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With so many important, vital issues seizing the current zeitgeist attention-fatigue is draining. Politicians see no point in addressing what matters. After all, gossip and fake news provoke raw tabloid nerve endings. This may or may not win elections but the faithful are kept on the edges of their seats.
Under the nationalist populist Law and Justice (PiS) political party Poland has been in a fog. Somebody, they believe, is out to get them. In recent years PiS leaders and appointees have charged after critical news outlets, interspersed with other villains like the European Commission. As it might happen, the real world - ugly viruses, sour economics and Russians boring down on neighbor Ukraine - momentarily set aside the preferred political posturing.
The PiS politicians, obviously, could not contain themselves. Voters in Poland will head to the polls later this year to elect members of parliament; the Sejm and Senate. President Andrezi Duda will announce a date. Most observers expect an “acrimonious” campaign, noted Bloomberg (December 15). This will follow a path laid-out last year, and the year before.
Two weeks ago (December 30) National Broadcasting Council chairperson Maciej Swirski, “acting ex officio,” levied a 1PLN million (about EUR 215,000) fine on TVN SA for broadcasting last September the documentary The Power Of Lies (Sila klamstwa) by reporter Piotr Swierczek. The documentary focused on misinformation about the 2010 aviation crash near Smolensk, Russia that claimed all lives on-board, including Polish president Lech Kaczynski, twin brother of current and long-serving PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Mr. Switski also suggested the broadcaster might - again - face license revocation. One might have thought PiS officials, losing court battles attempting to wrest TVN24 owner Warner Bros Discovery from Polish broadcast licenses, would have moved on. (See more about media in Poland here)
The documentary explored spurious conspiracy theories about the crash put forward in a report by PiS appointed Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, including that the fog shrouding the Smolensk military airport at the time had been “created” by the Russian Federation. Mr. Macierewicz claimed he had been defamed by the documentary. TVN responded by offering the documentary to any Polish media outlet and several took them up on the offer to show “solidarity” with TVN, reported Wirtualnemedia (January 5).
Austria’s federal competition authority indicated this week it would be looking into a proposed takeover of broadcaster ProSiebenSat. MediaForEurope (MFE), a shareholder principally controlled by the family of illustrious Italian Silvio Berlusconi, announced in mid-December it would be raising its stake in ProSiebenSat before the annual general shareholders meeting in May. “An in-depth examination of the project was necessary,” said a statement from the Bundeswettbewerbsbehörde (BWD), reported by German news agency DPA (January 10).
In addition to being Germany’s second largest privately-owned television operator, is also a dominant TV provider in Austria and significant in Switzerland. MFE, registered in the Netherlands, is the biggest shareholder in ProSiebenSat with a squeak more than 20% of voting rights. MFE was formed from Italian broadcaster Mediaset and Spanish broadcaster Mediaset Spain with the intention of aggregating television broadcasters in Europe. MFE’s operational headquarters is in Milan, Italy. (See more about Mediaset here)
German Competition Authority (Bundeskartellamt) has had its eye on ProSiebenSat takeover dreams. A year ago RTL Group chief executive Thomas Rabe motioned toward a fusion of German TV operators. It went nowhere, just like the proposed merger of French RTL (M6) and TF1. (See more about mergers and acquisitions here)
Regarding MediaForEurope, German regulators are equally wary. ”It is very sensitive in Germany that Berlusconi is a politician who is also based in the European Parliament participates in a broadcaster,” said Bavarian regulator BLM president Thorsten Schmiege, quoted by Horizont (October 17). “This is the issue of remoteness from the state. “We keep a very close eye on that."
We’ve known this was coming for some time. Artificial intelligence (AI) - chips and bots - is performing functions once saved for brains. There is big money in this. Elon Musk is a huge fan.
Technology behemoth Apple now offers a text-to-speech digital narration feature through its Books service, “quietly launched,” said The Verge (January 5). “Digital narration has the potential to allow smaller publishers and authors to put out an audiobook at a much lower cost.” Apparently, the product launch was delayed several weeks due to Chief Twit Musk messing around with Twitter. (See more about digital transitions here)
In the 2023 media trends and predictions from the Reuters Institute (January 10), Nic Newman sees “podcasts and other digital audio” a focus for nearly three-quarters (72%) of publishers, more than any other opportunity. Norwegian daily Aftenposten already uses AI voice clones to present podcasts from news stories. Finland’s public broadcaster YLE uses OpenAI technology to translate news into Ukrainian. The biggest crisis for publishers, said the report, is news avoidance and 2023 just might be the (final) end of the printed newspaper.
Amazon has specifically ruled out AI translations for the Audiobook product, all submissions “must be narrated by a human.” How old school! A decade ago Amazon’s Kindle product used a text to speech feature, later discontinued due to copyright concerns.
Media regulators are bound to local sensitivities. When it comes to foreign outlets this means a watchful eye is always out. This means the moving van is always loaded.
A broadcast license has been granted by the Dutch media regulator to Russian exile channel Dozhd TV, also known as TV Rain. Regulator Commissariaat voor de Media (CvdM) awarded the five-year concession to TVR Studios BV to "provide a commercial television broadcasting service as a commercial media institution,” said a statement posted to its website dated December 22nd. TVR Studios BV is the Dutch holding company established to manage the Dozhd TV licenses within the European Union.
The CdvM decision is likely to lift restrictions previously applied to the channel by Latvian authorities, which had licensed Dozhd TV last June. After several notable content missteps, Latvian regulator NEPLP revoked the channel’s operating license in early December, effectively closing the operation. Its lease in Riga was also cancelled. (See earlier details here)
Since October Dozhd TV has co-located Amsterdam offices with Russian exile news portal The Moscow Times, noted Dutch daily NRC (January 10). With the NEPLP decision Dozhd TV applied for a Dutch broadcast operation license in mid-December. The Dutch regulator accepted the application shortly thereafter.
Satire is a wonderful literary device for learning. The lessons, however, can be disturbing, even painful. Without satire the world becomes dull and colorless. It’s all in the way it’s seen.
The iconic French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo stepped directly into another controversy last week. Cartoonists were invited to use their art for comment on recent events, in this case the ongoing public demonstrations in Iran over women’s right generally, the death in custody of Mahsa Amini and the continued use of capital punishment on protestors. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was featured on the cover. The results appeared on French newsstands Wednesday, January 4, reported France24 (January 7). The publication was meant “to show our support for Iranian men and women who risk their lives to defend their freedom against the theocracy that has oppressed them since 1979,” wrote Charlie Hebdo director Laurent Sourisseau in an editorial. (See more about media in France here)
Almost immediately the Charlie Hebdo website was hacked with files of “internal and confidential information” placed online, crypto-ransom demanded, noted Le Monde (January 8), which confirmed with AFP the veracity of the hacked data. Yet unidentified, the hacker’s email domain name is registered in Malaysia. Hackings of the Charlie Hebdo website are fairly frequent.
Officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran, once again, condemned the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. "The insulting and indecent act of a French publication in publishing cartoons against the religious and political authority will not go without an effective and decisive response,” posted Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on social media, noted by German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (January 5). “We will not allow the French government to go beyond its bounds. They have definitely chosen the wrong path.” The French ambassador was summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry and ordered closed a French archeological institute in Teheran.
The cartoon publication i was coincident with the 8th anniversary of the 2015 attack and subsequent murder of 12 Charlie Hebdo employees and injuries to 11 others by Muslim terrorists who also attacked a Kosher supermarket, killing for persons. French police eliminated the extremist attackers. More than a million people demonstrated against the attacks in France.
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