European Union Television Media - Essay Example

Reading header: THE TELEVISION MEDIA IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: UK AND TURKEY The Television media in the European Union: UK and Turkey Your institution Your name Course name Course instructor 28 April 2009 The Television media in the European Union: UK and Turkey Introduction The number of television channels in the European Union region rose from 103 in 1990 to 1,132 in 2003, with movie channels increasing from 7 to 143 and sports channels from 0 to 92 within the same time. The number of television channels in the European Union has multiplied amid increase in the capacity of the European satellites systems, effects of deregulation, and advance in technology. In 2004, the number of the public service television channels with a license for national coverage by the analogue terrestrial transmission was 38, two were of mixed ownership (public/private), and 43 were private owned. There were 218 public or private channels which were targeting non-national markets including those targeting markets outside the European Union, 702 privately and 75 public owned had national coverage through cable satellite or DTT distribution. In addition, there were television channels which could be perceived as belonging to a particular country but established in another country. Cross-border broadcasting has grown because of the advance in the development of the cable and satellite infrastructures and establishment of a framework that allowed free circulation. Countries such as Ireland, Denmark, Belgium and Netherlands, which have high cable television already had a natural; overspill and redistribution of television channels across border even before the ‘Television without Frontiers’ Directive in 1989 was adopted. More than one kind of channels in the European Union can be identified, in the history of the evolution of the television in the market. These are; those channels that transmit with an unique language but with clear pan-European vocation, e.g. the BBC World and 3-sat; those “delocalized channels” established in one country but targeting market for another country, e.g. the Kanal 5 established in the UK but targeting Sweden and the RTL9 established in Luxembourg and targeting France and Switzerland; those that are established outside Europe but broadcast through European satellites e.g. TV Globo International and the HBN Herbalife; those channels tailored for a particular market but their ad hoc advertising windows and/or programs let them be perceived as for one or more neighboring markets e.g. Irish windows on Sky News and the Swiss and Austrian windows of German private channels (SAT.1 and Pro7); and those broadcast channels offering pan-European services and with distinct linguistic versions targeting specific linguistic markets within and without the European Union and particularly the East and Central European markets e.g. services provided by the pan-European channels such as the Euronews and the Eurosport. Television in the United Kingdom Audience fragmentation for the television market in the UK is commonplace because of the availability of big number of channels (400). About 70%of UK households have access to multi-channel television. The major satellite provider in the market is the BSkyB with 8 million homes connected, Freeview has 5 million of homes connected, NTL-Telewest with 3 million homes connected among other establishments. global offerings such as the CNN, DW-TV and MTV are also present. The BBC is one of the major channels in the United Kingdom with 14 television channels and attracting about a third of the total audience in the country (European Journalism Center, 2009). Commercial TV channels in the UK create an opportunity for advertising by pulling viewers and broadcasting advertisements. The Ofcom regulation controls the number of advertisements broadcast per hour because program scheduling and production decisions cannot be changed easily with the decreasing opportunity for the commercial broadcasters to affect the supply of TV advertising ‘impacts’ (impact is defined as a single individual watching a single 30 second advert or an equivalent (PWC, 2004)). Demand for the television advertising the United Kingdom comes not only from private companies selling consumer products but also from the NGOs and the government. Because companies determine marketing expenditure on an annual basis and the agree on contracts one year ahead of time, TV advertising id relatively fixed in the short term. Companies may however shift to other forms of marketing in the long run. These forms include usage of emails, radio and print media. The dynamics between supply and demand, trends within TV broadcasting and the economic environment are the key drivers of Television advertising revenues. Traditional commercial broadcasters are increasingly facing the challenge of competition from developments in the multi-channel viewing, and other developments which might be hard to quantify and which may face them also include the analogue switch off, possible increase the TV transmission over the broadband, potential