Hot topics click link for more
Publishers reeling as phone-hacking, bribery trial set to start
Hope for short memories
It wasn’t so long ago that Rebekah Wade Brooks and Andy Coulson were household names to the British public. Mrs. Brooks was the powerful head of publishing house News International. Mr. Coulson was communications director for Prime Minister David Cameron. Monday, October 28, their criminal trial gets underway, charges beginning with phone-hacking and ending with perverting the course of justice.
More than two years after a litany of charges were filed, News International is now called News UK and its parent News Corporation has been split from TV and entertainment company 21st Century Fox. The Brooks/Coulson trial will be the first of former News Corporation employees. International attention will be intense.
Newspaper publishers in the UK and elsewhere will be particularly attentive. The charges against Mrs. Brooks, Mr. Coulson and about 100 others came from revelations – followed by denials by News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch – of illegal activities. The sheer tonnage of allegations led inevitably to the Leveson Inquiry, part one of which examined the working practices of UK newspapers.
Lord Justice Leveson reported a complicated picture of the UK newspaper business. Tough people work under considerable pressure to deliver headlines that sell. Some of those headlines were acquired, it seems, by dubious practices. A cry went out: there should be a law.
And so, politicians from the major UK political parties hammered out a plan to bring newspaper to heal. It would be “underpinned” by Royal Charter. Most UK newspaper publishers cried foul; press freedom under threat. Any conviction by a former or current employee for authorizing, paying or even knowing about bribery has the potential for far greater damage to News Corporation and its successor companies in the United States, where the company owns lucrative television licenses.
Internationally, publishers and press freedom advocates have been horrified. The proposed Royal Charter on Self Regulation of the Press has the look and feel of government control over the news media. WAN-IFRA and other like-minded organizations have written to the British monarch Queen Elizabeth calling for one to reject the Royal Charter. (See WAN-IFRA statement here)
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Five-year license dispute ends
No “danger”
A radio license dispute between two Swiss media operators finally came to a close as the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Telecommunications (DETEC) officially renewed the Radio Argovia FM concession in the Canton of Aargau, eastern Switzerland. Five years ago – October 2008 – the station’s license was renewed and the competitive applicant went to the Federal Administrative Court (FCA), which sent the application back to DETEC for further study. Obviously, more has changed than the simple passage of time.
Radio Argovia’s ownership changed, acquired by BT Gruppe, principally controlled by Peter Wanner. At the time Mr. Wanner owned Radio 32, a local TV channel and several newspapers. The competing applicant was Radio 1 (Zürich) owner Roger Schawinski, a long-time figure in Swiss and German media. Mr. Schawinski’s appeal to the FCA resulted in nothing more than Swiss time running out, to paraphrase an old song. He called the DETEC decision a “farce,” reported Swiss-German public TV SFR (October 22).
DETEC found no “danger to expression and diversity” in its investigation. The Radio Argovia FM concession is now officially extended until 2019. It is possible, however, that Mr. Schawinski will appeal again. (JMH)
Ad spending economic impact “significant”
Ad tax a bad idea
Advertising’s economic impact is rarely in dispute. Spots, space, posters and banners fuel consumer behavior that translates into broad employment, company profits and tax revenue. But ad spending is inextricably tied to the confidence advertisers have in their future.
That relationship between ad spending and economic activity has been pointed out in several studies this year. One of the more recent showed more four-fold benefit to the Hungarian economy. A PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report commissioned by the Hungarian Advertising Association (MRSZ) estimated 2012 ad spending in Hungary of HUF 174 billion, roughly €595 million, contributed HUF 820 billion to the country’s economy, roughly €2.8 billion.
”The results confirm that the communications industry is the economic engine because it supports fair competition… and supports many other industries, thus significant employment,” said MRSZ president Zsolt Urban, quoted by origo.hu (October 21). The report noted 13 thousand jobs directly in the Hungarian advertising sector and another 50 thousand in indirect employment. (See more on media in Hungary here) Ad spending in Hungary peaked in 2006 at HUF 176 billion.
The report is part of a lobbying campaign by Hungarian advertisers, ad agencies and media houses hoping to thwart a proposed tax on advertising. The Hungarian economic ministry introduced the ad tax in June a few days after it was suggested by Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Media watchers in Hungary see the tax as punitive, as foreign-owned advertisers and media house would be most affected.
An Association of Advertisers in Ireland (AAI)/Nielsen study, released in September, showed a direct relationship between falls in business confidence and ad spending in 2008 but as confidence has risen since ad spending has not. A Deloitte study in the UK earlier in the year said 1GB£ in ad spending contributes 6GB£ to the UK economy. (JMH)
No policy, no progress, say broadcasters
“That should change”
The vexation of German private radio broadcasters was shared during last week’s Medientage München convention and expo. Grousing about public broadcasting, as usual, took center stage at private broadcasters association VPRT’s presentation: “Who determines the radio agenda?” And, too, the broadcasters are deeply concerned about streaming audio websites Spotify and Napster.
Radio broadcasting is being ignored, said several, chiefly with regard to regulation. A challenge for radio broadcasters is the “perception of radio issues missing from policy,” said former Bavarian Regulatory Authority for Commercial Broadcasting (BLM) president Wolf-Dieter Ring. “I am convinced that radio broadcasting needs intense work. The States have, so far, not been up to the task.”
Berlin Senate Chancellery leader Björn Böhning seconded the view. “Radio regulation is the stepchild of State regulation,” he said. “That should change.” Herr Böhning offered up the usual agenda points: the overlap between private and public radio programming, advertising on public radio channels and competition with online streaming audio services.
“The eyes-shut policy toward the activities of public broadcasters, whose expansive radio activities are highly problematic for private broadcasters, is a scandal,” said VPRT deputy director Klaus Schunk. “The dual system has become lopsided.” (See VPRT presser here – in German)
The VPRT also announced further support for the RadioDNS standard for multi-platform reception. Test marketing the “smart radio” system has begun in Bavaria. RadioDNS combines terrestrial broadcast reception with web-based services. (JMH)
|
