| A case study for Greece - The liberalization of radio - The consequences in programming |
| 1. Introduction-Support of the topic |
The evolution of the mass media is very interesting subject of study that presents variations according to different circumstances. One of these is the place where this evolution takes place. Because media as institutions are part of society, are influenced from any particular characteristic that each society has. In the case of Greece, it's really interesting to see how the evolution of a medium like radio, has been affected by the particular characteristics of Greek society and more specifically by Greek politics. The particularity of the Greek case, as Papathanassopoulos points up, is that the Greek state is hyper centralized because of the dictatorial periods that Greece has passed through. Greek broadcasting has been developed under dictatorships. Both radio and television were subject of military violation, thus formulating a peculiar character a State broadcasting. What I will attempt to show in this project is that this peculiar character of state broadcasting influenced the overall evolution of radio, which lead it to be a medium with different types of programming formats. Through the unplanned liberalization of the medium from the public monopoly medium we lead to privately owned format radio. I will attempt to show, describe and analyze this evolution; how from a situation of public broadcasting has developed towards a commercial medium with different types of programming. The interesting thing for the case of Greece is that is showing us how politics in the long run influence particular characteristics of a medium such as its programming. It is really interesting to see how most of the social sectors of the society are in favor of the decentralization of the media. This proves the reason why the liberalization of the Greek radio was so favored from the Greek society and actually happened so fast in a very short time. Because the Greek society is so hyper centralized, when people realized that radio was to be decentralized, radio became very popular. As Ed Hollander explains; decentralization of the media is always welcomed by the majority of the people because many of their interests can be satisfied. For cultural and social organizations, decentralization is a method to promote citizen participation in the mass media. For media personnel is a means of achieving more democratic control of the media. For the political parties, decentralization is a way to gain an instrument to oppose government policy. Finally, decentralization is a way for those in favor of commercial broadcasting to achieve profit. That is, as I will try to show, what happened with the case of the Greek radio. All the people who were in favor of decentralized radio broadcasting show the liberalization of the medium as a chance to satisfy their interests and in that way the conflict of different interests during the evolution of radio influence the overall process of the medium up to its specialization. |
Keeping in mind that in the last 50 years the only legal broadcast enterprises belonged to (or were controlled directly by) the state of Greece, I will attempt to refer to milestone events which affected the developments so far and which will most certainly determine developments in the years to come. I will attempt to present the circumstances that took place, in order for radio to become private. I will show how Radio changed from a medium of general interest (belonging to the public sector) to a privately owned medium with specific formats of programming and I will draw some conclusions. Although somebody could argue that this is most a descriptive study, the separate reference to aspects of this evolution that are made give us the possibility to understand deeper the relation between the cause and the final conclusion that prove my hypothesis; that the Greek politics was in the long run the cause for Greek radio to become a medium with different formats. The sources I use, although they cover many areas of radio broadcasting, justify the importance of specific parts of the evolution of the Greek radio that I refer to. The reference to other countries help us see from a more critical aspect the evolution of the Greek radio. |
| 2. The transition from public to private radio |
The article 15 of the Greek constitution and the law 230 of 1975 are an example of the direct control that the state of Greece had upon radio and television; there was a state monopoly. This state monopoly was also justified by the terms of the limited radio spectrum and the centralized character of the state (Papathanassopoulos 1989). Another term of justification was that the Greek market would not be able to support private and state media. The article 15 was very ambivalent, leaving room for arbitrary interpretation by each government, as it talked of State direct control over Radio and Television which -depending on the occasion- could be translated either in State's exclusive right to broadcast, or State's obligation to regulate Broadcasting. As P. Daltoglou points up, the state by using the term "direct state control" can define whether or not, and under what circumstances, private concerns could be allowed to be broadcast. Compared to the old legislation, the New Law (1730 of 1987) was just a repetition of the permanent and obsolete articles which governed Radio and TV up to that date, concerning administrative organization. The new law also introduced some interesting regulations which could secure the functioning of the public broadcast media in order to operate independently of the government and secure the objectivity of their programs. The final and more interesting point of this law introduced some innovations in the area of local radio and satellite TV. The law guarantees legal entity to the pirate radio stations and promotes their development. Before that law only the local authorities were acknowledged with the right of operation local radio stations through a decision of the Ministry of Presidency and Communications. At the beginning this privilege was given without any authorization from the Constitution but afterwards was confirmed by the article 213 of the New Law. With this law there is the possibility of the foundation of local municipal radio stations. But even if the operation of the municipal stations was legally secured, the establishment of the private local radio didn't yet have any legislative coverage. |
As E. Venizelos notes, the most amateur illegal (until then) efforts expressed pure hobbyist interests without any obvious political stands. In that way the legislator had to consider the current tendencies of radio broadcasting and legislate accordingly. The New Law presents entailed standardization of the local radio. The monopoly of the public media can be broken within certain limits that the legislation defines and in accordance with the Constitution, provided that the legal and technical standards will be kept based on the new law. |
