03 July 2003

Dutch domestic radio licence update The radio broadcasters who took legal action against the government over the licence allocation procedure have, unsurprisingly, failed in their attempt to have it ruled invalid. The judge will not give his reasons until next week, so the broadcasters are being prudent and waiting for the judge's statement before making any further comment. However, it looks grim for Radio 10 Gold especially. Now that Veronica and Sky have done a deal, there's no longer a case to say that the people running the oldies station haven't enough experience: 43 years in the case of Veronica, compared to 15 for Radio 10. Arrow Classic Rock might have a better chance of surviving as no other stations in The Netherlands are doing that format - and it does it very well! I'll be writing a feature story for publication tomorrow, looking at the options now available to the stations that missed out on licences. 8:30:08 PM     comment on this entry []

Card trouble It seems I was a little hasty in dismissing out of hand the rumours about the imminent death of FTV Astra viewing cards. I've started seeing reports from various sources about messages appearing on screen saying "your viewing of this channel is about to cease" or words to that effect. The grim truth about what's going on is on our Media Newsdesk page. These messages are going to annoy the hell out of people who have no idea what's going on. There has been absolutely no publicity in either the industry or mainstream press. It seems that two large corporations - one public and one private - are being allowed to treat viewers like dirt and get away with it. I've read of one person who only recently spent GBP 200 on a free to air satellite system because the government and the BBC both said it was a good thing to do. Now he faces either taking out a Sky subscription or making do with analogue for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. I cannot believe things have been allowed to get into this state. It's shameful. 8:21:11 PM     comment on this entry []

© Copyright 2003 Andy Sennitt.