NATO Individual Democratic Institutions Research Fellowships (1994-1996)

Why Public Service Broadcasting Eastern vs. Western Europe: Circumstances and Challenge Catalin Preda (Romania) [Back to Index]

2.3. The Danish Broadcasting Corporation - Danmarks Radio 2.3.1. History and evolution 1922 The first radio transmission in Denmark, from a private transmitter in the capital-city Copenhagen. 1925 The State takes over Danish radio broadcasting. Radio Symphony Orchestra - founded on 28 October. 1926 A "Broadcasting Act" was conceived and the radio broadcasting was made the responsibility of the Traffic Ministry (today the Ministry of Culture), under the management of a nine person council, having as its first task to built transmitters so that the entire Danish population to be able to receive the radio broadcasts. 1927 Licence fee is introduced: DKKr 10 for crystal and valve sets. 1939 From all Danish householders 80% have a radio. 1940 The German occupying power imposes censorship. 1941 Radio House is completed, but inauguration had to wait until the end of World War II. 1945 Denmark is free on 5 May, and the German Commissioner for radio hands in his keys to the Corporation. Radio House is inaugurated in September. 1951 Radio now has two channels. 1959 The State Danish Broadcasting Organisation changes its name to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. 1960 Danmarks Radio sets up local radio stations across the country. 1963 A third radio channel gets on air with light music and news coverage. 1969 Radio goes stereo. 1973 In June the new Radio & Television Broadcasting Act turns the Corporation into an independent publicly owned institution with the right to broadcast sound (and pictures) to the general public. 1985 The Director's General Identity Paper adopted by the Board of Directors of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. 1987 A new Broadcasting Act comes into effect in October, and the Radio Council is replaced by an eleven person Board of Governors. 1991 The Board of Danmarks Radio endorses in March the new 'Director's General Identity Paper'. 1992 The Act on Radio (and Television) Broadcasting is adopted. 1993 The Act on Radio (and Television) is amended twice, in May and December. 1994 In January The Danish Broadcasting Act is issued again, with some amendments and it is since operating.

2.3.2. Legal framework The Danish Broadcasting Act is the Constitution of Danmarks Radio and of Danish media in general. This Act specifies that: The Danish Broadcasting Corporation is an independent public institution which has an obligation to the general public to provide radio (and television) programme services comprising news coverage, general information, entertainment and art. In the planning of programmes freedom of information and of information and of expression shall be a primary concern. Quality, versatility and variety must be aimed at in the range of programmes provided. Objectivity and impartiality must be sought in the information coverage. Danmarks Radio may carry on other programme activities, such as the provision of broadcasting services to be received abroad and production of programmes for distribution by other means than broadcasting. Danmarks Radio shall broadcast short-wave programmes to Danish listeners abroad. Under rules laid down by the Minister for culture, Danmarks Radio has an obligation to broadcast notifications to the general public regarding emergency measures in a crisis situation. Danmarks Radio shall be financed by licence fees payable for the use of radio receivers (and TV sets) and from income from the sale of programmes and other services, sponsorship, etc. A Central Board governs the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, according to Danish Broadcasting Act. The Board is composed of eleven members, officially appointed by the Minister for Culture. One member is appointed Chairman after being nominated by the Minister for Culture. Nine members of the Board are nominated by the Folketinget (the Danish Parliament), and from among them, the Minister appoints the Vice-Chairman. Finally, one member is appointed by the permanent staff of Danmarks Radio. From among the members nominated by Folketinget, the Minister for Culture shall appoint a Deputy Chairman. The term of office is four years. In the event of resignation of a member of the Board a new member shall be appointed for the remaining term of office. Members of Danish Parliament are not eligible to be members of the Board of Danmarks Radio. The Board has the supreme executive authority over Danmarks Radio and has the overall responsibility for the observance of the provisions laid down by the Danish Broadcasting Act for the activities of the Corporation. The