changes in the attitudes and behavior of advertisers, ad the spread and emergence of new technology or relatively new one such as the Personal Video Recorders (PRVs). Television in Turkey There are many television channels in Turkey as seen in the case of the United Kingdom. In Turkey, the major media groups operate as large conglomerates and do indulge in other businesses like tourism, construction and banking. The freedom and independence of the journalists and the quality of journalism in this country can be seriously questioned on the basis of monopolization of the media business as depicted by the ownership patterns. The legal definition of the media monopoly has been termed as ambiguous and the legal means not as efficient to alter increasing concentration of media. Two documents attempting to promote journalism ethics include the Code of Professional Ethics of the Press by the Press Council (1989) and the Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities by the Journalists Association of Turkey (1998). The European Union funded the BİA initiative in 2003 whose aim was establishing a countrywide network in Turkey for monitoring and covering media freedom and independent journalism (Schmitt & Kaiser, 2002). The freedom of the media in Turkey has been enhanced with the improvement in the democratization as a result of being a member of the European Union. The legal reforms concerning the media as required by the European Union regulation were carried out. There has been reported that many publishers and journalists were prosecuted for expressing their views which indicates lack of full democratization in media during this time. The European Union required that there be broadcasting with other languages other than Turkish, by the Turkey in order to commence negotiation on membership. In 2006, there were two Television stations, namely Gün TV and Söz TV which finally begun presenting this situation. The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) was the first broadcasting company in Turkey and was established in 1964. This company was mandated to broadcast as the public owned for a period of more than 20 years. The Star 1 channel was the first commercial private TV and begun broadcasting in 1990 through the satellite from Germany. This quasi-illegal but de facto situation led to arising of radical changes in the broadcasting arena. More stations subsequently came up. It took a constitution amendment to be able to lift the monopoly on TV and Radio in the 1993 August Parliament. Some of the groups that have been provided that control the multimedia market in Turkey included the following; TGRT channel of the İhlas Group’s and partly (51%) belonging to Murdoch Rupert, Show TV, NTV and Samanyolu TV. There are 4 national television channels run by the public broadcaster TRT. These include TRT 1-4 (European Journalism Center, 2009). Access of the channels from the UK and Turkey A TV viewing survey conducted by The Radio Television Supreme Council’s (RTÜK) showed that the average time spent watching TV was very high (5.09 hours during the weekdays and 5.15 hours in the weekends) in Turkey. There is a potential for audience fragmentation in Turkey because of the large number of channels. Despite the large number of television channels in Turkey, channels would copy programs perceived to have high attraction on viewers and this would create a monolithic understanding of the television broadcasting. The quality of the audiovisual in this country is low due to the lack in creativity and diversity in program-making. The advertising market for the television in Turkey reached to 56% of the market in 2005. The penetration of the cable TV and the satellite has been termed as low owing to the still availability of the major channels, terrestrially. However, the analogue broadcasting would continue till there was an excess of 80% penetration in digital broadcasting. Analogue to digital switching that begun in 2007 was set to be complete in 2010 (O’Donovan & Grimes, 2000). The access to local and cross-border television channels is determined sometimes by the equipment in use, by the viewer. Viewers can access several channels in the European Union which can be viewed through the satellite to other countries. However, some handles and limitations need be overcome by the viewer while others by the broadcasters themselves, such as the encryption systems they are using and the requirement to subscribe to the pay-TV channels or to the packages on offer. TRT of Turkey operates international channels for example the TRT-INT for Europe, USA and Australia and the regional station TRT-GAP for the south-eastern region of Turkey. Economic impact The challenge underlying the assessment and analysis of the economic impact of the television channels within the European Union is that the data that would assist in this analysis-such as cable fees, subscriptions, and advertising fees is sometimes not provided publicly by the channels themselves and failure of the transfrontier televisions to publish detailed profit and loss accounts, particularly those broadcasters established in the