“It’s Pointed and a Bit Uncomfortable”

Michael Hedges February 24, 2005

In an extraordinary positioning campaign, Swedish public television “provokes” as it promotes.

Europe’s public service broadcasters (PSBs) are known as thoughtful, disciplined, generally reserved and always diplomatic. Even while occasionally and privately wringing their hands over the curse of competition from commercial channels, the PSBs typically take the higher road in public and on their channels. That ended when Swedish public television aired a promotional campaign contrasting their “independence” with the lack thereof in Italy and Russia.

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Sveriges Television (SVT) broadcast a series of promotional announcements two of which point out differences between the “free” television in Sweden and – by implication – the not-so-free television in Italy and Russia. With “O Sole Mio” in the background one announcement shows multiple images of Silvio Berlusconi blowing kisses underscored by crawling text that reads: “Silvio Berlusconi controls 90% of national TV channels in Italy. He became prime minister in 1991 after a massive TV campaign.” The spot ends with the stark slide: “SVT – Free Television.”

The diplomatic telephones started ringing. The Italian Foreign Ministry summoned the Swedish ambassador to explain. Ambassador Steggen Wrigstad replied, according to a Swedish foreign ministry spokesperson, that complaints should go to the television station.

While PM Berlusconi remained silent on the subject, other Italian politicians were quick to respond. “It’s full of incorrect information,” said telecommunications minister Maurizio Gasparri, namesake of the recent revision to Italian media law allowing cross-media ownership.

Sveriges Television CEO Christina Jullerström remains resolute. “This campaign is like Italian shoes. It’s pointed and a bit uncomfortable,” she said on a television news program.

“We had thought that there would be reaction from Italy, “said SVT spokesperson Helga Baagöe in several interviews. “We want to debate Swedish Television and make the public service mission clearer. We can’t let ourselves be influenced by political interests. We must be ready to provoke.”

The similar promo featuring the face of Vladimir Putin suggested that election coverage on Russian television favored his election.

Italian Prime Minister and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi is the PSBs poster-boy for all the ills of media concentration. Rupert Murdoch is another. Clear Channel is another. Berlusconi, through family owned media companies Mediaset, Mondadori and Finninvest and his position as government leader, controls – directly or indirectly - a huge portion of Italy’s media. Mr. Murdoch controls pay-TV in Italy and other places, many other places. Clear Channel, owning more radio stations than any other company in the United States, is widely feared to lust after European hearts, minds and advertising.

Sweden has its media magnates, too. Bonnier owns television, radio, newspapers and magazines in Scandinavia. The company was ranked 18th largest European media owner in a Council of Europe report published in November 2004. Mediaset, controlled by the Berlusconi family, was ranked 17th.

Famous Swedish diplomats are rolling in their graves, from laughter. Nothing suggested by the SVT promos about the Italian political media scene or that in Russia is new or news. But for PSBs, the more aggressive strategy at SVT turned more than a few heads. More typical is hand wringing, apologizing, firing a few thousand employees and begging to continue.

Stockholm agency Forsman & Bodenfors produced the four promotional announcements for Sveriges Television. Two of the series focused on the quality of SVTs programs. One shows scenes from drama productions and uses the tagline “If we don’t create this, who will?”