Board draws up the general guidelines for the activities of Danmarks Radio and appoints the Director General and other members of the general management. The Minister for Culture draws up statutes for Danmarks Radio based on the Board's proposals The Director General holds day-to-day responsibility for the programme services and is in charge of the everyday administrative and financial management of the Corporation. Staff not appointed by the Board is appointed by the Director General. The General Programme Advisory Council is set up also by the Minister for Culture. It is a 30 member body that advises the Board and Management through regular meetings. A County Programme Advisory has been set up for each Danish county, for the City of Copenhagen and for the District of Fredriksberg, jointly to monitor Danmarks Radio's regional radio programmes as an advisory body. The term in office for the stuff is four years. The Regional Boards of Representatives are acting as programme councils for the regional stations. They are advisory bodies to discuss the activities and which may submit opinions to the Board and the General Manager. The Regional Boards, following negotiations with the Central Board, are submitting to the Minister for Culture proposals for the distribution among the national and regional stations of transmission time and budgetary framework for the following year. The Local Radio (and Television) Board is set up, if required, by the local council of up to five neighbouring municipalities. It may, if warranted, approve the setting up of one joint Board by more than five neighbouring municipalities. The Board consists of an unequal number of members, not being less than five. The Board's term of office is the same as the period of elections of local governments. The Board issues licences to provide programme services. It supervises the services, it shall protest any infringement of the regulations of the Act, and it may revoke a licence. The Board may licensee to submit any information of significance to the matters considered by the Board which may also set a deadline for submission of information. The Local Radio (and Television) Committee consists of five members, representing legal, technical and media expertise. The Committee may direct local Boards and licensees to submit any information of significance to the matters considered by the Committee, which may also set a deadline for submission of information. The Committee decides any complaints concerning a local Board's rejection of applications for licences or revocation of a licence. The Committee advises the Minister for Culture on local radio (and television) services. The Director General's Identity Paper specifies that: Danmarks Radio (DR) is the radio (and television) of all Danes, and DR's employees are there to serve the Danes - independent of special interests. DR is the work place of all DR employees, and every single employee in administration, technical services, finance and programming is equally necessary and meets the same quality challenge in his or her work. DR employees have one common goal: to pave the way for programmes that can be understood and used. Danmarks Radio must stand for quality. DR quality means being the most important source of satisfying Danes' expectation to be enlivened, enlightened and enriched through radio (and TV). Thus, DR quality means sending a multitude of programmes in Danish and a selection of the best radio-TV productions from all over the world, both for the few and for the many, programmes that can give new knowledge and insight, stimulate active democratic understanding, enrich through artistic performances and create gripping experiences that make the people laugh and cry. DR quality means programmes made with care, responsibility and courage, supported by a critical and self-critical sense, in a selection of genre, subjects, participants and forms, and utilising the resources DR has at its disposal. DR quality means being impartial. However, being impartial is not the same as being indifferent in relation to the basic moral and constitutional principles upon which the Danish nation is based. DR quality means choosing the essential instead of superficial, perspective instead of sensationalism, integrity instead of fashion. DR quality means uncovering conflicts, but also looking for solutions, depicting despair without forgetting hope, showing the ugly without rejecting the beautiful, reflecting as well as seeking out unspoken thoughts. DR is therefore obliged to serve actively as an unifying cultural factor, building bridges between generations and across social, geographic and cultural differences in the population, in an attempt to maintain and develop what it means to be Danish.

