In tactical media circles the Amsterdam media landscape has long been
treated as a Utopian model because of her free radios, open tv-channels
and digital public spaces. The last few years this media paradise is under
threat. How did this come about? And is it still possible to reverse this
development? This is the theme of the Amsterdam Media Debate. Nina Meilof
(The Digital City - DDS), Andreas Baader and Josephine (Radio Patapoe),
Frank (Radio de Vrije Keyser) and media-activists Patrice Riemens, Geert
Lovink and Menno Grootveld prepared the grounds for the discussion.
The aim of the Amsterdam Media Debate during The Next 5 Minutes is to
explain to the international participants that big changes are underway
here. They may perhaps learn something from our experiences, but we would
also like to try and find out what the differences are with other big
cities and with other countries. What are these big changes and how is the
situation at the present moment?
Geert: "It is no disaster if certain initiatives die, as long as there are
others to replace them. That is the natural course of things. We should not
worry about that. What we should worry about is that politicians are making
huge infringements at a certain moment and that they are squeezing
developments structurally by selling FM-channels and the Amsterdam cable
network to the highest bidder. That requires a reaction from us and we
cannot simply complain about these things. I think it is safe to say that
the free media-initiatives that have been around have enjoyed a big amount
of freedom, which may have caused a certain laziness. That is a not
uncommon phenomenon if so many of your goals have been realized.''
Nina: "The biggest problem is that the cable company has been sold, that
they have to make a profit and that the open channels and the so-called
'basic package' (of programming) is under pressure. They are suggesting a
weird kind of scarcity, which I question very much. I think there could be
far more channels on the cable network without too many additional costs.
To put it more bluntly: we should demand 40 channels in the basic package
tomorrow (now there are only 26). We should also try to formulate more
precisely what we want with the 10% of the capacity on the network which is
reserved for local broadcasting (public acces radio and television, etc.).
I think there should be room for a few Internet-channels alongside the
traditional open channels, which are governed by SALTO (the Amsterdam
Foundation for Local Television). This could be done by the Digital City,
as a kind of public broadcasting service on the net."
Josephine: "A year ago the radio stations (Radio 100, Patapoe and the Vrije
Keyser) started to talk about the necessity of claiming room in the ether
for our 'cultural heritage', for the culture we represent, because we found
ourselves in a blind alley since a lot of FM-frequencies were just being
sold. Emotionally I am torn between the longing for recognition of the
values that we represent and the desire to remain 'underground' because of
the freedom it offers you. But at the same time I find it a bit dangerous
broadcast illegally."
Frank: "As a result of recent phenomena it will become virtually impossible
to do so anyway. This kind of radio- and television work has traditionally
been done by volunteers, but they are rapidly becoming extinct. On the
other hand we have to reckon with the technical developments. For the radio
it means that the FM as we know it will be phased down and eventually
disappear completely. In return we will get Digital Audio Broadcasting and
if everybody buys the new receiver for his or her car and connects the
radio at home to the cable, there is no point in FM-broadcasting anymore,
since nobody will be able to receive your programme."
Politics
Menno: "So two aspects are important: the technological developments on the
one hand, and the inability or the unwillingness of the political
institutions to coordinate things properly on the other. Politically spoken
I think that the decline of the local media in Amsterdam since the early
'80's is part of a bigger effort to push everything that's got anything to
do with counter-culture to the margins, quite literally. This policy seems
to be a major success, since all the big squats where good things happened
in the past - in the sphere of music, visual arts and theatre - have
disappeared. The same process can be discerned in the field of local media.
My own roots go back to the pirate era at the start of the '80's. I still
consider the total freedom of that time as the ideal model for local media
distribution. It will probably never come back, but at least you can use it
as a point of reference."
Nina: "But the open channels of SALTO offer you basically the same
opportunities, and if you are smart, you can get some money on top of it.''
Menno: "This is the classic game of divide and rule: first you prohibit
something, then you wait a while and then you basically put up the same
scheme a few years later, but this time nicely regulated. And yes, you can
throw in some money as well. But in the meanwhile we are dealing with an
institution which says it is entitled to refuse anything that it does not
like. That is not even allowed by the Constitution, which explicitly
forbids preventive censorship. But the most important thing is of course
that they can play all of these small organisations against each other,
with the excuse that there is a limited amount of space."
Josephine: "That problem is also surfacing with the radio again. There is
almost no empty frequency anymore, because they are all sold."
