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For years broadcasters have attempted various collaborative projects. Possibilities seemed endless for those producing TV series, films and, now, podcasts to share those efforts across greater geographies. News and current affairs have been included, some successfully like Euronews. The greatest limitation has not been input but branding.
Online news service A European Perspective - more elegantly in French Vu d’Europe - debuted this week, a collaboration of ten European public broadcasters. It aims to “overcome language barriers and share diverse content,” said the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) presser (July 1). Participating broadcasters pick and choose what is shared to dedicated hub, access to which participants can place on their own online portals. The ever-present language issue is solved through artificial intelligence (AI), presumable not limited to text. The EBU is managing the project. Its News Exchange service has been operating for decades. The European Commission’s Multimedia Actions program is providing the money. (See more about news online here)
Participants at this stage include Belgian-French public broadcaster RTBF, YLE from Finland, France Télévisions, regional Bavarian public broadcaster BR, Ireland’s RTE, RAI in Italy, Portugal’s RTP, Spain’s RTVE, Swiss public broadcaster SSR-SRG’s international service Swissinfo and the French/German arts channel ARTE. “We will now be able to fully leverage the power and scale of our vast international network anchored in a new internal Eurovision content-sharing platform where public service media have the same values and news ethics,” said France Télévisions international affairs director Eric Scherer, in the EBU statement. (See more about public broadcasting here)
A definite brand advantage for Vu d’Europe is the significant rise in public trust for European public broadcasters through the coronavirus pandemic. Still, the project is a bit French-centric. YLE is the only Scandinavian public broadcaster participating. There are none from Eastern and Central Europe. The BBC has not joined though it remains an EBU member but “a European perspective” is not politically-correct in post-Brexit Britain.
News outlets can be either agitators or moderators. In the post-modern age, many have noted, those loud voices have grown by out-shouting the rest, at least for half a news cycle. This does not mean those on the more moderate side of the spectrum lack resolve.
This week four Scandinavian newspapers (July 1), all uniformly described as establishment voices, took to their front pages, in unison, to address the People’s Republic of China (PRC) regarding press freedom generally and recent events in Hong Kong specifically. “It has been too much for a long time. Now, enough is enough,” said the text published in Danish daily Politiken, Norwegian daily Aftenposten, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter and Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat. “The world can no longer passively watch China gradually suck the air out of press freedom in Hong Kong. We watch with growing concern as our profession – free, independent, and critical journalism – is criminalized.” The letter was addressed to PRC president Xi Jinping. (See more about media in Hong Kong here)
The idea for this sprung from Politiken chief editor Christian Jensen who reached out to his colleagues. That the news leaders would come together quickly on a single message corresponds with their country’s role as heralds of press freedom. In the 2021 Reporters san Frontieres (RSF) Global Press Freedom Index Norway ranks number one, Finland number two, Sweden number three and Denmark number four. And, as is well-known in diplomatic circles, when a Dane wants to speak to a Finn there’s a common language: English. (See more about press freedom here)
The letter appeared coincident with celebrations in China for 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party, replete with fiery nationalist speeches, military parades and teaming subjects. Still, Chinese diplomats took a few moments to respond. “We are shocked by the content and strongly dissociate ourselves from the accusations,” said a letter from the Chinese embassy in Norway, also published by Aftenposten. It went on to rejoin the usual grievances toward “external forces.” The most recent RSF Index ranks the PRC 177th of 180 countries.
RTL Group is parting with subsidiary RTL Belgium, according to its statement (June 28). For €250 million the new owners, appropriate approvals notwithstanding, will be Belgian publisher Groupe Rossel and Belgian-based multimedia operator DPG Media. Transaction closing is expected by the end of the year.
RTL Belgium operates three free-to-air French-language television channels, including RTL TVI and Club RTL, and radio channels Bel RTL and Radio Contact. The television channels are licensed in Luxembourg owing to the origins of RTL Group. Also included is the streaming service RTL Play and online news portal RTLInfo. (See more about RTL/Bertelsmann here)
Groupe Rossel is best known as publisher of Belgian/French newspaper Le Soir and Sudpresse. There are several others, including Dutch-language free sheet Vlan. Until last December Groupe Rossel was a minority shareholder in RTL Belgium. DPG Media operates television channels in the Dutch-speak part of Belgium, including the VTM franchise, as well as radio stations QMusic and Joe. It is also publisher of newspaper De Morgan and several magazines. The company is also active in the Netherlands and Denmark. DPG Media and Groupe Rossel jointly own French publications. Media watchers suspect a merger of the two companies, both principally family owned, is inevitable.
