Worldwide media are struggling to survive the economical downturn. However some are in better shape then ever, public television and radio stations who receive government funding aren’t hit as hard as others.
Newspapers in Belgium , as in other parts of the world are under pressure.
Journalists at daily De Morgen for example are anxiously waiting a management meeting planned this week. De Morgen is part of publisher De Persgroep which has already cut in other parts of the group.
In the UK an interesting trend is taking place. The BBC is called upon to share its public funding with other media. In an attempt to stave off these calls the BBC says it’s close to a deal sharing local news resources with rivals in TV, newspapers and radio. As part of this deal the BBC will give regional newspapers free access to online video content. The corporation even has signed a memorandum of understanding with ITV to share regional newsroom facilities. As a public station it’s taking its responsibility!
In Belgium we have a similar situation. Public station VRT has access to massive resources to make their television programs. Some people say VRT has employed as much people employed as there are working in the entire organization of its competitor VTM. And there is no way the two rivals would ever share facilities.
VRT says it’s investing and innovating in a digital platform but uses it mainly for it’s own channels. In the mean time parties as Zoom.in and Belga are offering services to sell online video to newswebsites. The truth is the quality remained very poor. Recently VTM started recycling its newsitems to offer them to other (online) media. It’s a perfect and logical step to use their know-how to offer this service. Which results in great appealing videos (example). And what’s even more: in 20 years time their news program is actually making money. A position VRT could have had a long time ago, looking at the resources they have at their disposal.
In Belgium we tend to look to the BBC as a great example of a public television station, but I wonder if VRT would ever open it’s archives to competitors, let alone share facilities.
