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 News From You
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Week ending June 25, 2011
Radio Netherlands Worldwide has said the Dutch cabinet's plan to reduce its budget by 70 percent is inconceivable. General Director Jan Hoek and Editor-in-Chief Rik Rensen say the cutback is unprecedented: "In today's international world, each self-respecting country has to live up to its responsibilities. The Education and Culture Ministry (OCW) is making it impossible for us to do this. Without any preliminary research, nor any consultations, a decision has been taken that will leave a global audience of millions out in the cold, and will cost 250 jobs."
Former foreign minister and RNW Board of Supervisors Chairman Bernhard Bot says he is worried: "I find this cabinet plan incomprehensible, coming from a reliable administration which should be implementing long-term foreign policies serving the interests of the Netherlands and the Dutch people."
Dykes
The figures announced today show that from 2013 Radio Netherlands Worldwide's budget will be reduced by 70 percent, from 46 million euros to 14 million euros a year. General Director Jan Hoek says: "This radical reduction is both unnecessary and not part of the agreed government coalition programme. The Culture Ministry is opting for the cheapest solution. This is too easy a way of achieving economies in public broadcasting."
Editor-in-Chief Rik Rensen adds, "Our country wants to be known as an important and reliable trading nation. Radio Netherlands Worldwide is contributing to this, in ten languages, around the clock. Tens of millions of people all over the world consider RNW an important source of information, and the Netherlands' journalistic calling card. Is our country really retreating behind the dykes?"
Coalition agreement
Announcing a decision which was planned in the government coalition accord, the cabinet announced last week that Radio Netherlands Worldwide should focus exclusively on bringing reliable and independent information to people in countries without press freedom. Two of Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s core tasks – providing information for Dutch people living abroad and presenting a realistic image of the Netherlands to the rest of the world – are to be scrapped. It is still unclear how much of the output in the remaining nine languages can be continued.
RNW's own plan
On 7 June Radio Netherlands Worldwide indicated it was prepared to deliver a proportional amount of the planned government economies in public broadcasting, that proportion being 22 percent of its budget and a loss of 100 jobs. General Director Jan Hoek said, "We put forward a plan outlining our new direction to the Education and Culture Ministry, but they never even responded. It is unbelievably slapdash of the minister to take such far-reaching decisions without any consultation."
The competition is open to television, radio and online productions submitted by broadcasters and producers from all over Europe.
From 22 to 29 October we are going to celebrate 25 years of Media Quality - Made in Europe. 25-years is a reason to look back, to be proud - but most importantly - to take a challenging look into the future.
Since 1987, PRIX EUROPA has grown form a regional TV award for EU member states only, to the Continental Broadcasting Festival it is today. Continuous updating of our Regulations was the basis of our development.
So what is different/new this year?
NEW CATEGORY - for Radio Music, looking for new ways of communicating music to radio audiences
NEW AWARD - in the TV Documentary category we will have two awards: One for pieces up to 60 minutes, one for pieces longer than 60 minutes.
NEW NAME - following a crowd sourced discussion on the social media the former Emerging Media category is now called Online Category and is looking for projects in several sub-categories
NEW OBLIGATION - if programmes have been selected for the competition the submitting organisations have to send a jury member to the respective category
NEW RULE - if more than 1 programme is entered to the Radio Fiction category one entry has to be an episode of a series or serial.
The complete Regulations you can find here (link).
We are ready to answer your questions. And don't miss the deadline: 1 July for submissions to PRIX EUROPA 2011.
Broadcasters failed to prepare audiences for events in North Africa and the Middle East, according to new research from the International Broadcasting Trust (IBT) and the University of East Anglia.
Published today, the Outside the Box report looks in detail at the nature of non-news factual coverage on all the main television channels in 2010 and finds that some countries like Libya and Yemen received little or no coverage at all.
In 2010, five out of the 12 countries which have experienced revolutions, civil uprisings or major protests to date were not the principal subject of any new non-news factual programme on BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, ITV1, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky1 or More 4 - specifically Algeria, Bahrain, Libya, Oman, and Yemen.
Other countries in the region which also received no such coverage include Lebanon, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The only time UK audiences had the opportunity to watch a programme which was principally about Syria was the BBC4 series Syrian School. Similarly, Tunisia only received significant coverage in On Hannibal's Trail (BBC4) and Morocco in Jamie does Marrakesh (Channel 4).
IBT director Mark Galloway said: "Our research is a stark reminder of the narrow range of international stories covered on television. Public service broadcasters need to reflect a much broader view of the world so that UK audiences have an opportunity to understand what is really happening in other countries."
The report's author is Martin Scott, a lecturer in media and international development at the University of East Anglia. He said: "The results of this study strongly suggest that UK television left audiences remarkably unprepared for these momentous events. Public opinion and public debate in the UK about the Arab Spring is surely the worse for UK television's persistent failure to cover adequately this part of the world."
In total, North Africa and the Middle East received just five per cent of all international non-news factual coverage in 2010. This lack of coverage is by no means a one-off or confined solely to non-news programming. In 2007 North Africa and the Middle East also received just five per cent of all new international factual programming and in 2009 approximately five per cent of all international news coverage.
Mr Scott added: "I'm not suggesting that the BBC and other broadcasters should have predicted the Arab Spring but that they have not lived up to their responsibility to give audiences the opportunity to understand better this part of the world. How can the British public develop informed opinions and reach considered judgements about events in North Africa and the Middle East if they have little or no basis upon which to make these judgements?"
Since 1989 IBT has been conducting a longitudinal study of international factual programming to establish how much international coverage there is on which channels, covering what topics, through which genres, in what countries and how this has changed over time. The research presented in this report represents the continuation of this study for the year 2010.
A striking finding of the research is the extent of the decline in new international factual programming on terrestrial channels. In 2010 the main UK terrestrial channels broadcast fewer hours of new international factual programming than at any time since the study began in 1989.International content is in decline on every terrestrial channel except Channel 4, and BBC1 has now replaced ITV1 as the channel with the least amount of new factual coverage of developing countries.
Although international content is declining on terrestrial channels, it is increasing on some digital channels. In 2010, BBC3, BBC4 and More4 all had record amounts of new international factual programming.
"This migration of international content to digital channels matters," said Mr Galloway "because audiences for digital channels are usually much small than for terrestrial channels. It is important that all audiences have access to international content regardless of which channels they usually watch."
This research also looks in detail at the nature of international content. The regions of the world which receive the most coverage are North America (28 per cent) and Europe (25 per cent). The Middle East and North Africa (five per cent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (six per cent) receive the least coverage.
While this concentration of international coverage is almost identical to the pattern of coverage noted in previous research. North America, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa all received exactly the same percentage of international factual coverage in 2007 as they did in 2010.
This research reveals how the nature of international factual coverage has remained remarkably static over time. Although individual producers and commissioners do not set out to reproduce the same view of the world on television each year, the study reveals that the combined result of all of those individual commissioning decisions, amongst all broadcasters, is to produce factual programmes that cover broadly the same topics, in the same formats, featuring the same parts of the world, every year.
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