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ftm Radio Page - week ending April 19, 2019

Experiment in public-private broadcasting teeters
relegated

It is quite clear to anybody paying attention that attention-getting Danish radio channel Radio24syv will disappear in October. This is a publicly-funded advertising-free news/talk outlet operated since inception by Berlingske Media and PeopleGroup. It was established by a political judgement to provide competition for public broadcaster DR. This has not worked out.

The end-game was clear when the Dansk Folkeparti (DF) demanded the channel’s operations significantly - 70% of employees - re-locate from Copenhagen to a distant location, 110 km from the capital and primary media center. The channel’s operators threw in the towel. “We only want to continue with Radio24syv, so we’ll sleep with our boots on,” said a PeopleGroup statement, quoted by Copenhagen Post (March 28). “But for now we need to admit defeat and accept that DF has won the battle and made our business impossible to operate.” (See more about media in Denmark here)

Fairly quickly, DF politicians tried to keep their radio project afloat by offering four or five years of transition financing as well as the right to sell advertising and podcasts. But Radio24syv will be relegated to DAB platforms as the national FM4 network is up for bid. DF politicians remain firm that Radio24syv must relocate.

With Berlingske Media and PeopleGroup withdrawing and, apparently, TV2 owner Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT), the FM4 concession contest has drawn the attention of publisher Jysk Fynske Media. “This could have great strategic importance for Jysk Funen Media,” said vice-chairman Per Westergård, quoted by fyens.dk (April 12). “It can also give us another position in the Danish media picture if we succeed in getting the concession.” Jysk Fynske Media’s publishing and broadcasting footprint is largely outside Copenhagen.

Populists want parliament debates harder to hear, harder to remember
"political and idealogical"

With clear intentions from some politicians and tepid assurances from others, Italian radio channel Radio Radicale is teetering toward imminent shut-down. State funding for the legacy Rome-based station to broadcast wall-to-wall coverage of parliamentary debates and other “institutional activities” is set to end in May, days before European Parliament elections. There is a possibility it will be folded into public broadcaster RAI.

“A three-year plan was done for Radio Radicale and that is valid as a transition,” said prime minister Giuseppe Conte, quoted by news agency ANSA (April 16). The details, said the broadcaster, only provide a social plan for employees soon to be made redundant.

For its part, the government is ready to cut the station loose. “I remember that we have a public (broadcaster) aimed at guaranteeing the citizens' knowledge of the work of the institutions,” said Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede. “a public (broadcaster) with respect to which, I remember, citizens pay a fee.” The Italian populist politician noted that the RAI Parliament channel offers much the same service. (See more about media in Italy here)

Earlier, undersecretary of state for publishing Vito Crimi, aligned with the populist Five Star Movement, said it is “the intention of the government to not renew the agreement with Radio Radicale. It has been in service for 25 years without any kind of evaluation of the actual value of that service. It is within the rights of the government to do it.”

“It would be a serious decision on which I believe (they) should reflect again,” said Italian Senate president Elisabetta Casellati, quoted by primaonline.it (April 16). “Democracy must aim to reinforce the pluralism of information. Not to limit it.” The Italian Union of Journalists (FNSI) called the decision “political and idealogical.”

Italian politicians currently out of power also expressed support for the station. “The idea that Radio Radicale, which has been accompanying Italian politics for decades in the name of transparency and information, has to close because of Vito Crimi shows how petty the Government is,” said former prime minister Matteo Renzi, quoted by La Repubblica (April 17).

Radio Radicale, previously has been on-the-air since 1976. Founded by the free-market liberal, libertarian Radical Party it has broadcast and, notably, archived Italian parliamentary debates. Those preserved archives are considered “of historical importance,” said University of Rome library chief archivist Giovanni Paoloni.

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