Flying Through Turbulence – Media in the New EU Member States

Michael Hedges - February 13, 2007

10. If turbulence is encountered with an abrupt wind-shift associated with a sharp pressure trough, a course should be established to cross the trough rather than to fly parallel to it. A change in flight level is not as likely to reduce turbulence.

Transport Canada Aeronautical Information Manual – AIRMANSHIP October 2006

Official Europe – the European Union – is now 484 million souls, 4 million square kilometers and 27 Member States. The most recent European enlargement, adding 12 new Members since 2004, did little to quell the turbulence already apparent in those countries. The media sector in the new Member States, in its unique status as both monitor and reflector, has been particularly hard hit, blown completely off courses set decades before.

Current conditions for the media sector within the new EU members could be called – to use common navigation terms – heavy traffic at all altitudes, high cross-winds, turbulence likely, ghosts on the radar. Forecasters see a jet-stream effect benefiting both the stronger craft and the more agile crews. Auto-pilot is not recommended.

Inescapable, though, are the social, political and economic changes of the recent past, just half a generation ago: the end of the Soviet Union (Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania), the fall of Communist regimes in the Soviet orbit (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic – including the separation of Czechoslovakia into two separate States, Romania and Bulgaria), the collapse of Yugoslavia (Slovenia), and the end of British colonial rule (Malta and Cyprus).

With the exception of Malta and Cyprus, the new EU member States shared similar media policies and structures. All of that has changed.

“No matter what age you are, you feel like change just goes on forever, without ever getting anywhere. We’re tired of everything changing.”

Slovenian publisher Igor Brlek, former director of independent Radio Student, was speaking of his country, the first State to break-away from Yugoslavia, to endure a brief but devastating war and the first of the new Member States to join the European Union and Eurozone. He points out the uncomfortable fact that a person working in the media sector today knows nothing but change.

In interviews with media professionals in the new Member States this protest was repeated, judging more the present than the past, and repeated. To be sure, the social, political and economic vectors in the new Member States have been vastly different from those of Old Europe, the last two decades more dramatic.

State media (almost) ends

Almost concurrent with the retreat and fall of the Soviet Union and its orbit was the end of state support for media. In the beginning this was a political and ideological step away from media outlets viewed as State agents. Later it became a confusing set of multi-level air currents of political pressure, cultural re-birth, strategic confusion and creative energies.

First to face the changing currents were the printed media. State financial support fell and popular support waned. Many newspapers were officially privatized. Many journalists struck out on their own, publishing new titles. Today very few newspapers or magazines in the new Member States receive financial support from State organizations, at least not entering the front-door.

Once generous State support for film production has, by now, all but ended. This important creative outlet and source of cultural identity is now a shadow of its former self.

State broadcasting was, generally, in free-fall; no fuel, no pilot, no guidance. And, too, the winds kept shifting.  Funding was – and it remains – the primary parliamentary focus but underlying that the context of State broadcasting was left very much up in the air. EU mandates for independent public service broadcasting in the model of the British, French or German systems were met, in some cases, with cynical political forces intent on controlling the medium if not the message.

In several of the new Member States, State (now “public”) broadcasters changed top management as often as every other year. In some, such as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria (five General Directors in 10 years) and Slovakia, directors and managers were shown the door even quicker. More recently – in Slovenia, Estonia and the Czech Republic – changing the financial model risks making public broadcasters more rather than less dependent on the State.

High anxiety among employees, managers and supporters of public broadcasters in the new Member States, in every case, is apparent, corrosive and material to general state of media. Public sector broadcasters continue to be the largest employers in the audiovisual sector in each of the new Member States. From one-third to one-quarter of all audiovisual employment – full-time, part-time and free-lance – is within the public broadcasters. In the last decade and a half, concurrent with or because of the migration from State to public broadcasting, employment has steadily dropped.

At the most basic level, the political restructuring of the early 1990’s followed by public broadcasting restructuring beginning in the mid 1990’s resulted in job losses. Eesti TV, Estonian public television, employed 1100 in 1991, compared with 410 in 2005. Polish public television (TVP) reported increases in revenue for 2006, almost simultaneously announcing further job cuts. In 2005 newly appointed Human Resources Director Adam Aduszkiewicz said, “We still employ too many people.”

Cuts to services are not universal. Several public broadcasters have found support and resources to maintain and even expand the universal demand for more, bigger and better services. This is particularly clear among public radio organizations, seemingly more adept at doing more with less.

Advertising by State agencies and State owned or influenced enterprises is mighty leverage for influencing media operators, public and private. Estimates suggest as much as 50% of media advertising – as much as 80% in the extreme – goes to “friendly” publishers and broadcasters – amounting to back-door State aid and a corrupting influence.

A full discussion of public broadcasting in the new Members States, the preeminent concern being funding, is complex and politically charged. Their presence remains, in most States, quite large, their service robust and public support – audience ratings in evidence – reasonably secure. This support, presence and robust service has not provided safety and security, as shown in Hungary when in October 2006 the airing of a clandestine recording of the Hungarian Prime Minister on the public radio channel set off violent protests focused, in part, on Hungarian public broadcasting.  

In both Cyprus and Malta – with vastly different climates and histories – public broadcasting suffers, but suffers less. Cyprus Public Broadcasting (CyBC) and Malta Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) show few signs of waning public or political support. The reasons are apparent: CyBC was built, generally, on the BBC public service model and continues to carry out a clear strategy. Malta PBS, enduring great recent criticism over football rights and broadcasts, is a small craft in a country of small craft.

