• Nearly 80% of all adults in the Republic of Ireland agree that news and current affairs is sometimes biased towards the views of its owners
• 3 in 4 adults worry that individual people or businesses have too much ownership of the media.
• 84% feel that community radio would add to the diversity of content available to them as listeners
• Only 39% of those surveyed were aware that communities can set up their own community radio station.

News – Current Story in Full.

1. Citizen Production – report on events
2. Citizen Dialogue – engage in discussion on forums
3. Citizen Action – move to action, arranging events, etc.

The website is wholly in Mandarin, so the labelled guide provided (in one of the slides) was useful! Some stories from the site are picked up and given wider coverage on Taiwan TV – which users (in the study) valued for the validation it gave, in terms of attention to an issue that might not have got previous coverage, and validation of their own concern.

As I write this Pradip Thomas has started his response (as discussant). His claims:

1. Citizens’ Journalism is here to stay
2. Mainstreams are integrating elements of it, in order to retain audiences
3. Arguments based on Habermas’ rational public sphere are ‘overblown’ because decisions in the real world aren’t based only on rationality. (One speaker had done a content analysis that noted prevalence of incivility, etc.)
4. There are individual participants in Taiwan, but many are linked with NGOs, etc.
5. Crisis: How can the media be involved in finding a dignified closure to crises. (This in response to a Finnish speaker who critiqued the coverage of crisis situations by Finnish media.)
6. We need better theorizing of ht nature of interactivity, including “Why?” – who gets what out of it? What do audiences/the corporate sector get out of it?

There is limited justification for this increase provided in the consultation document – a reference to the fact that ‘other countries are doing it’ and that broadcasters are under pressure in the current economic climate. Restrictions on types of advertising allowed during children’s programming, and frequency of advertising breaks during news programming, are dealt with in a different Code, and no mention is made in this proposal of limitations in amount of time to be devoted to advertising during either of these types of programming.

I’m in the process of preparing a submission in response to this proposal and would welcome feedback, as well as collaborators.

So goes a headline in tomorrow’s Irish Times. Intrigued when it showed up in my daily email bulletin, I clicked through. Had there been a survey showing annoyance on the part of the public? Were the opposition failing to strike a chord with the public?

No. In the second paragraph we see that Brian Cowen “also said that people were beginning to get “fed up” with the negativity of Fine Gael and Labour.” That’s a very different story. The leader of the Government is claiming that opposition criticism isn’t popular. Quelle surprise!

This is just sloppy. Cowen has no evidence for the remark – it’s just a rhetorical flourish used to shrug off criticism. There’s nothing reprehensible about his claim; it’s a predictable and understandable deflection.

The IT, on the other hand, should be presenting the situation accurately – in their reports, and in their headlines. A more accurate headline might read:

People ‘fed up’ with Opposition, claims Cowen; or

Cowen: Public ‘fed up with Opposition

Maybe there wasn’t enough space for one of these, so the sub-editor decided to just trim out a few words. But in doing so (s)he changed the core sense of the headline. No longer was it clear that the article was about Cowen’s remarks. Rather a reader will believe (as I did) that the reference was to some independent source that was making the claim.

Sure, it’s a small thing. I don’t expect petitions and protest rallies (though perhaps someone will fashion a letter about spotting the first misleading headline of the season). But this is what the Times does – if you claim to be the newspaper of record, surely it matters how you construct that record.

Interesting to see the services to be available: the 4 current free-to-air services (RTÉ1 and 2, TV3, and TG4), Dáil TV, a new Irish film channel, RTÉ3 (a new service playing archival RTÉ material), and RTÉ1+1, which will play RTÉ1 on a one hour time delay.

Some comments:

• TV3 is a commercial operator, owned by a private equity firm (and previously by CanWest), so it is interesting to see it placed on a multiplex as the only commercial offering. However, this may reflect an expectation that the other multiplexes will not be free-to-air. Incidentally, TV3 is in the process of acquiring Channel 6, the only non-subscription domestic cable channel in Ireland, another sign of increased consolidation of media ownership.
• The RTÉ1+1 offering is a cheap way to offer a ‘new’ channel without any extra expenditure. I wonder about the implications for issues like insurance. In the past, I know that news services in Ireland have generally insisted that those carrying their services do so live – in order to ensure that any error or potentially libelous comments not be repeated after they should have been corrected or removed. Will RTÉ similarly edit problematic comments from live programming when it’s being rebroadcast later? The service is, after all, equivalent to a 1 hour tape delay, which would presumably heighten the responsibility of anyone who knowingly rebroadcast libelous or inaccurate information.
• Oireachtas video feeds are already available online (with separate feeds for committees, the Dáil, and Seanad). I wonder, though, if there will be sufficient material to fill the Dáil TV channel – particularly during recess. Any chance that this service will expand in similar fashion to CSPAN here in the US, where interviews with authors, coverage of significant conferences, etc., pad out the schedule…
• Good to see a dedicated channel highlighting Irish film – but, again, will there really be enough content to fill this? One wonders what other content might pad out this station. Also – where will funding for this come from? Will the channel compete for license fee funding with RTÉ and other broadcasters, or will funding come direct from government central funds, as suggested by the Irish Times article? If so, will it be at risk of cut-backs (as are most areas of discretionary public spending at present)?
• Those choosing digital platforms in Ireland are obviously particularly fond of multiplex solutions. Digital radio is still in flux, but DAB seems to continue as a preferred option, despite its myriad shortcomings. Multiplexes may be more suitable for television, which already involves significant capital outlays. Certainly a useful area for comparative policy studies, looking at both TV and radio, and solutions across various jurisdictions.

