Once upon a time, there were party newspapers: funded by the parties, staffed by the parties, sold to party sympathizers. Or, there were partisan rags, which even if they didn’t have a party connection, seemed as if they did.
According to a number of (predominantly-American) social scientists, partynewspapers declined as the capital costs of launching a newspaper increased with developments in printing technology. The parties couldn’t pony up the money, so they left.
You would think, following the same logic, that television would be pretty immune to party-politicisation: after all, the start-up costs are immense, aren’t they?
At least, they used to be immense. Greater bandwidth and the sharply falling costs of camera technology means that broadcasting isn’t so expensive anymore. It’s certainly not expensive to you if you have support from the state, and are content to settle from limited hours of broadcasting on satellite.
And so, somehow, Massimo D’Alema believes that his faction within the Democrats can be helped if he and some friends run a television station. It’s pretty audacious, I must say.
Comments 3
Given the almost-complete control Berlusconi has over the media in this country, I can’t help thinking that this little independent channel could be a very good thing indeed. In fact, we could probably use many more just like it, with other different voices “outside the chorus”. On-air talent shouldn’t be a problem. By now there must be many good journalists and comedians who have been barred from Mediaset and the Rai. My belief is that the audience may respond very well to a venture like this.
Posted 01 Aug 2008 at 1711 ¶I’m all for more independent channels - but it doesn’t seem to me that having more channels run/funded/presided over by politicians is the best way of achieving this. Genuine anti-trust measures against Rai and Mediaset - in particular, their advertising wings Sipra and Publitalia - might be a better way, allowing channels like La7 and, yes, even NessunoTV/D’AlemaTV to grow.
Posted 02 Aug 2008 at 1238 ¶Completely agree with you, Chris. But I can’t see it happening the way things are now, can you? With fair anti-trust laws (or whatever else would be necessary to bring/return democracy and diversity to Italian TV), this D’Alema channel would probably lose its raison d’etre. I think D’Alema and his friends are quite probably, in their own way, pursuing exactly the kind of changes you mention. They’re just forced by necessity to take a different approach. Satellite broadcasting is really not so cheap. One would presume that these guys have a strategy worthy of the investment. Time will tell.
Posted 04 Aug 2008 at 1359 ¶Post a Comment