European Parliament set for controversial decision on 40-mln euro webTV project

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

http://www.eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=19838

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 01:06

European Parliament set for controversial decision on 40-mln euro webTV project

By Raymond Frenken

BRUSSELS (EUX.TV) -- The European Parliament on Wednesday is due to
decide on a controversial web TV project that would cost nearly 40
million euro in the next four years, according to official documents.

The project is part of Brussels' desire to bring the European Union
closer to the citizens ahead of the European elections in 2009. It
also is the fruit of competition and rivalry between two of the
biggest European Union institutions, the parliament and the European
Commission, the executive body of the EU.

A decision on the project, known as EuroparlTV, will be made during
the meeting of the parliament's bureau Wednesday evening in Brussels.
The bureau includes a selection of 21 members of the European
Parliament and is chaired by Hans-Gert Poettering, the President of
the Parliament.

The meeting will take place behind closed doors. The official agenda
of the meeting, which was obtained by EUX.TV, says an "exchange of
views" on EuroparlTV will take place. Not all MEPs are excited about
the project, partly because it would involve editorial
responsibilities for a public institution.

300 hours in 22 languages

If Wednesday's meeting remains undecided, it's to be expected that the
debate on the project will widen and will involve more members of the
parliament. It could eventually lead to a need for a plenary debate on
the project.

If the project is approved, the European Parliament will spend
approximately 9 million euro per year in the next four years on webTV
project that would generate 300 hours of television per year in 22
languages, to be distributed on a multi-channel platform.

Another one million euro per year is said to be available for
marketing the channel.

According to people familiar with the project, a pilot phase with 10
hours of programming was completed at the end of last year. The
project is to be carried out by Brussels-based video production
company Mostra Communications, which won the contract in a tender last
summer.

"Team of 22 journalists"

Patrick Delfosse, editor-in-chief of EuroparlTV, says on Mostra's
website that they have assembled a "team of 22 journalists" that
collaborate with CIRCOM regional television stations "to respond to
the challenge of enticing EU citizens". CIRCOM is a Brussels-based
organisation that lobbies for regional public television stations
across Europe.

"The aim of this project is for the Parliament to open its doors, and
bring the debates, discussions and opinions of MEPs into the homes of
those that will be affected by the decisions taken,"  the Mostra site
says.

In the last week, unconfirmed talk in Brussels suggested that the
budget would have to be increased before the project would be able to
take off in a definitive shape.

"Parliament defines editorial line"

One of the channels on Europarl.TV will be specifically geared towards
young people. Other channels will present live coverage of committee
meetings. Plenary meetings already can be followed via the
parliament's website. The channel's flagship coverage would be its
news reports.

EuroparlTV also is controversial because the project seeks to create a
team of reporters to report on the issues being addressed by the
parliament.  This newsroom team would be subject to supervision by
high-level civil servants at the parliament, according to the tender
documents that were issued last Spring.

"The European Parliament will define the editorial line of the
channel," say the official tender documents, a copy of which was made
available to EUX.TV in April last year.

MEP fears EuroparlTV will become "kind of Pravda"

Several MEPs in recent months have expressed concerns about such a
structure, arguing that news coverage of the parliament's proceedings
is best left to independent journalists.

"Only an independent editorial team can make lively and interesting
programmes," Dutch social-democrat MEP Thijs Berman has told a the ANP
news agency.

"Let journalists criticize me when I deserve so. The
christian-democrats want to turn it into a sort of Pravda: boring
propaganda. And they want to prevent that they are caught sleeping
on-air," said Berman, himself a former radio reporter.

Those in favor of the project justifiy it by emphasizing that the
parliament has a 'duty to inform' the public.

Citizens "have a right to know what happens in their Parliament and a
web channel offers a very cost-effective way of enabling them to
exercise that right," the EuroparlTV tender documents say.

Last Spring, the European Parliament saw itself forced to issue the
Europarl.TV tender for a second time after a dispute had arisen over
the first attempt to issue the tender.

The hosting of the videostreams for EuroparlTV is arranged by UK-based
TwoFour Digital, which already won the contract for this project in
2006.

EuroparlTV would compete for viewers and site traffic with
independent, unsubsidized  and financially-challenged web TV stations
covering European politics such EUX.TV - the European Affairs Channel.

The European Parliament decided to explore the possibility of a the
Internet as a way to distribute video in 2005. A study conducted at
the time suggest the cost-per-viewer ratio would be significantly more
favorable than the cost of launching a tradition satellite-based
channel.

The EU already runs a satellite channel known as Europe by Satellite
(EbS) as a service to broadcasters. The channel is mostly managed out
of the Commission. The parliament's access to this distribution
channel is relatively limited. There's no room, for example, to cover
all the committee meetings.

Once it's up and running, the channel can be found at:

http://europarltv.europa.eu
"

.....

Henk Elegeert

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