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“It’s dangerous to interview me,” said Croatian prime minister Zoran Milanovic at a press conference, reported Slobodna Dalmacija (September 4). This week a Zagreb municipal court penalized television channel RTL Televizija for broadcasting a live interview with the PM last year in which he disparaged a rival politician, Zagreb mayor Milan Bandic. RTL was fined HRK 50,000, about €6,500.
“What happened in Zagreb is bad and stinks of corruption,” said PM Milanovic in a live interview following municipal elections, according to a transcript of the RTL broadcast (May 20, 2013). “But if people want to choose the worst of the worst, let them choose.” Re-elected Mayor Bandic sued the television broadcaster, claiming mental distress and damage to his reputation. (See more about media in Croatia here)
In its decision, the municipal court said RTL Televizija “failed to fulfill their responsibility to respect and protect the personal rights of natural persons.” Mayor Bandic said he’d donate the money to charity. Local media watchers expect a lawsuit against public broadcaster HRT for broadcasting clips from the RTL Televizija interview.
The journalistic community rolled their collective eyes. “This is a very strange decision,” said Croatian Journalists Association (HND) president Zdenko Duka in a statement. “It is in the public interest to broadcast exactly what the prime minister says. I think the court opted for censorship and against freedom of the media.”
Google haters converged on Brussels in an attempt to persuade the European Commission (EC) to keep digging for dirt so long as the technology giant refuses to share the wealth. Led by European publishers – and followed by many others – they insist the EC keep open an “abuse of dominant position” investigation that Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia wants off his desk by the time he retires at the end of October. The European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA) calls the last deal hammered out between Sr. Almunia and Google lawyers an “imperfect agreement.”
“I trust that the Commission will demand that Google provides equal search and display criteria for all websites and at the same time puts an end to the misuse of publishers’ content,” said publisher Vocento CEO Luis Enríquez in a statement quoted by El Mundo (September 4). The anti-trust case against Google has been rattling around the EC since 2008. (See more about Google here) Every European and national publisher association signed on to the demand to keep the case open and they were joined, unsurprisingly, by Microsoft and sports rights holders.
To close the file on the Google anti-trust case, or anything else, the College of Commissioners, all 28 plus the EC President and Vice-Presidents, vote. As Commission President-designate Jean-Claude Juncker is in the process of interviewing candidates for the EC taking office November 1st, most current Commissioners who don’t expect to stick around Brussels are cleaning out their desks. Portfolios for the next EC could be handed out next week but, of course, the European Parliament will need to vote on them all.
As September arrives radio broadcasters in France traditionally reboot programming and marketing to take advantage of listeners returning from the summer holidays. The last Médiamétrie audience estimates are a distant memory and the next weeks away, except for a special summer holiday survey due shortly. Executives with the national general interest channels are concerned about the trends.
“In a complicated radio market the goal is to continue to grow,” said Europe 1 director general Fabien Namias, quoted by Les Echos (September 3). Europe 1, owned by Lagardère Active, has had a very good year, jumping to 8.2% market share in the April-May audience estimates from 7.3% year on year. With that in mind, there are fewer schedule and program changes this year.
Europe 1, long in 3rd place nationally, is chasing second place public channel France Inter and perennially number one RTL. France Inter has a new director, Laurence Bloch installed last spring, as well as a new president at Radio France, Mathieu Gallet. In the April-May national audience estimates France Inter dropped to 8.5% market share from 9.3% year on year. (See French national radio audience estimates trend chart here)
RTL’s national market share dropped to 11.1% from 12.0% in the last audience estimates, each quarter the numbers getting smaller. RTL president Christopher Bardelli recruited humorist Laurent Ruquier from Europe 1 last spring and he started on RTL in the afternoon talk-show slot this week.
The other statutatory general interest radio channel, RMC, tied for 5th place nationally last April-May with regional public network France Bleu.
The digital dividend, metaphoric and metamorphic, is the light drawing the buzz. Several big media houses have, in recent months, turned that attention to investment services. Better to be a VC than to be eaten by one.