The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland has today (Monday, July 21st) announced its decision with regard to the award of the three national Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) multiplex contracts. The contracts were advertised by the Commission on the 7th of March last.

The Commission considered the applications received from three consortia and has awarded the contracts in principle to Boxer DTT Limited.
The award of the contracts is subject to clarifications and the successful outcome of contract negotiations, which will take place in the coming months.

Going to boxer.ie, however, it becomes clear that Denis O’Brien – who already owns 4 of Ireland’s 26 local commercial radio stations, the sole national commercial station, and the sole quasi-national commercial station (there are also 3 regional commercial stations) – has just become the monopoly operator of commercial digital television multiplexes in Ireland:

Communicorp Group is a radio holding company founded in 1989 with media and broadcast related interests in Ireland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia and Ukraine. It operates 48 radio stations under a variety of genres and has a history of innovations in programming based on escalating listener interaction. In addition, Communicorp has played on-going role in the DTT pilot.

In Ireland, Communicorp has interests in 6 commercial radio stations operating under sound broadcasting contracts with the BCI. Those businesses are operated by Radio Ireland Limited (Today FM) Maypril Limited (Spin 103.8) Radio Two Thousand Limited(98FM), News 106 Limited( Newstalk 106-108) Donegal Highland Radio Limited (Highland Radio) and Spin South West Limited (Spin South West).

…

Communicorp’s sole shareholder is Mr. Denis O’Brien, who is one of Ireland’s leading entrepreneurs, with extensive international interests in telecommunication, radio, property, aircraft leasing, golf and other leisure activities. He has an abiding interest in technology driven consumer facing markets, and a track record of successfully introducing new digital technologies in a number of countries. Over the years, Mr O’Brien has invested very heavily in supporting the indigenous Irish broadcasting sector.

As a reminder of the BCI’s stated intentions in entering the DTT process:

Under the 2007 Act, the BCI is required to licence commercial DTT in the State. In the first instance, the BCI will seek to licence three DTT multiplex operators for the establishment, maintenance and roll-out of commercial DTT in Ireland.

Thus, the award of all three multiplexes seems contrary to the BCI’s opening position. In some part, their hand was forced by the fact that:

In the case of each consortium, the applications submitted are conditional upon all three contracts being awarded to the applicant group. (BCI Press release 2 May, 2008)

It is questionable whether the BCI should have allowed its intended policy implementation to have been thwarted in this way – particularly when it results in increased oligopolistic control of the Irish airwaves.

As an aside, RTÉ, the state operator, has already been awarded a fourth multiplex to ensure “continued availability of the four existing free-to-air services in Ireland.” This indicates the presumption that O’Brien’s new multiplexes will not be available on a free-to-air basis. Coupled with the monopoly control of commercial DTT by O’Brien, it is clear to whom the benefits of digitization will accrue. The critique of spectrum licensing – made most prominently in the US by McChesney – that licensing amounts to a gift of public resources to private monopolies, seems particularly appropriate here.

Now a Pew report confirms my view: “In addition, The Daily Show not only assumes, but even requires, previous and significant knowledge of the news on the part of viewers if they want to get the joke.”

For session musicians, the record companies will set up a fund reserving at least 20 percent of the income during the extended term to them. For featured artists, original advances may no longer be set off against royalties in the extended term, which means the artist would get all the royalties during the extended term.

The commissioner also intends to propose a “use it or lose it” provision. In the case where a record company is unwilling to re-release a performance during the extended term, the performer can move to another label.

The folks at Miro – the “free open-source desktop video application that is designed to make mass media more open and accessible for everyone” – posit open standards as a means to circumvent the network effects problem with YouTube:

Open platforms, such as blip.tv (for creators) and Miro (for viewers), are a critical piece of the solution. Because both of these examples are built on open standards, they inter-operate with everything else in the open ecosystem. YouTube seems intimidatingly large, until you compare it to all of the open alternatives on the web.

There’s still the possibility of the “Miro Guide” excluding a particular provider, but because of how the software works (drawing on RSS feeds from individual providers) providers wouldn’t actually be blocked from access to customers.