As usual in the current wave of European media mergers and acquisitions, Groupe Rossel chief executive Bernard Marchant and DPG Media chief executive Christian Van Thillo emphasized the intent to compete with technology giants Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. RTL Group and Bertelsmann chief executive Thomas Rabe made the same claim six weeks ago when announcing the merger of French broadcaster M6, subsidiary of RTL Group, with broadcaster TF1. “The sale is in line with our strategy and the best strategic option for RTL Belgium, its dedicated employees and our shareholders,” said RTL Group chief operating officer Elmar Heggen in the statement. There should be little doubt that RTL Group and parent Bertelsmann are taking restructuring quite seriously.
After Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily rather dramaticly closed (June 24), Chinese and Hong Kong authorities moved swiftly to consolidate messaging. Security officials known for taking a hardline on the National Security Law used to pressure publisher Next Digital were promoted, promising further action. New Hong Kong police chief Raymond Siu blamed “fake news” from independent news outlets.
"There is no legal definition of fake news at the moment, but if there is any legislation that could help us bring these people to justice, as law enforcers, we absolutely welcome it,” said the new police chief, quoted by AFP (June 26). "I understand that there are residents who are still hostile against us. In this regard, I told my colleagues that many of these torn relationships and hostility against the police are due to fake news.” Hong Kong police have come under furious criticism for cracking down on pro-democracy supporters — and cracking heads. (See previous story on Apple Daily closing here)
Requests by publisher Next Daily to obtain cash assets frozen by the Hong Kong Security Bureau were met with a caveat, reported South China Morning Post (SCMP) (June 27). The request might be considered if a staff list and other “sensitive information” was passed along to authorities. At least seven former Apple Daily employees have been detained.
Former Apple Daily editorial writer Fung Wai-kong was arrested (June 27) at the Hong Kong airport awaiting a flight to London, reported The Standard (Hong Kong) (June 29). He had recently written for the online news portal Citizen News. Police said he had been "conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security.” Perhaps unrelated, flights to and from Hong Kong and London have been suspended from Thursday (July 1). (See more about censorship here)
Another Hong Kong pro-democracy news outlet, Stand News, indicated that “commentaries and readers' letters published in May and earlier” would be removed “to protect its writers,” reported Japanese public broadcaster NHK (June 28). New subscriptions and donations have also been suspended. The majority of Stand News board members have resigned.
The “cookie death” that caused such anxiety among online publishers and media buyers got a two year reprieve, actually only 18 months. Tech giant Google, subsidiary of Alphabet, said last week (June 23) it would hold off banning third-party cookies from its Chrome browser to “avoid jeopardizing the business models of many web publishers which support freely available content.” In January 2020 the company announced third-party cookies would be offed from Chrome by 2022. The new fuzzy deadline is the end of 2023.
Google’s Chrome browser is the world’s most widely used. Other browser suppliers - Apple (Safari), Firefox (Mozilla) and Brave - stopped supporting third-party cookies long ago, usually citing privacy issues. But Google operates the world’s biggest advertising network, collecting and using user data to place ads being the business. Due to that scale, media buyers took advantage of other Google tools to efficiently target folks with all sorts of messages. Google has suggested replacing third-party cookies with a different tool, Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC, to track users online activity. It has not been widely embraced. (See more about Google/Alphabet here)
Online publishers, generally all of them, love to plant third-party cookies in as many digital devices as possible. This facilitates tracking content and, most important, endlessly flogging subscriptions, all of this provided by other tools provided by Google. In its statement, Google said it wants not to upend “the business models of many web publishers which support freely available content.” Observers quite broadly surmise that Google “blinked” at fast-moving regulatory attention from competition authorities in several countries plus the European Commission. Otherlawmakers are looking (still) at privacy issues.
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