The European Commission - Representation in Italy

INFOCIVICA CONFERENCE

IS BUILDING A EUROPEAN PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION POSSIBLE ?
After the Lisbon Treaty : problems and prospects

PRIX ITALIA 2009
61rd

RAI SALA MUSEO DELLA RADIO E DELLA TV
Via Verdi 16 TORINO

Turin, 24th september 2009
09:30-12.30

Some reflections for discussion during our Conference (DRAFT)

In 1983-84, when the European Commission published the Green Paper on broadcasting in Europe, the proposal to set up a European public broadcaster was from the very beginning not taken into account.

The hypothesis was definitely rejected when – after the successful experiments for European cooperation carried out in 1993 by some European public broadcasting companies (among which NOS in the Netherlands and RAI with the Eurikon Project ), the programmes of Europa TV - the multilingual pan-European television channel promoted in Hilversum in 1986 – in a short time aborted.

Despite the disappointing results yielded by the first projects of pan-European broadcasting, five years after the European Commission Green Paper publication , the first Television Without Frontiers Directive was approved. It was aimed to create the Requested conditions for unrestricted broadcasting across the Member States area. In this framework, w hile the Berlin Wall was tumbling down , distinguished representatives, such as Massimo Fichera, reacted to this failure. Bearing in mind the European Space Agency Olympus Project after the re-allocation of the pan-European direct broadcast satellite transponder, they made a second, still unsuccessful attempt in 1990, launch of the RaiSat Channel on which, for the first time, on the occasion of the World Football Championship, they experimented the broadcasting of high definition television programmes in digital technology, whereas within the EBU they kept on promoting trans-national broadcasting and building foundations of the Euronews Project .

RaiSat failed to fulfil its goal probably because it stumbled over the Governments resistance (in France it was ironically referred to as “the new London Radio”). Nevertheless, thanks to Fichera's stubbornness and the strategic alliances he made within EBU, starting from 1993 the new Single Market Europe could make use of a new communications tool – only available for a privileged public – such as Euronews , of which many Cassandra's followers envisaged the disappearance.

At the same time, in the fiction programmes area, another Association was created – the European Coproduction Association – with the relevant participation of Channel Four. The outcome was the expected one, but – despite the delay on the United Kingdom, where Michael Grade promoted the creation of independent production houses, referred to as the “Indies”- each european public broadcaster started to be aware of the importance of the fiction industry as a successful factor for public services in their competition in developping market shares against commercial broadcasters which are usually importing American-originated serial fiction programmes (not only Dallas but also telenovelas).

The building process for a European Information society was then stopped. Despite Lisbon expectations, the E-Europe programme and the new Information Society Direction could not obtain the expected results, whereas the telecommunications deregulation, which ended up at the end of the Nineties, resulted in the creation of new major private operators destined to be influential in the world of communication.

A European consciousness for citizens should still be promoted. The Europe enlarged to 27 Member States still needs to struggle against Euro-scepticism and xenophobia with the help of effective coherent information campaigns making use of the most modern tools of communication.

In the last few years we have witnessed a phenomenon of inversely proportional growth between the enlargement process of the Union and the supply of information and cultural services throughout the new Europe. The sprawling in Europe of the Erasmus generation and the increased number of low cost airlines – on the one hand - has not been balanced yet by the development of a public television without frontiers - on the other.

The experiments carried out in the Sixties, among which Games Without Frontiers and the Eurovision Song Contest , were extremely crucial in the formation of a European-oriented popular consciousness in the generations of that time.

Today, different tools are requested to communicate with the whole society and not only with the privileged public making use of a series of sophisticated niche information tools. What we need is a new way to communicate with the European citizens in a clear, easy, direct way with a view to re-assess the principles on which the European institutions are based, accentuating the benefits of initiatives of common interest, such as the introduction of the Euro or the Single Market.

Infocivica's proposal to be discussed during the Conference

This is the reason why we are well aware of the relevance of Infocivica's proposal to create an authentic European public service to be addressed to any single European citizen, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains, which could become the loudspeaker for their proper consciousness and the representative for the traditions of any single Member State, especially for all those regions that are part of Europe.

During the Conference, our distinguished guests will be kindly invited to answer the following questions:

•  Does it make sense to talk about a European public service broadcasting?

•  What would it mean for today's national public service broadcasters to set up such a European public service broadcaster, as to technology, supplies, resources and governance rules? And if not so?

•  With respect to joint ventures signed by network owners and private operators in the distance electronic communication field, what would be the strategic meaning of an alliance among major public broadcasters of the old continent?

•  In the new scenario of global communications, is it still correct to maintain the peculiarity of a mixed public-private system that historically characterised the old continent on a national level, thus making it distinctive from the American model?

This Conference aims to make an analysis of what is going to happen in the far future, thus assessing whether it is necessary for public service broadcasters, particularly in this economical critical moment, to move towards the opposite direction or otherwise whether it is desirable to promote deferred strategic investments, with results only in the average long term, thus laying the foundations of a New Deal of public service broadcasting or something similar to a European Plan of Communication that allows them to make their offer adequate to the new scenario of the European communication market.

We should be aware that it will be possible to take giant leap forward only if this attempt is combined with a process of European Political Unity started in 1985 with the Project of Treaty of the European Union signed in Milan, that gave rise to the public consortium, Europa TV .

Needless to say, a mixed European system of communication should be implemented following modalities other than those adopted for ECSC in the Fifties, for the European Common Market two decades later, or more recently for the Treaty of Maastricht.

It should be conceived with a view to assuring a close relationship with citizens also using new generation networks tools.

Nowadays, the communication is strictly linked to the proper life of the institutions and the democratic legitimacy of their function in a society ever more influenced by globalisation and its feedback in the various different socio-economical, linguistic, cultural territorial realities emphasizing the new Europe.

Media are today part of the new Polis. The concept of public service broadcasting should therefore be adequate to the new “local and global” dimension resulting from devolution and the crisis of the absolute centrality of the old national States. The Treaty of Lisbon – whose ratification is expected by the end of the year (prior to the Irish referendum) includes an ad-hoc protocol emphasising the importance within the Union of “services of general interest”, hence including public broadcasting, even though the term “broadcasting” is not specifically mentioned.

This day will pave the way to the birth of European public service broadcasting. We should also be aware that the re-launch of the European building process can also start thanks to the “enhanced cooperation” envisioned in the Treaty of Nice.

The effort made by any single European public broadcaster aiming to create basis of European public service broadcasting will therefore represent a major strategic asset for the creation of public values for Europe in the newly born Information Society, thus avoiding that any single national organisation could run the risk of becoming a mere marginal subject, destined to a slow, relentless decline.