Patrice: "But that is no coincidence. It is a political programme: all
power to the marketplace. They are also talking nonsense if they say that
they have warm feelings for local media and public broadcasting. Just see
what is going on and then you will get the picture."
Nina: "When the cable network of Amsterdam was being sold, a provision was
included in the contract which stated that 10% of the capacity should be
reserved for local broadcasting. That is unique in the world. It still
gives us the possibility to really do something with that. But we are
failing to produce a clear plan of attack."
Menno: "What you are actually doing then is to fall back upon that10% as
the most optimal outcome. And after that you can go and have a fight with
all the others who belong to the so-called 'public domain' about what you
are going to do with that 10%, a situation which will only lead to mutual
destruction. And in the meantime you have given the other 90% away."
Commercial
After some discussion the question arrises if, instead of defending this
10%, it might be a better idea to fight the enemy with his own weapons by
becoming commercial ourselves.
Josephine: "Then you will have to deal with all kinds of rules, which make
this almost impossible financially, like the obligation to have your
transmitter checked every year by a technician of the formerly state-owned
National Broadcasting Company. You cannot escape this kind of 'service',
which is very expensive and totally artificial."
Menno: "I think that something strange is going on here. You could say that
privatization is inevitable. But if you are privatizing, you should at
least make sure that there is competition as well. In the case of the
selling of the cable network this was not properly arranged for, so A2000
is still a monopolist. In the case of the maintenance checks of these
transmitters the same problem occurs: you can only go to one place to have
it done. Actually you even HAVE to go there by law. Something is very wrong
here, so we should perhaps focus on that first."
Nina: "This means that you basically accept the commercialisation of all
these stations and frequencies, but that you attack the monopolies."
Josephine: "I don't think that you can say it is either this or that. You
can say: OK, we can live with some kind of market-model, but then it has to
be subjected to certain demands and there have to be rules that are
acceptable to us."
Menno: "I don't think either that we should go for total commercialisation
and that we should forsake this 10% for local broadcasting. Let it stay, as
long as the contract mentions it and nobody really seems to care. But don't
be fooled by it. Don't think that that is the only sphere within which we
can operate, but try to get out of there by looking for creative solutions
for the reconquest of the territory that we have lost."
A new chapter
Geert: "We are talking to much about questions of management. Personally I
would like to stress the necessity of a new kind of media culture and I
think that we need a new and other form of imagination to be able to create
one. We cannot restrict ourselves to the defense of what we have or to the
claiming of new territories. That is not enough. We need to come with
something else. We have to locate the undermining, creative and subversive
forces that are operating in Amsterdam right now, and we have to find out
how they express themselves. Where do they find their 'channels'?
I think that a lot of alternative and autonomous culture has simply
disappeared, and that part of it has retreated upon an island. But a lot of
people just kept on going. A lot of initiatives exist for ten, fifteen
years now, which means a big amount of continuity."
Frank: "A society is made up of people and they need time to build
something. If they don't get that time anymore as a result of the
obligation to have a regular job, the end is reached very soon."
Nina: "There is a new trend now to have a regular job, but no more than
four days a week, so you will still have enough time for this kind of
things. I see that happening around me. But all these young people do not
go to SALTO anymore. Radio and television are no longer their media. Maybe
they think more of the web."
Geert: "What exactly can we say about that? Are there tactical
interventions in the new economy of the net as far as bandwidth is
concerned? I want to know that as well. There is a new medium now. How can
we occupy that territory, temporary or not?"
Nina: "Frequently people come to the Digital City and XS4ALL to do
'streaming audio'.
Menno: "But how realistic is this? XS4ALL has been bought up by KPN Telecom
(the former Dutch state-owned monopolist for telecommunication services).
They can do their thing for another three years and then it is over. And
what is left of the Digital Cit, three years from now?"
Nina: "The Digital City is still unsubsidized, but keeps clinging to her
idealistic goals. That process could be strengthened if a lot of local
media would come to us and say: we absolutely need the net, we want to have
an extra server and a lot of harddisk-space, on which we can put a good
archive and an independent search-engine. You can draw up such a program in
no time and the Digital City is absolutely prepared to listen to that. I
would love the idea of formulating such a package with people who have
enough knowledge to do so, to see if it could work out."
Geert: "I also have the feeling that that chapter really has to start
still, and that in Amsterdam we have to deal with the law of slowing down
after a rapid start. We are in trouble now, because a lot has happened in
the past five years. We are in a phase of consolidation, in which also the
power relationships above us are changing fundamentally. We have to focus
ourselves again on these developments and hopefully this will lead to new
initiatives." |
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