Finding that deal flow passion is a challenge, the media sphere still rather insulated. Correcting that, venture arms have been created among media houses with cash flow to seek out and cash in on the vast opportunities. Most of these pale in comparison with the financial muscle of, say, Google Ventures but it is the effort that counts.
Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 Group, itself recently on the risk end, has embarked on a venture arm SevenVentures, which will hear start-up and early-stage pitches from internet entrepreneurs outside of Germany at the forthcoming Noah Conference in London. (See ProSiebenSat presser here) The prize is €7 million for “TV media volume” with additional goodies, yet to be revealed, from French broadcaster TF1, Scandinavian broadcaster MTG, Turkish broadcaster Dogan Group and Polish broadcaster TVN.
The Noah Conference is organized by VC Noah Advisors, which recently hooked up an Israeli classified advertising start-up with German publishing house Axel Springer for US$230 million.
Radio spectrum is as good as gold. The laws of physics limit the supply. The laws of digital economics keep demand robust. All this understood, shifting one purpose for radio spectrum to another is not without consequence.
At the first of the year European Commission vice president for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes named a high level advisory group to negotiate the wants and needs of various stakeholders in the UHF portion of the radio spectrum. Heading the committee would be former World Trade Organization (WTO) director general and EC Commissioner for Trade Pascal Lamy. “Nobody will get everything they want, but I am confident that, based on an open discussion and a willingness to engage at the strategic level, we can deliver a coherent vision for Europe,” he said on appointment.
His report has been submitted to Commissioner Kroes and recommends awarding the upper chunk of the UHF spectrum, referred to as the 700 MHz band, exclusively to mobile telecoms by 2020 “give or take two years,” allowing terrestrial broadcasters to hang on to the lower chunk (470-694 MHz) until 2030 and opening a window to rethink it all in 2025. Mobile telecoms, of course, want it all; bigger data plan charges to customers being the future. Signals transmitted in the 700 MHz band travel easily through building walls.
Broadcasters are not all that pleased. “There is a danger that this will not give broadcasters and viewers enough time to adapt to appropriate spectrum arrangements and ensure the necessary upgrade of DTT networks and consumer equipment, especially in countries where DTT is the main TV platform,” said European Broadcasting Union (EBU) head of technology Simon Fell in a statement. Those broadcasters potentially chased off the 700 MHz band should be compensated, too. (See EBU presser here)
The radio spectrum came to be several billion years ago in the Big Bang when there was no design to send pictures through the airwaves. At the very low end there’s atmospheric noise, at the very top x-rays and microwave ovens. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), part of the UN, allocates radio spectrum chunks to different applications by a treaty in place since the middle of the last century. ITU’s big World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), a very diplomatic affair, will be held next year in Geneva to shuffle how countries and regions use this particular gift. The EC report on UHF spectrum will form the European Union’s negotiating position at WRC 2015.
Wealthier nations consider development and humanitarian assistance necessary and important contributions to the more needy. That assistance quite often goes unnoticed by the public, foreign outreach initiatives rarely make headlines. Development work, in the age of austerity, is just another budget line questioned.
Denmark’s Trade and Development Cooperation Minister Mogens Jensen wants a bit more visibility for development outreach and has increased the media budget to DKK 70 million (€9.4 million) for 2015. Total Danish development aid spending will be increased to DKK 16.8 billion (€2.25 billion), less than 1% of GDP. In the new budget development aid is being shifted to humanitarian relief, substantially in Africa. The media budget will be spent as grants for film and television production projects. (See more about media in Denmark here)
Opposition politicians howled. “We see no need to spend more money to teach Danes where Danish development assistance goes,” said People’s Party culture spokesperson Alex Ahrendtsen, quoted by Politiken (August 27). “It may be OK… as long as there are funds for independent critical journalism and not rosy State propaganda,” offered Liberal Party media spokesperson Ellen Trane Nørby.
This will not be State propaganda, said Minister Jensen. “There will be no political constraints on where the money goes. If you need to create a commitment in the Danish population and an understanding of what is happening in the world…I think it is money well spent.”
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