United Kingdom and Netherlands that target continental markets. Even among those transfrontier television channels publishing their accounts, no sufficient details are given on the breakdown of the revenues between the national and other markets. Even the European market advertising experts confirm the complexity of analyzing advertising revenue flows under the aforementioned circumstances (Dublin & Drogheda, 2004). The television policy The establishment of the European television policy that could allow the breaking of barriers for transmission across-border was in form of the Television Without Borders directive which was enacted by the Council of the EC in 1989. the directive requires members to harmonize their national legislation to standards or criteria in the directive. The directive was established with an intention of harmonizing the EU broadcast advertising standards and securing access for viewers and listeners in all Member State to channels from the other Member States (Masih, 1999). Any television program that meets the set standards can broadcast across the region without restriction, if it complies with regulation of the country of origin. The directive covers issues such as rights of reply, television sponsorship and advertising, protection of minors and the promotion of television program production and distribution. The directive protects the viewed against violations on religious, health, safety, sex, nationality and racial aspects, in addition to prohibiting advertising of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products. The right of reply pertains to the case where persons’ legitimate interests have been damaged through an incorrect assertion of fact through television programs (Silk, Klein & Berndt, 2001). The directive also seeks to protect the European Union broadcasters from competition from non-EU establishment by requiring that the Member States ensure “where practicable” and by “appropriate means” that broadcasters reserve for “European works” majority of their transmission time, exclusive news, teletext services, advertising, and games and sports news to protect 50% of total transmission time or more from the aforementioned form of competition. Conclusion Increase in the capacity of the European satellites systems, effects of deregulation, and advance in technology are some of the reasons why the television channels in the European Union region have increased. Like the Turkish television media, the United Kingdom’s media falls under the European Union regional media policy that partially covers both from competition from non-members, protects customers in both and other regional customers against abuse, and ensure quality of the television media. The television policy in the European Union region has contributed to the harmonization of the media laws and practices in the region because of the requirements that Member States are required to comply with before being allowed in. Specifically, it has contributed to the diversification of the broadcasting media in Turkey. The economic impact of the media in the region may be difficult to access owing to the lack of enough, plain and detailed data on earnings. Although there is a potential for audience fragmentation in Turkey’s television channels, the copying of programs perceived as interesting to the viewer from other channels by fellow channels contributed to low quality and low diversity in TV programs. Audience fragmentation has been reported in the United Kingdom. There has been a tendency in the United Kingdom to prefer multichannel over the traditional broadcasting and the latter faces competition from the former. The access to local media and international channels in these two countries may depend on the equipment being used by the viewer in and out of both countries as digital broadcasting increases. References Dublin & Drogheda. (1-3 March 2004). Transfrontier television in the European union: Market impact and selected legal aspects. Retrieved 28 April 2009 from http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/transfrontier_tv.pdf.en European Journalism Center. (2009). Media Landscape-United Kingdom. Retrieved 28 April 2009 from http://www.ejc.net/media_landscape/article/united_kingdom/ European Journalism Center. (2009). Media Landscape-Turkey. Retrieved 28 April 2009 from http://www.ejc.net/media_landscape/article/turkey/ Masih, Rumi (1999). “An Empirical Analysis of the Demand for Commercial TV Advertising”, Applied Economics, 1999, 3I, 149-163 PWC. (December 2004). Economic analysis of the TV advertising Market. Retrieved 28 April 2009 from http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/tv/reports/tvadvmarket.pdf O’Donovan, B., Rae, D. & Grimes, A. (2000). “Determinants of advertising expenditure: aggregate and cross-media evidence”, International Journal of Advertising, 19, pp. 317–334 Schmitt, T.M. & Kaiser, H.M. (2002). “Changes in Advertising Elasticities Over Time”, NICPRE Quarterly, 4th quarter 2002 Silk, A.J., Klein, L.R., Berndt, E.R. (2001). “Intermedia Substitutability and Market Demand by National Advertisers”, NBER Working Paper 8624 Read More