Helmy, a former television personality, was appointed TVRI's president director in November 2017 for a five-year term. His time was cut short when TVRI's supervisory board fired him last week.

In a press conference on his dismissal last week, Helmy said state-owned TVRI had been in a precarious situation when he became its president director.

"Our [rating] share was 1 percent, our logo was considered old-fashioned, our equipment was damaged and our human resources and corporate culture was not very good," he said. "By the end of my leadership, our [rating share] had doubled."

Helmy also cited his securing of a license to broadcast the popular English Premier League's soccer matches as an example of his good performance.

Supervisory board chairman Arief Yahya, however, claimed in a meeting with House of Representatives Commission I overseeing communications and information on Tuesday that the airing of the Premier League was not in line with the nation's identity could potentially lead to financial difficulties for the broadcaster.

“Our priority is to educate, give a sense of identity and be the media that unites the nation," Arief told lawmakers, "Those are our priorities. But in reality, we're watching Premier League matches."

The board also took issue with Helmy's decision to create a new TVRI logo, which it said had not been approved as part of the broadcaster's 2019 budget.

Public opinion, as well as a significant number of TVRI employees, seem to mostly favor Helmy.

Agil Samal, an editor in the broadcaster's news division who has worked at TVRI for 28 years, said Helmy was the best president director he had worked under.

"Pak Helmy really changed our working culture and made me proud to work for TVRI," he told The Jakarta Post. "The rebranding didn't just change the logo but gave us new spirit. The 'killer content' that Pak Helmy acquired gained a lot of attention and put us on top of the ratings for the first time."

TVRI, once the country's only television station, has been in troubled waters since the fall of the New Order regime in 1998. A slew of TV stations and cable TV channels have provided intense competition, while TVRI's status as a public broadcaster, rather than a state-owned enterprise, means that almost all of its employees are civil servants, causing a bureaucratic and bloated work process.

"In the news division, we used to have something called a ‘work honorarium’, in which reporters and crew would get extra money if they went out to report," Agil said. "So for a live event at the State Palace, for example, other TV stations would have a crew of 15 people, while TVRI would have 40 or even up to 70 because everyone wanted the payment."

TVRI has also been embroiled in a number of graft cases. In 2014, former president director Sumita Tobing was convicted for committing graft during her tenure at the broadcaster in the early 2000s. Station heads in Aceh and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) have also been found guilty of graft, while in 2012, finance director Eddy Machmudi Effendi was found guilty of causing state losses of Rp 14 billion (US$1 million).

Audiences, both in metropolitan Jakarta and in more remote regions, have also gradually abandoned the broadcaster.

"To be honest, I don't remember the last time I watched TVRI," Indra Susanto, a 24-year-old part-time teacher and Flores, NTT, resident told the Post. "The first thing that comes to mind when I think of TVRI is 'boring'."

Michelle Sudarsono, a 28-year-old musician in Jakarta, echoed Indra's comments. She said she remembered seeing the news on TVRI as a child, but she could not say what TVRI aired these days.

She said, however, that the country still needed a public broadcaster to provide reliable information on current events.

"Unfortunately, my impression is that TVRI's quality is not as good as [British public broadcaster] BBC, for example, which makes it less attractive as my first source of information on the country," she said.

Darmanto, a researcher at the Clearing House of Indonesian Public Broadcasting (RPLPP), said the controversy surrounding Helmy's dismissal had a silver lining in that it showed that the public cared about the public broadcaster.

"But I think it also shows that many people don't really understand the point of public broadcasting," he told the Post. "For example, the programs that are said to have improved TVRI's ratings are mostly entertainment programs such as the Premier League. Does that provide a public service?"

Darmanto added that as a public broadcaster, TVRI should not be concerned with ratings in the first place.

"I think what TVRI should concentrate on is the quality of its journalistic content, especially given the competing political interests of other television statements," he said. "It should position itself as the go-to place to get independent and neutral journalism."

Darmanto acknowledged, however, that TVRI's current structure may prove to be an obstacle to its success.

"Many of the younger civil servants in TVRI are of very high quality, but the older civil servants might find it hard to adapt to modern workflows," he said. "Their status as civil servants also makes it hard for them to be independent from government interests."

Darmanto said that ultimately, a change in TVRI's underlying legislation was needed to really create an improvement.

"No matter who the directors and the supervisory board are, if the Broadcasting Law is not revised, there won't be any improvements," he said.

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