I'M BACK: After almost two years away, I'm back in one of my favorite cities, Tirana, Albania, at Hotel President. I'm here to work with a couple of privately owned television stations in Albania--Vizion+ and Top Channel.

Tirana has changed--the first thing I've noticed is that the streets are mostly paved...though there's a lot of construction going on still, including an effort to build a gigantic traffic interchange that will improve the routing of vehicles at a couple of major intersections in the city. I've come to believe it's just better to build the interchange than to try to put in place traffic lights and conventional intersections. People here just don't seem to obey those conventional measures.

Commercial broadcasting gets taken for granted in the U.S. All we want is to watch our favorite entertainment shows but where would we be if we didn't have those stations covering local and national news? Life for most Americans is so good they don't worry much about the news--indeed, network news viewing is declining and has its highest audience among persons 55 and older. But, we can turn on the TV and see a newscast that we can believe is truthful and fair. There certainly are partisan stories from time to time but generally we get a balanced look at the world.

What about newspaper you say? Yes, newspapers really are more important to the coverage of routine local news--city council and local gov't stuff that isn't visual enough for TV. And, they're sometimes the sort of stories TV people are barely smart enough to know how to cover when you consider that a local TV reporter in a small market has little connection to the town.

It's different in Albania. There are many newspapers being published but many sell very few copies and they are expensive for the local readers. Television is the news voice that is free for the audience and it does serve as a check against government actions. Private television is especially important. Government TV was (and is) the voice of the government and that seldom means it's a free, independent, fair/accurate news voice--though maybe that can/will change. Anyway, I'll spend time offering ideas to help the stations run more effectively to improve their service and perhaps improve their profits.