New report on television in Kosovo
Prishtina and London, 16 June 2009
In 1999, Kosovo was a wartorn province within the Republic of Serbia. Today, it is the world's newest independent state. The passage to statehood has been negotiated with the help of international missions, deployed in Kosovo at the end of the 1999 war.
Led by the United Nations and NATO, these missions stabilised the territory and helped to rebuild infrastructure, as well as to establish democratic institutions. One of the aims of media development activities in Kosovo has been the creation of a mixed and liberal broadcasting sector, centred on a new public service broadcaster and a range of commercial outlets.
Authored by Vjollca Krasniqi of Prishtina University, this new report by EUMAP and the Media Program provides the first comprehensive survey and analysis of the development of Kosovo's broadcasting sector since 1999. This report completes the project on Television across Europe, which has monitored regulation, policy and independence in 22 countries since 2005. All the monitoring reports are available on this site. Launch events for the Kosovo report will be announced here in the coming weeks. Click here for the full report.
The European Commission takes a bold step
By Mark Thompson
Brussels, 8 June 2009
- One bold step (Courtesy European Commission)
Today saw the unveiling of a remarkable new study on media pluralism. This is a set of indicators for assessing the risks to media pluralism in member states of the European Union.
The indicators are remarkable for two reasons: they form the most refined and comprehensive instrument ever designed for the assessment of risks to media pluralism. And they were prepared at the request of the European Commission, a body that has in the past been famously reluctant to get involved with ethical or professional value-related issues of media policy. More…
Council of Europe: A new notion of media?
How much regulation do (new) media need?
Reykjavik, 28 May 2009
Mark Thompson, co-editor of the OSI’s Television across Europe reports, delivered the civil society response at the first session of the 1st Council of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for Media and New Communications Services. The event, titled “A new notion of media?”, started today in Reykjavik with an address by Katrin Jakobsdóttir, Iceland’s Minister of Culture, Education and Science. Media theorist and professor, Karol Jakubowicz, gave the keynote speech, in which he spoke about the new realities in the media and communication sector.
Responding in the session on new regulations, Mr Thompson said that there is no way to start regulating the internet by applying the standards existing for traditional media.
There could be a loss of principles values and standards if we try to over-regulate, Mr Thompson said. A full transcript of his presentation can be found here.
TV across Europe
EU Observer: European broadcasters face political 'counter-reformation'
20 March 2009
The EU Observer covers the presentation of the TV across Europe Follow-up reports in Brussels last Wednesday:
Broadcasting across Europe, particularly in the east but also in Italy, is undergoing a "counter-reformation" - a backsliding towards overt political control after the post-Cold War period, when leaders relaxed their grip on TV and radio, warns a new report.Read more media coverage on the TV across Europe reports.
TV across Europe
Broadcasting: another one bites the dust
Brussels, 18 March 2009
- TV across Europe books on their way to the launch venue (photo Marius Dragomir)
On 18 March 2009, the Open Society Foundation presented the TV across Europe follow-up report at the International Press Centre in Brussels in an event organised jointly with the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ).
Biljana Tatomir, the deputy director of OSF’s Media Program, opened the debate. Noting that 20 years have passed since the historic transformations in central and eastern Europe, she said that this anniversary is a highly suitable moment to reflect on the achievements of democratic reform.
Mark Thompson, who co-edited Television across Europe, reviewed the impact of the current economic slump on broadcasters in Western Europe. Media mergers and acquisitions fell by two-thirds in 2008. Yet even before the markets collapsed last autumn, broadcasters were losing money, due to the complex effects of the digital revolution.
Mr Thompson then presented the key findings of the TV across Europe report: fragmentation of audiences, consolidation of ownership, relaxation of licensing, redistribution (migration) of advertising, lack of ownership transparency, and the low level of public consultation on big policy issues. The most worrying trend, however, is the “repoliticisation” of public service broadcasters and of national regulators. More...
TV across Europe
"More channels, less independence": all the 2008 Follow-up Reports
London and Budapest, 26 February 2009
The full set of 'TV Across Europe Follow-up Reports 2008' is now available here as a single PDF file.
Television, a pillar of democracy and open societies, is changing at breakneck speed, affecting the patterns of production, transmission, consumption, marketing, financing and ownership. To take the measure of these changes and assess their impact on the independence of television – especially in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe – the Open Society Institute (OSI) has mapped the main developments in broadcasting legislation, policy and markets in nine countries: Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, the Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
These countries were all included in OSI’s Television across Europe monitoring project (2005), which covered 20 countries. The new reports are sequels, measuring the progress – or lack of it – in improving the independence and pluralism of broadcasting. A regional overview defines and interprets trends across the region. Recommendations to governments, international organisations, media and regulatory bodies aim to ensure that television can play its democratic role.
The country reports were drafted by local experts with the support of partner NGOs. The overview was drafted by media experts who edited the country reports. It includes comprehensive tables of comparative data. You can now download the entire report as one file or any of the individual country reports and the overview separately. Printed copies are also available in limited numbers, and may be ordered using the EUMAP publication order form.