New Media (owners and styles) Arrive

Almost as soon as media rules changed to allow privately owned media, privately owned media appeared, reflecting enormous pent-up demand for new voices. Constraints were lifted and so too the spirits of those willing to participate in new found media freedoms. Hundreds, if not a few thousand, new publications appeared like star-bursts, twinkling brightly for a few months then disappearing into economic reality. Many, before crashing to earth, were bought by local or foreign investors eager to built either small or large media empires.

The same pent-up demand fueled a rapid increase in privately owned radio and television stations. Some early foreign investment was involved, notably the very rich (Central European Media Enterprises and Metromedia International) or the very connected (Lagardére). Most, however, were local enthusiasts, anoraks in many cases, on personal missions to fill the obvious void.

In time market forces took their toll on the weaker broadcasters as they had with new publishers. Stronger media companies (Agora in Poland, for example) consolidated holdings and raised significantly the professional levels to meet demands from an exploding advertising industry.

Foreign influence in the media sector in the new Member States – largely Anglo-American – has been immense. The radio anoraks had long been aware of the jingles, DJs and music of British and American commercial stations. With new licenses – and sometimes without – these radio fans built stations in their own languages with tools gleaned from years of listening to the work of others.

The tabloid newspaper format, bourn largely from Rupert Murdoch’s stable of creations, has overtaken the broadsheets associated in Eastern Europe with State press. New television stations adopted star-struck and star-laden serials, film-fare and news productions, some purchased out-right from international syndicators or copied from American, British, German and Dutch styles. Ratings and circulations for these formats soared. 

Criticism of that foreign influence has also been immense, largely from organizations outside the region. Clearly multi-national companies have taken serious interest in regional media investment, with no indication of slowing down. One effect, oft criticized, has been a homogenization of content. One Council of Europe representative charged that globalization of media in Eastern Europe leads to “adult contemporary radio formats.”

Charges that foreign media investment in the region simply expatriates resources best reinvested locally are groundless. Profits among these media companies, though promising, has yet to reach fantastic levels and, by all indications, reinvestment is taking place at a high level. Foreign owned media outlets do, however, tend to limit political engagement, preferring business-friendly policies to contentious engagement. All are aware that licenses granted can be – and have been – quickly taken away.

Private sector broadcasters investment in the new Member States is not limited to offices, studios and transmitters. The largest part is personnel. A conservative estimate of total employment in the audiovisual sector in the 12 new Member States exceeds 300,000 full-time and another 300,000 part-time/free-lance positions. The Czech Private Radio Broadcasters Association (APSV – Asociace Provovatela Soukromeho Vysilani) estimates total employment in Czech private sector radio broadcasting as 5000, 40% of which are free-lance, most of those in advertising sales. By comparison, Czech public radio (Ceske Rozhlas) employs 2048 workers, 30% of which are free-lance. The growth in private sector media employment has not, however, offset losses in the public sector, particularly television and film.

Discomfort aside, more than one labor union leader admitted that foreign operators and investment have benefited regional media by bringing a high level of professionalism.

But, again, all media activity in the new Member States must be viewed as activity in 12 independent, culturally diverse nations. Foreign investment, in point, is not a universal factor in every country. Slovenia, though small in size, would appear as a highly likely target for foreign investment: attitudes toward the private sector are positive, as are basic economics. Slovenia recently became the first of the new Member States to qualify for and join the Eurozone. Yet foreign investment in the media sector is strikingly low.

When the question was posed to Media Development Loan Fund’s Patrice Schneider – whos organization has an uncommon knowledge of the former Yugoslav States – his answer was quick and potent: “They don’t need it.”

Local (and other) Rules and Rulers

While public and private sector broadcasters in the new Member States compete for ratings, sometimes advertising and all the time popular support they are united in frustration with regulators, Parliaments and, more than ever, European institutions.

Media regulation structures vary among these States – some regulators take on a full range of powers over public and private media, some are concerned only with compliance, some are governed by their own confusing and changing sets of rules.

Individual Parliaments control regulation schemes and, in many cases, appoint regulators. Media laws and regulations have changed constantly with the political winds since the early 1990’s. The learning curve for governments with regard to their media needs, desires and abilities has been frighteningly steep. With all the resources available from European institutions – from the European Commission to the European Broadcasting Union to individual media development agencies and specialists – the constant change has had a worrying effect.

Slovenia’s Parliament, for one example, changed its media law in late 2005 from arguably one of the most progressive to one of the least. The Czech Parliament has changed media laws no fewer than five times in 15 years. The Hungarian Parliament’s inability to confront funding issues for the public broadcaster was a contributing factor to the 2006 civil unrest and unwillingness to “legalize” aspects of digital broadcasting threaten to leave the country as a media backwater.

But, as with so many aspects of media in the new Member States, stability has become more important than further change.

For this, many have put faith in their European Union membership and attachment to the broader Europe.

But European institutions, NGOs and their partners, peering east from the tidiness of Brussels, Paris or Berlin, have shown varied interest in the media sector in the new Member States, often for imposing old structures rather than learning from the new beginnings rising naturally from a wind-shear of change.

To be sure, most in the media sector support EU membership. But it is with a watchful eye, weary of change and mindful of history.

One public broadcasting executive, with more than a touch of irony, said, “For years we took orders from Moscow. Now we take orders from Brussels.”

Editors note: Michael Hedges traveled through the new EU Member States in 2005 and 2006 surveying the audiovisual sector for European Commission Social Dialogue committee. The reports for ftm are his own observations and do not reflect the positions of the European Commission or any of the members of the Social Dialogue committee.

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