Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING (see also Public Diplomacy)
Justifying international broadcasting in 2005 by Andy Sennitt Justifying international broadcasting in 2005 Andy Sennitt, 22 Dec 05, Radio Netherlands web site As 2005 draws to a close, it's time to reflect on what the past 12 months have revealed about the state of the electronic media around the world. For those of us who work in international broadcasting, it has been a depressing year in many respects. There are now far more ways in which people in many countries can access information from abroad, and for sure international radio broadcasting has to adapt or die. Unfortunately, there are still far too many countries where press freedom is restricted, or even nonexistent, and traditional shortwave broadcasts are still very important to the people who live in those countries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul What this means is that the international broadcasters have to diversify the way they deliver their programmes, while at the same time many are facing budget cuts. The result, unfortunately, is that cuts are occurring in some areas of programme production to pay for developments in others. An example is the BBC World Service, which is in the process of shutting down some of its language services in order to finance the setting up of an Arabic TV channel. The BBC had hoped that the British Government would agree to separately finance it, but was told that the money had to come from its existing budget. The BBC's international broadcasting operation is relatively well financed, though, compared to the situation in some other countries. Radio Slovakia International is limping along on a greatly reduced budget while politicians argue whether a change to the law is necessary. According to the current law, the service can't be scrapped, but neither the politicians nor the parent company Slovak Radio want to pay for it. In Switzerland, there were threats of severe cuts to Swissinfo, the online successor to Swiss Radio International, but these threats seem to have abated following protests from Swiss expatriates. Radio Vlaanderen Internationaal closed its foreign language services, and went out with a whimper rather than a bang. Mind games A pattern seems to be emerging whereby smaller countries that do not have a political axe to grind on the international stage are having their international broadcasts squeezed, while larger countries such as the USA and France are putting more resources into broadcasting aimed at influencing the minds of the audience. And, like the UK, international satellite TV has become a significant part of the mix. The French are due to start their 24-hour TV news operation next year, and part of the declared aim is to present world events from a French perspective. The French, as is well known, have a very different view on some of the major international issues to those of the US and Britain. The Middle Eastern countries are also expanding their satellite TV services. Al-Jazeera will launch its English news channel in 2006, and Iran has just announced that it too is planning an international satellite channel in English. The intriguing part is who, exactly, will be watching. In the UK, one of the three domestic all-news channels - the ITV News Channel - closes on 23 December after less than five years on the air, as it has been unable to attract enough viewers and has made large financial losses. Audiences for all-news channels generally tend to be small when there is no significant breaking news, but rise dramatically when there's live coverage of major stories as they unfold. News values or propaganda? The question is whether the news values adopted by, for example, a channel based in Tehran will have any appeal to foreign audiences. Indeed, are news values going to be the major factor in editorial decisions, or is it perceived primarily as a propaganda operation? Certainly, there is no mystery about the purpose of some of the US government-financed international broadcasts to the Middle East. The term "public diplomacy" may sound nicer than propaganda, but it really refers to the same thing. Indeed, one of the most depressing aspects of international broadcasting in 2005 is that it's remarkably similar to the situation 20 years ago. In 1990, we saw the Cold War coming to an end and imagined that international broadcasting had a bright future. In retrospect, how naïve that was. In fact, as I know well from the years I spent editing an international radio and TV directory, whether we like it or not, international broadcasting thrives on conflict. So, in some ways, it could be argued that as long as there's jamming on the bands, it proves that international broadcasting is having an impact. In one sense, I suppose we should be grateful for that. I can't help thinking, however, that as the production budgets of many international broadcaster are squeezed, and some smaller stations disappear altogether, there's going to be less and less output that can be considered worthy purely on its own merits. Everything nowadays has to be justified by fulfilling a purpose. It seems there's no room any more for experimentation and original thinking. International broadcasters are in danger of becoming purely PR and propaganda outlets for their respective countries, and no longer a means of sharing cultures and ideas. They may still have listeners, but I for one won't be amongst them. |