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There is in Poland a monthly commemoration of the 2010 airplane crash in western Russia that killed 98 people including president Lech Kaczynski. This week’s event (December 10th) was augmented for the first time with a military honour guard. And the featured speaker was the late president’s twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski, chairman of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), which recently acceded to government leadership. The Smolensk air crash, as it’s remembered, figures prominently in the PiS political message, a conspiracy theory linked to Russian Federation.
And so public news channel TVP Info sent reporter Radomir Wit to file the story live. “The event as a whole proceeded rather quietly,” he said afterward, quoted by fakt.pl (December 11). “There were no incidents. Only at the end, when I tried to broadcast from the scene, were there a few people who thought they knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.”
He was being generous. He was pushed around a bit. One woman, described as elderly PiS supporter, pulled out his earpiece. Another shouted “You have no right to be here.” The video file clearly shows his split lower lip.
Pronouncements from new PiS installed officials, following various campaign promises, have focused on patriotism, nationalism and bringing the media sector to heel. One new minister recently flew into a rage when questioned about constitutionally protected freedom of expression and referred to TVP Info as a “propaganda channel” he’d soon close. (See report on proposed changes for public broadcasting in Poland here)
Top rated stations in Latvia suffered a bit as newer entries gained listeners attention, according to TNS Latvia audience estimates for the autumn 2015 period. Then, too, a major ownership change coincided with a broad public discussion of new rules about Latvian - and Russian - language content. Among people 12 to 74 years, 79% tune-in weekly, unchanged year on year.
Top rated, again, is public channel Latvijas Radio 2, quite traditional Latvian music, but it took a sizable average-quarter-hour share (AQHS) hit, dropping to 18.4% from 20.5% one year on. Commercial channel Radio Skonto ranked number 2, again; 10.5% AQHS from 11.8%. News and public affairs public channel Latvijas Radio 1 placed third, again, with 10.0% AQHS lower from 10.4%.
There’s then a big gap - as usual - to 4th place, going this time to Radio SWH, up to 6.4% AQHS from 5.1% year on year. Russian-language public general interest channel Latvijas Radio 1 ranked 5th with 4.7% AQHS, up from 4.2%. European Hit Radio, playing European chart hits, fell to 6th place, 4.6% AQHS from 5.1%.
Pop music Radio SWH - with SWH+, SWH Rock and Spin FM - changed hands in September as Communicorp exited Latvia. The management buy-out raised a few eyes as the new financial partner is an Estonian movie theater company principally owned by Russian investor DTL Capital. Anything Russian is a touchy subject in the Baltic countries, at least for politicians. In January a law comes into effect in Lativa requiring 50% of all radio and TV programming to be in Latvian. All of this played out almost daily in the headlines.
As it would happen, two locally produced Russian language stations - SWH+ and Russkoje Radio - dropped like rocks. Russkoje Radio fell to 3.3% AQHS from 5.2% and SWH+ dropped to 2.8% AQHS from 5.1%. On the other hand, Autoradio, a Russian-language station largely formatted in Moscow was up, 2.6% AQHS from 1.9% and new Russian-language hot A/C Skonto+ debuted at 0.9%.
Big fans of the commercial radio business, Bauer Media is adding another station in Finland to its holdings. The company announced an agreement to acquire Radio Nova from the MTV Media subsidiary of Swedish media house Bonnier, reported Markkinointi&Mainonta (December 3). Requisite approvals in hand, Bauer Media will also take over sales for NRJ and Nostalgie stations, which MTV Media provided to NRJ Group under a marketing agreement.
Earlier this year, with approvals granted, Bauer Media closed on the acquisition of SBS Discovery radio channels in Finland, and elsewhere, which included Iskelma Radio, The Voice, Helskini station Radio City and Radio Pooki. Radio Nova is an adult contemporary channel with national coverage. (See Finland - Major Media - Radio Broadcasting in Resources here) Managing director Tomi Halonen is expected to join Bauer Media. Bonnier continues to restructure publishing and broadcasting businesses in Finland begun last year.
More expansion for Bauer Media has been subject of rumblings in Australia. Official comment circumspect, approaches by Bauer Media to Nova Entertainment, principally owned by Lachlan Murdoch, have been renewed, reported Australian Financial Review (November 17). Nova Entertainment operates the Nova and Smooth FM national radio channels and reportedly rejected a €300 million offer from Bauer Media in 2014.
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