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October 11, 2005

Poverty politics on classical music

This entry is going to be a little complicated (and somewhat Dutch).

The board of Publieke Omroep (this means: Public Broadcaster) proposed last week to close down Radio 4 to give the FM frequency to FunX, a radio station for adolescents.

-- If you don't understand and still hang in, I'll explain below:

Holland, the country where I live, has a for foreigners unexplainable complicated mass media structure. Many public broadcasting organizations work together on a couple of FM radio frequencies and three television stations (and internet is changing this, but that's a different story altogether).

-- Are you still with me? Please, read on.

To control the time and type of programs each company broadcasts we have an organiation called Publieke Omroep. The influence of this Publieke Omroep is BIG, because they divide the budgets given to each public broadcasting company.

Explanatory: The why's roughly go back to the 1920s when Holland was clearly divided in Catholics, Protestants and - yuk! - Socialists and they still were suspecting one of the other groups was transmitting the Plague.

-- Still here? WOW!

Due to the rise of commercial television station the public funded media are faced with budget cuts. Because of this several of the broadcasting companies were forced to stop by Publieke Omroep airing classical music on our national classical radio-channel: Radio4.

So (repeat from above), the board of Publieke Omroep proposed last week to close down Radio 4 to give the FM frequency to FunX, a radio station for adolescents. This to better reach young people, something that can't be done by the other 30+ frequencies aimed at this group.

BUT (JAY!)

Our national politician in control on this subject, Medy van der Laan, yesterday screwed the Publieke Omroep by stating in Dutch parliament that the termination of Radio 4 is out of the question.

This subject is settled for now, but it is a bad sign for anyone interested in classical or art music in the Netherlands. When budget cuts are needed in the future, we are forewarned where we can expect them.

Posted by Renske at 20:54 UTC | permanent link