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Television people have been out in force for World TV Day trumpeting evolution. It’s true: despite the best efforts of the dark side to weight it down television still stands upright. We are, as occupants of this planet, fixed on TV.
“Television moves the world,” noted ProSiebenSat.1 Media SVP Annette Kümmel in a commemorative statement from German private broadcaster association VPRT. Everyday five and a half billion folks are in front of the screen, or many screens. For “diversity of opinion,” she said, it’s “priceless.” (See VPRT presser here – in German)
TV people are ever defensive about encroaching new media. TV watching has a new companion. “Multi-screening is becoming a mainstream activity in many countries,” observed commercial TV association ACT in its commemoration. As ad buyers consummate their love for mobile media, spurning all others, TV is still in the room. (See ACT presser here)
In earlier years television was called that “vast wasteland.” Media watchers around the world compiled great listicles this week enumerating TV’s greatest accomplishments and nearly all focused on seminal news events that drew people together in awe (the Apollo moon landing), horror (9/11) or hope (fall of the Berlin Wall). Several observers mentioned the 1960 televised Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates as bringing the democratic process into every living room. Now politicians present themselves on television braced by armies of media advisors. (See more about TV news here)
Speaking to the US National Association of Broadcasters in May 1961, barely six months after the aforementioned televised debates turned the course of a presidential campaign, Federal Communications Commissioner Newton Minnow attempted to rally the US TV industry to do better. “I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.”
And now we have smartphones, which apparently affect posture. Darwin’s theory still illuminates.
The Czech public broadcaster has been warned of possibly violating the country’s media laws by broadcasting an interview with the country’s president in which he used “vulgar” language, said regulator Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV). President Milos Zeman appearing live for an interview program broadcast on public radio news channel CRo 1 November 2nd dashed off a few colorful terms disdainfully describing government employees and members of Russian punk collective Pussy Riot. The regulator also sanctioned Czech public TV and privately owned TV Nova for using the juicy parts in a newscast. This could get messy.
“We don’t judge the President, only the content of the broadcast,” said RRTV Council president Ivan Krejci,” reported Czech news portal tyden.cz (November 19), noting “more than two hundred complaints.” Czech public radio (Cesky Rozhlas) officials have been asked to explain whether or not the radio interviewer had sufficient control over the program, which is mandated by the code of conduct within Czech media rules. The sanctions bring no specific penalty under current law but can affect licensing and, in the case of the public broadcaster, appointments to governing boards. Czech TV and TV Nova, said Mr. Krejci, “had the opportunity to prevent this occurrence… unlike the live broadcast.” (See more about press/media freedom here)
Czech Radio “is convinced” the episode does not break the code of conduct, said spokesperson Jiri Hosna. “We want to continue (the program) in the same format and believe that a similar situation will not be repeated.” Perhaps, they will be installing a 7 second delay and a bleep button. Imagine, if you will, the radio interviewer and, presumably, technicians charged with producing this live program at the moment the country’s president vocalizes the F-Bomb.
“I am amazed that the (RRTV) Council claims the right to judge what is and is not a vulgarism,” responded President Zeman, who was jeered by crowds in Prague this week at remembrance observations for the start of the Velvet Revolution. Mr. Zeman has recently sided with riot police action against protesters in 1989.
German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) will expand its profile with an English language TV channel next spring. The new channel, available online and by satellite, will contribute to the goal of increasing DW’s reach to “decision makers around the world,” indicated Director Peter Limbourg in a statement (November 17). DW currently offers audio and video content in 30 languages, largely online.
All of this takes money and DW is funded by the German government, not known for throwing large sums at anything. Director Limbourg is asking for a mere €10 million more for improvements to the Bonn and Berlin facilities. DW’s annual budget was recently increased, judiciously, to €280 million a year, slightly less than the BBC World Service (€305 million) and decidedly less than the €500 million and growing estimated annual budget of the notorious Russia Today operation. (See more about international broadcasting here)
International broadcasting, once suffering from inertia, has returned to favor as a tool of public diplomacy, on one hand, and propaganda, on the other. Influence is delivered on television and in the English language. The new DW English TV channels will operate 18 hours a day with half-hourly newscasts.
Big Helsinki-based publishing group Sanoma Oyj is “discontinuing business operations in Ukraine,” said a short statement released through the Helsinki Stock Exchange (November 17). The company has published Ukrainian editions of Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, National Geographic and others for several years. (See more about media in Ukraine here) Earlier this month Sanoma and German publisher Gruner+Jahr sold stakes in Croatian publishing house Adria Media Group, exiting the market.
The magazines and their respective websites will disappear in Ukraine after January editions. The exception is Ukrainian Cosmopolitan, which will be taken over by license holder Hearst through its Russian joint venture Hearst Shkulev Media. Sanoma management has been in consolidation mode for more than a year, concentration on publishing in Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands as well as educational publishing.
The fate of Sanoma’s business in the Russian Federation remains in speculation following the oft reported new restrictions on foreign ownership. Hearst and Sanoma have jointly published the Russian edition of Cosmopolitan and, according to Russian business portal vedomosti.ru (November 17), are negotiating for Hearst to take it over. Sanoma, the Financial Times and Dow Jones (News Corporation) own Vedomosti, which will fall under the new Russian ownership restrictions at the end of 2015.
That recent Russian Federation media outreach concept stubbed its toe just a week after propaganda boss Dmitry Kiselev announced its launch. This particular idea focuses on finding friends in former Soviet colonies and fellow travelers through broadcast radio and the internet called Radio Sputnik. All of this is under the Russia Today multimedia umbrella.
A bit of a problem arose this week with the Radio Sputnik program in Georgia. Shortly after the new program took to the FM airwaves in Tbilisi owners of R-Radio, which had brokered the time to Russia Today affiliate News Georgia, were informed by regulator National Telecommunications Commission of an “urgent” review, reported Radio Svoboda (RFE/RL) and RFI Russian (November 16). R-Radio’s owners “severed” the arrangement.
“We haven’t even had time to prepare one program about Georgian-Russian relations,” said a Tbilisi spokesperson for production house Studio Sputnik.
Mr. Kiselev indicated “30 hubs” would be eventually rolled out for Radio Sputnik, producing content in local languages distributed through FM affiliates and online distribution. Staffing has begun in the Serbian capital Belgrade and in Kazakhstan. The Russia Today (RT) television channels are well-known as outlets for various conspiracy theories.
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