indonesia. This research deployed political economy theory because it has studied not only media analysis in general but also the problems faced by the media industry and who controlled media. To criticize the authority of KPI in maintaining a code of conduct over the broadcasting content, three KPI’s commissioners, two television program representatives, and a media observer were interviewed. Based on interviews, the researcher found that dialogue preferred by KPI in supervising the television content confirmed that the current KPI’s commissioner has compromised with private television stations. KPI is more likely to support the existing television business system nowadays to gain maximum profit for the media investor. The findings suggest that role as KPI’s commissioner has been used to gain more power in the future.

In every disaster, problems of information and communication distribution always occur. The communication channel is very dependent on various supporting facilities. Electricity, transmitter towers, broadcasting stations, to human resources. In two big disasters in Indonesia in 2018: the Lombok earthquake; and the earthquake, tsunami and liquefaction in Palu, there were issues of the information and communication channels. Local people do not know the conditions that occur in their area and the situation of their families. While outsiders, the government, and rescue teams did not get detailed information from the affected areas. In countries with high intensity of natural disasters, emergency broadcasting policies have been long practiced. The simplest device for emergency broadcasting is radio. This kind of media can immediately air with simple facilities. Regardless, the initiative of emergency radio has not yet adopted into regulation in Indonesia. Therefore, the emergency radio initiator limited to a handful of organization like in Lombok earthquake. Conversely in Palu disaster, there was a Ministerial Decree of Information and Communication Ministry Number 773/2018 (KM 773), regulation that simplify access to radio frequency. Using comparative method, this research examined these two disasters to analyze the differences of emergency radio practices. Only 1.5 months away and similar location features, the emergency radios initiation differ in several aspects related subjects that regulated in this KM. The result shows that this KM can broaden all aspects of emergency broadcasting radio. Although, the KM unable to shorten the time of emergency radio implementation. Regulation change only limited to frequency access. A broader regulation change is needed to support the practice of emergency radio.