[CMA] Fw: 'our' media

[Chris Hewson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Nico Carpentier
To: Recipient list suppressed
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 9:25 PM
Subject: 'our' media


ARE 'OUR' MEDIA ALSO YOUR MEDIA?

Do you sometimes also question the current media-landscape ? Do you also
have the feeling that audience-numbers, and thus commercial interests
prevail ? That even public broadcasters seldom leave the beaten track ? Do
you believe that citizens should also be able to exert their communication
right to produce their own media ? That there is little space for the
unexpected, for the local, for small things, as well as big issues ? Do you
also miss auditive adventures ? With music that cannot be listened to
elsewhere ? Spaces where talents get the chance to grow or even mess about
in a funny way ? Where minorities get a voice and are empowered ?

In the whole of North-Belgium there are only three radio's with an
independent, non-commercial profile and organised in a basic-democratic
way, by each community for its own community. Spaces where people can
realise their creative ideas in a flexible way, be it on a weekly basis or
a single project. Radio Scorpio (106.0 fm) in Leuven, Radio Katanga (105.1
fm) in Aalst en Radio Centraal (106.7 fm) in Antwerp. Radio Progress in
Sint-Niklaas is still active, but did not get a licence during the recent
round of frequency allocation in the summer of 2004.

Especially in big cities such community radios fulfill a specific and
increasingly important role in terms of social inclusion and participation.
It's precisely there that the equally sounding commercial stations dominate
the spectrum. Alternatives, on the other hand, are forced to operate at
very low emission power at the margins. Take the case of Antwerp and that
of Radio Centraal. The station, celebrating its 25th birthday this year, is
totally independent and self-supporting without transmitting any
advertising. Last summer Radio Centraal got a new licence as "city radio",
but due to the very technical regulation in place it can only transmit at
14watt, not enough to carry it's signal across the city. In large areas of
the city the radio can no longer be listened to. Because Centraal defied
these regulatory limits, to reach its many publics, they were forced to pay
a fine and will be taken off air for a week from 18th till 25th of June 
2005.

In doing so, the Flemish media regulator is silencing one of the very few
really independent and non-commercially operating radio's in North-Belgium,
temporary now, but structurally in the long run. Such forms of soft
censorship are a democracy unworthy and cannot be accepted!

As collaborator, listener, sympathiser or just concerned citizen, we call
upon you to protest against this decision and also support our aims
regarding the democratic, social and cultural relevance of alternative
community media, media diversity and regulation that supports such
initiatives instead of gagging them.

* For the recognition at a regional, national and international level of
governance of the cultural and social benefits of (local) independent and
non-commercial media-initiatives

* For a statute of non-commercial radio's

* For the adaptation of technical norms allowing for another voice to be
heard next to the abundant commercial offer

http://users.pandora.be/bart.cammaerts/ourmedia.html  (EN)