2.3.3. Danmarks Radio Network Radioavisen (Radio news) - that is also the News & Current Affairs Department of Danmarks Radio - is the only national news channel in the country. It broadcasts around the clock, with news bulletins every hour. It is regarded by the public as the best, fastest and more trustworthy source of information. Radioavisen is broadcast on all three Denmark Radio's channels 7 times a day, and every hour on Channel 2 and Channel 3. Six out of ten Danes listen to at least one of the newscasts per day (2.5 million listeners), which makes Radioavisen by far the biggest single news medium in Denmark. The highest rating is found at 7 o'clock at the weekday morning with almost every third Dane (1.2 million) having their morning news at the same time. DR's short-wave radio, Radio Denmark, is also part of the Radio News & Current Affairs Department. Channel 1 (P 1) - it is an informative debate channel, the serious spoken word and culture channel in Denmark. It is the channel with mostly talk programmes. Its daily audience is about 13% (over 500,000 listeners), and weekly it reaches 27% (over one million). Most P 1 listeners are elderly people, the generation of the "golden radio days". But on Sunday evening the channel is taken over by the Youth-Department, and lots of young listeners find their way to P 1, proving that they also want something else than only rock and pop music. Channel 1 deals with artistic and cultural issues, puts them to debate, and informs broadly about Danish and foreign matters. An important element of Channel 1 is 'Radio Theatre', that puts on about 50 new productions a year. Its task is to develop and nurture new Danish drama. Channel 2 (P 2) is a classical music channel, reflecting music in Denmark and internationally. The channel provides high quality musical experiences for its listeners, and reflects artistically important events through broadcasts about music and musical life. This channel is country's largest employer in the field of classical music, and seeks, through commissions to orchestras, choirs and composers, to further the development of Danish music. The Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Radio Choir are part of its assets. P 2 serves an audience for classical music during week-day nights and also daytime in the week-end. It accumulates an audience of 6% (250,000 listeners) during the week. As for Channel 1, most of the Channel 2 audience is elderly. Channel 3 (P 3) is the consumer radio station for the entire country, broadcasting music, journalism, news, entertainment, sport and service round the clock - it is fast, live, and lively. P 3 wants to be and it is intelligible, relevant, broad-based and popular, but not strive for popularity's sake. As the channel that reaches furthest, it must keep Danmarks Radio's public service obligations before it at all times. Channel 3 collaborates with DR-Concert Orchestra, and the Danish Radio Big Band. The audience for P 3 is 67% on the single weekday and 83% during a full week tunes in on Channel 3. This huge audience comes from all groups, although the teenagers tend to seep away to the private radio-stations. The most popular single programme of P 3 reaches the million mark, or every fourth grown up Dane. The Regional DR Radio Stations are nine, providing daily information about the most important local events, and guarantee the regions' professional and impartial news coverage. The regional stations reflect everyday life on the spot, but also produce programmes for the national channels. The nine Regional stations of DR each serves one or two countries (about 400,000 people) with two exceptions: The Copenhagen Radio covers a third of the Danes, and the radio on the Island Bornholm only 1%. At the average weekday, 33% of the Danes listen to their Regional radio, reaching 45% during a full week. Regional differences are - as in many countries - that ratings are higher in lower urbanised areas and lower in Copenhagen and other big cities. Lately DR's Regional radios have fought back on the private local stations and stopped a decline in listening.

2.3.4. Programme Strategy What DR should stand for in the future: As competition made clear some time ago, there is no such thing as channel loyalty: listeners (and viewers) are selective. They select their way in and out of DR's programmes, depending on whether the competition's programmes are more attractive in form and content. Therefore, at DR, in both programme planing and subsequent critical review, the employees, the Board and Management must always ask themselves whether they sufficiently live up to the main obligation of a public service institution like DR: to serve the entire population and be the most important source of satisfying Danes' expectations to be enlivened, enlightened and enriched through radio (and TV). It is barren and uninspiring for employees if DR goes on the defensive and only cry that 'DR refuse to run after viewer ratings' because it is a public institution and therefore - understood - it is too good to busy itself with the needs and interests of all listeners (and viewers). If listeners (and viewers) over a broad front prefer what others have on offer, DR must critically analyse whether it is itself which do not understand how to meet the needs and interests of the public. DR must go on the offensive and change its programme selection in form and content, as well as its programme composition, so that listener (and viewer) ratings and evaluations of the individual programmes reflect that DR is the most important element in the Danish media selection, that DR stands for quality and that DR is 'the best'. This means: that DR should seek renewal in the form and content of its programmes; that DR should systematically define the target group