TV across Europe
Canary in the mine: The Guardian on the TV across Europe Follow-up Reports
17 February 2009
"When the cold war ended, democracy was supposed to bloom," wrote Jean Seaton for the Guardian yesterday, reviewing the TV Across Europe follow-up reports presented on this site. "but that has not happened. Political control of the crudest kind has repossessed television from the Urals to Umbria":
Freedom of thought, impartial information, wise exploration of the public condition - these notions have retreated, not advanced. Again and again, the report tells the same story: politicians capture regulators, broadcasting is commercialised and bastardised, news is puppetry, drama has all but disappeared.
"There are, however, chinks of hope," Seaton wrote: "there is a marked improvement in the independence of broadcasting in the Czech Republic, for instance." The TV across Europe report, she praised, "lets light flood into broadcasting. Its authors and sponsors ought to be congratulated, for we need to know. Like the canary in the mine, broadcasting and the other media are an early warning system for foulness in the air."
TV across Europe
Kosovo broadcast report: in the making
Prishtina and London, 16 February 2009
- Photo: Genc B. Kastrati, used under CC license
The Kosovo Media Institute (KMI) and the Kosovo Foundation for Open Society (KFOS) organised a roundtable in Prishtina to discuss the draft report on Kosovo, which will complete the series of Open Society monitoring reports on Television across Europe. Prepared by Vjollca Krasniqi, the report covers general regulation of broadcasting, public service and commercial broadcasting and looks into new technologies. The event was attended by representatives of most of the main stakeholders in Kosovo’s media, who made comments on all aspects of the draft.
The output of the public service broadcaster, RTK, was criticised for being at times “more commercial than the commercial stations themselves”. RTK was not present to respond, but it did provide written feedback on the draft. Much attention was also paid to the fate of local broadcasters that now find themselves in dire financial straits. Some participants emphasised that audience research is urgently needed if these stations, some of which air in the minority languages, are to gain access to Kosovo’s advertising spend.
Most participants agreed that one of the most urgent tasks on the media policy agenda is to secure Kosovo’s membership of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which authorised a new agreement on the redistribution of frequencies in Europe in 2006. As Kosovo was not an independent state at that time, it could not take part in that meeting. This serves to delay Kosovo’s transition from analogue to digital broadcasting. And time is of the essence: by 2012, European analogue signals will no longer be protected, according to the ITU agreement. Ms Krasniqi will revise the report, which will be published and launched in Kosovo in spring 2009.
TV across Europe
Two cheers for Czech television, one for Slovak...
Bratislava and Prague, 16 February 2009
- Prague Žižkov TV Tower. Photo: Fred Gosselin, used under CC license.
In a dual presentation in two cities, the Open Society Foundation's Media Program, the Open Society Institute's EUMAP and their partners launched the Television across Europe: Follow-up Reports 2008 on the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 12 February in Bratislava and 13 February in Prague.
Ivan Godársky, who co-authored the Slovak report, concluded that the most important events in the media in Slovakia in recent years were the government's dramatic hostility towards the media, the steady decline of the reputation of Slovak public service television (STV), and the transition to digital broadcasting.
Eva Rybková, author of the Czech report, said that digital switchover was the most important media event in the Czech Republic in the past two years. However, even while the first digital TV stations have been licensed, the Czech broadcasting industry still lacks healthy competition. Regarding the public service broadcaster, Česká televize, Ms Rybková remarked that it has enjoyed financial stability for several years, thanks partly to a campaign to collect the licence fee more efficiently. But Czech TV is still politically influenced, with minimal involvement from civil society, even if the political interference has been less blatant than in Slovakia.
The Czech and Slovak authors also presented the results of a monitoring project they carried out in two phases in 2007 and 2008, which focused on news content on the main TV stations. More...
TV across Europe
Montenegro report launched: “we aren’t the worst”
Podgorica, 21 November 2008
The Open Society’s new report on television in Montenegro was launched in Podgorica on 20 November 2008. The report was drafted by Ranko Vujović, executive director of the Union of Independent Electronic Media of Montenegro (UNEM).
Željko Rutović, the assistant minister of culture, media and sport, commended the report as a contribution to dialogue; "the conclusions and recommendations merit careful examination. It should", he said, "become a reference point in debate about broadcasting in Montenegro."
Mr. Rutović agreed with a statement in the report that “The biggest challenge in Montenegro is to change people’s mindset and instill a new way of thinking.” Addressing the controversy over proposed changes to appointing the RTCG Council, he argued that the changes are in line with international practice. The draft law on public service broadcasting would, Mr. Rutović said, be in line with international practice, “and we aren’t the worst”.
Jadranka Vojvodić, deputy director of the Broadcasting Agency, the national regulatory body, praised the report as “a really high-quality contribution to assessing the reform process to date. The recommendations can serve as a very useful mechanism for examining various aspects of the law. It is a very helpful aide-memoire of mistakes we made, but equally of good solutions that we found.” More...
