White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 8community players – and not necessarilythe most profitable) which are definitelythe most dynamic in combining radioand other media businesses and haveseen a rise in investments anddiversification of languages; on theother hand, a “low” bracket ofbroadcasters (not necessarily thepoorest financially) which are veryconservative in their choices and tend tokeep regular professional jobs to aminimum and spread costs over variousstations usually differentiated only, oralmost only, by musical style. Mainlybased on volunteer work, communityradio acts as a stimulus for the wholesystem, but this effect is limited becauseof widespread under-financing.Television. For several years now therehas been a widely shared piece ofconventional wisdom that terrestrialanalogue generalist television is due togo into terminal decline because of therise of more specialised or thematic pay-TVs. In fact, first through satellite TVand then the development of some payterrestrial channels based on the use ofviewing cards, digital pay-TV hasconsolidated its offering of sport, filmand some kinds of documentaries. But itis still not the prevalent televisionmodel. Moreover, pay-TVs in Italy (forvarious reasons including the fact thatthe monopoly satellite network isowned by an international group) offervery little innovation in the field ofdomestic production, apart from theoccasional interesting experiment. Socalledgeneralist television can offer anextremely wide range of programmetypes, quality of product and costs.According to some estimates, one hourof programming on a national networkcan cost from around 10,000 euros (e.g.for the repeat of well-known series) upto 1 million euros. It is very difficult,therefore, to formulate an overallassessment of the sector, and moreadvisable to reflect on some examplesand cases.As regards regional television stations,we have already noted how in generalthey have relatively few resources toface the large investments requiredtoday, not only for televisionproduction in general but also to adjustto the complete changeover fromanalogue to digital terrestrial TV,introduced by the so-called “GasparriLaw” (the application of the lawcontinues to be postponed but will notbe delayed beyond 2012). A study oflocal television stations in Piedmont,neither the poorest nor the leastenterprising region in the country (seeOsservatorio Culturale Piemonte 2007 –the chapter on radio and television isedited by Mediasfera), highlights thevery limited extent and extremeprudence of investments in originalproductions. What these stations meanby “focusing on their local roots”, is infact focusing on home shopping,telemarketing, talk shows with localsportsmen and politicians, sportsreports, and in some more adventurouscases local ballroom dancing, and so on.An additional type of programmeoffered by community television isdocumentation, at times even of fairlygood quality, about the world ofassociations and volunteer work. Butultimately local television programmingconsists more than anything else ofmaterial bought on the market, andtherefore almost entirely imported.WHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 204