for the individual programmes and evaluate the media research results; that in DR's programme editing, the Corporation must be on the offensive and controlled solely by the goal to be 'the best' in every programme range; that DR must be correspondingly on the offensive in its 'marketing', not least in its own media. In terms of radio, DR must try effectively to utilise all three radio channels daily from 6.00 a.m. to midnight, as well as P 3 round the clock. The objective is to offer three qualified choices to all listeners all over the country. Radio must intensify its variety by utilising DR's nine regional radio stations in its combined programming to a greater extent. Thus, radio should not only sharpen its public service function through the form and content of its programming, but also through the variety of its geographic sources. Note: Danmarks Radio has already broadcast in 1995 its first experimental two digital radio programmes, received only by some 30 experts, travelling in the Copenhagen area in a specially equipped bus. The transmission was a success, so that Danmark Radio's Board decided to gradually introduce this year digital broadcasting. Of course this is made taking into consideration some factors: that the receivers must be imported, that they are very expensive and that, as a consequence, people are and will remain for some time circumspect to buy them. Danmarks Radio also studies now the implementing from 1997 of a new "journalist working place". It will be formed in principle of a competitive multimedia personal computer, connected to a simple user interface, a DAT (Digital Audio Tape) system, an analogue tape and a telephone. The PC will form with other similar computers a so called "Network Based News - HD System". In this system it is possible to connect a "cubicle unit" (formed of a PC, a DAT, an analogue tape, an HD news-system, a complex user interface and an input line connected to all existing sources of information available in a modern radio station), and a "continuity unit" (formed of an HD news-system, a simple PC and an 'on air' user interface - usable in the broadcasting studio). This network may be amplified as much as it is necessary, to include for instance all DR's Regional radio stations. DR is facing further revolutionary changes As one can notice, DR has kept up with developments in the media field, but this is the first time the Corporation has looked ten years ahead and assessed its own situation, with the purpose of preserving its position as Denmark's largest media enterprise and cultural communicator. The results of the efforts of the Project Group on DR's future were presented as a report: "Danmarks Radio 1995-2005". The report is not a plan as such, but an overview of DR's situation now and in the years to come. The main emphasis has been on formulating a philosophy which will now form the background for the long-term plan to ensure DR's future. The philosophy has been formulated thus: "In order to reinforce citizens' capacity to act in a democratic society DR must be a broadcasting organisation that, dependent on the wishes and needs of the entire population but independent of economic and political interests, increases the options available compared to market-determined radio (and TV), with special emphasis on what is Danish." Staff reductions, rationalisation and reorganization: The final DR plan leading to the year 2005 was drawn in the spring of 1995. DR's Board has made a number of decisions on the basis of the report and these decisions were implemented. One of them was to release funds for more programme production through staff reductions, rationalisation and reorganization. One expected consequence was that DR said 'good bye' to somewhere between 100 and 200 members of its staff. It is DR's assessment that it cannot expect political support for increases in the licence fee in the next few years. In consequence all the proposed changes and expansions must take place within the limits of current license income. This presupposes a strategy based partly on reducing fixed costs - including salaries - and partly on placing productions out of house where this is expedient. This will be implemented immediately for radio broadcasting: Danmarks Radio should have four national radio programmes (it now has three); The DR's Board has made it clear that the radio programme to which the nine radio regions of Denmark supply material (The Denmark Programme) should be more of each region's own programme; Satellite technology will be employed, and trials will be implemented with DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) in the Copenhagen Area. Funds will be released for increased programme production by rationalization and staff reduction. From production operation to broadcasting operation: The background to these radical decisions at DR is of course the competitive situation. DR's counter-move is a shift in concept: from being a production operation that broadcasts, DR is changing concept to a broadcasting operation which also produces; DR will take a step closer to its listeners (and viewers) by taking as its point of departure the way they experience DR's programmes; At the same time DR promises listeners (and viewers) genuine influence on programme activities through dialogue. The change in concept will be felt throughout the Corporation, not only in programme policy. Obscure chains of command must be remedied - the report points out that in the future the joint product for which the staff are responsible will be more important to them than their professional or trade union fellowship. This raises the issue of changes to the joint consultative structure, collective agreements, salaries and terms of employment. A completely new personnel policy may also be required.