TV across Europe
Television across Europe 2008 – on the brink
London and Budapest, 13 November 2008
- Photo: Isabel Bloedwater, used under CC license.
Completing the TV across Europe: Follow-up Reports 2008 monitoring project, this analytic “Overview” identifies common trends from the surveys of nine countries: Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, the Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Change is sweeping through television, and its future has never been so hard to predict. However, key patterns can be traced. The trend in audiovisual consumption is fragmentation, as more and more people gain access to more and more ways to consume audiovisual products. Ownership is consolidating, reducing the number of suppliers of media content.
Technology is converging: telecommunications, cable, satellite, mobile operators and traditional broadcasting merge, with consequences for traditional media structures. The key trend in broadcast licensing is relaxation. Among broadcast regulators, the trend is contraction. Public service broadcasters, meanwhile, are over-extended, underfunded and self-doubting. More...
TV across Europe
Montenegro: from warmongering to liberal reform – now back to political control?
Podgorica, London and Budapest, 7 November 2008
Montenegro was the smallest of the former Yugoslavia’s six republics; then it was Serbia’s uncritical ally for most of the 1990s. In 2006, it became Europe’s newest sovereign state – and the United Nations’ newest member.
Despite this dramatic history, in which Montenegrin broadcasters played their full part, surveys of media policy in the ‘new democracies’ have rarely paid much attention to Montenegro.
Today, this gap is filled by a major new report. Prepared by the Media Program and EUMAP and authored by Ranko Vujović, this report analyses television policy and regulation in Montenegro, assesses the level and quality of independence, and offers detailed recommendations for positive change. Download the report...
Television across Europe
Macedonian broadcasting becalmed
Skopje, 3 November 2008
With the main stakeholders staying away, today’s launch of the Republic of Macedonia chapter in the Television across Europe: Follow-up Reports 2008 was a case of making bricks without straw.
The management of MRT, Macedonia’s public service broadcaster, which has spent the last few years on the brink of collapse, was conspicuously absent. Neither the private TV stations nor the Ministry of Transportation and Communications felt they should join the debate at a moment when the audiovisual market faces fierce criticism for lack of diversity and independence.
The Broadcasting Council – Macedonia’s national regulator – did at least make an appearance, in the person of Faruk Omeragiq. His main contribution, however, was to announce that the Council would respond to the report in writing, in due course.
The report assesses the changes since 2005, when the original Television across Europe report was published. As well as analysing the profound difficulties facing the public service broadcaster, the report looks at broadcast regulation, the commercial sector, and editorial independence. More...
TV across Europe
Italy: the strange death of TV reform
- Photo: Trois Têtes (Flickr)
Rome, 22 October 2008
Today, at the Eurovisioni festival, EUMAP and the Media Program launched the Italian chapter of their report on Television across Europe 2008.
In a debate chaired by Eurovisioni’s Luciana Castellina and moderated by Marco Mele from the daily newspaper Sole 24 Ore, Miriam Anati of EUMAP introduced the Television across Europe 2008 project. Marius Dragomir of the Media Program then presented the key findings, drawing on a comparative analysis of broadcasting in nine countries. He spoke about the aggressive politicisation of broadcast regulators and public service broadcasters, and the impact of recent shifts in media economics.
Giulio Enea Vigevani, who co-authored the Italy chapter with Gianpietro Mazzoleni, stressed that “the Italian anomaly” has not disappeared. Describing the failed attempts to reform the broadcasting sector, he particularly criticised the stalemate since the fall of the Prodi government in January 2008. While other countries in Europe have seen shifts in the advertising revenue and audience shares of the main broadcasters, Italian broadcasting continues to be dominated by two players: public service RAI and Berlusconi’s Mediaset. More...
TV across Europe
Czech Republic and Slovakia: new reports find good and bad
Prague, Bratislava, London and Budapest, 6 October 2008
Today, the Open Society Institute releases the last two reports in the series TV across Europe: Follow-up Reports 2008.
These reports provide a searching analysis of Czech and Slovak broadcasting since 2005. More...
TV across Europe
Albania's television anarchy
- Diana Kalaja, Deputy General Director of RTSH (centre), Aleksander Furrxhi, BBC correspondent (right)
Tirana, 2 October 2008
The Open Society Institute's recent report on Albania was launched today in Tirana. The report (available on this website since April) warns that the disorder in Albania's broadcast sector is driving down the quality of information that is available to most citizens.
The public service broadcaster, Radio-Television of Albania (RTSH), is chronically under-funded and unable to arrest a long slide in programme standards. The commercial sector is lively and chaotic.
The lack of audience research discourages foreign investment, while poor employment conditions make journalists more vulnerable to political pressure.
The launch of the Open Society Institute's report in Tirana was well attended. Around 40 media professionals, members of Parliament, regulators, international officials and others packed into a conference room in central Tirana. The event was organised by the Albanian Media Institute (AMI), and chaired by AMI executive director Remzi Lani. More...