"Local radio" refers to the whole of the local radio stations which are established and operate aligned with the license of the Minister of Presidency of the Government. All the stations broadcast from 87,5 to 107,7 MHz in FM band. The basic principle of "Locality" in the Local Radio Station, states that it is its local character which determines the content of its program. In France for example, the local radio holds its identity as it is related strongly to the local community. The constant and systematic striving for true local communication, the integration of radio as a tool in the area serviced and the adaptation of the program to local life in all its aspects represent the main dimensions of the character of the Local Radio (Hamelin 1989). Another principle of the "Locality" of a radio station is also the local transmission (limited coverage). Every station has its own geographic range of transmission and its own specific district. According to the law there is not a specific number of frequencies available for every district. According to the article 2§4 of the new law the licenses are given after a proposal of a newly formed "Commission of Local Radio" to Greek citizens. However no more than one license is granted to the same person. According to the constitution there are two types of licenses, the first one is only for professional (profit seeking enterprise) use and the second one is amateur (non-profit). The stations which have the second type of licenses can transmit only recreational and educational programs and not advertisements. |
At the time when all this media legislation was being established; the publicly-owned Media were under fire by non-government affiliated political organizations and citizen groups for not being pluralist and objective. Channel 15 (1985 - formed by communication specialist and activist Roussos Koundouros) was possibly one of the most influential of these citizen groups, and it consisted of 33 personalities- all well known intellectuals- who shared similar views about the "authoritarian" broadcast legislation. As D. Katsoudas emphasizes, it was a pressure group whose members demonstrated faith and devotion to the true meaning of the article 15 of the Constitution, which was regarded as referring only to the control of the mass media by the government and not to the exclusive right to broadcast. A pressure group is any group of individuals that tries to influence the government and promote ideals or material benefits. The goals and tactics of a pressure group evolve according to its relationship with other forces in society (Euchner 1990). As the main coordinator of the whole effort, Roussos Koundouros, had said; 'Channel 15' was really oriented in operating a -as much as possible- real free radio station which would mark a new era in the Greek media affairs. The pressure group of "Channel 15" served its role not only promoting the idea of free radio but also supporting municipal radio. The people in "Channel 15" had understood that there wasn't any possibility to break the public monopoly if they didn't get strong political support, exactly what the municipal authorities were doing. These municipal authorities had to apply on a permanent basis what "Channel 15" did with its illegal transmissions. It was generally believed that the government could never close the municipal radio stations although they were illegal and had to make for them another positive legislative regulation. With this consideration in mind the pressure group of "Channel 15" started promoting the idea of free radio, also with the dream that entrepreneurs will be found and that they would see in free radio stations potential for an enterprise. They would think that all their investment definitely would have some profit. However, another group of persons, independent producers or journalists, would solely have the responsibility for regulating the non-public radio stations. In conclusion the final formation of the program would be the responsibility of the specialists and the group of investors would not interfere in the job of the team of producers and journalists, which sounded rather romantic. Roussos Koundouros wanted to combine the art of speech, of free-expression with the broadcasting, without damaging the quality of what is transmitted by commercializing it. The "Pressure Group" which helped very much by promoting the idea of free but also alternative radio was something that, in combination with the political circumstances, was a success. The dream of these people, who believed in the idea of free expression, was becoming a reality when, more specifically, the 3 major mayors who belonged to the political party of "New Democracy" in the three biggest cities of Athens, Pireas and Thessaloniki started establishing municipal Radio Stations. As J. Drinkwater says; the social authorities (governments, business, civil and public bodies etc.) have learned the importance of the use of the mass media. In England the social authorities employ large numbers of press and public relations staff to handle the media-to protect and enhance their organizations' reputation. |
The 3 Greek mayors moved towards the foundation of radio stations with the belief that, according to the Constitution, although the public mass media belongs to the State, the State only controls the non-public ones, so with this thought the foundation of a radio station is legal (Alivizatos 1990). Then the government had only two choices: Either to imprison the three mayors or to legislate accordingly to the new media-situation. Soon a trend was developed, where almost all small cities, suburbs and communities desired a radio station almost at any cost. The reasons were obvious: People liked it, they were practically infatuated by the development of the medium, and -most certainly- the mayors were charmed with the new possibilities of promoting their image and their work, to their voters. Finally there were also the amateur radio stations, that belonged to some people who just love radio broadcasting, and are not interested in making a living from this activity. These are individuals or small groups who call themselves "Communications Wizards" who usually broadcast with inexpensive equipment squeezed between the frequencies of the big time stations. In contrast there are some other pirate and illegal radio stations which broadcast illegally advertisements, and pay no attention to quality of broadcasted programs (Mathioudakis 1990). After this promotion, the medium started to become very popular as a mean of communication. The overall Greek society was affected in this phenomenon. The medium was becoming so popular that it started to play a major role in the ordinary Greek life. It was not only the ratings that indicated this phenomenon; radio was a major part of the Greek culture. In that way investments worth millions of dollars were spent on this medium, with investors seeking power and profits through this new rediscovered medium. Concerning profits the market started becoming so saturated, that only in very few cases a radio station would be profitable or even able to pay its employees. The high competition, caused by the large number of stations, (over 70 in the Athens Area) in a very small market (with regard to advertising expenditures potential) in Athens, caused that many employees of the stations, from journalists to producers, stayed unpaid for a long period of time and from the other side some other stations hired employees with very high salaries (ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 a month). This phenomenon created a very unbalanced situation for most people who were employed in radio. On the other hand this situation is connected directly with the ratings, because the advertising companies and more generally the different clients preferred mostly a station with higher ratings than one with lower ratings -the same being valid about different programs. So the revenues of a few radio stations were increasing while others fared really bad. In order to balance the situation -this phenomenon of the clients being attracted to the few radio stations- an intermarket was created inside the other one. This intermarket functioned with completely different rules (Roumeliotis 1990). The revenues from the advertising money was from now on a privilege of the few and most powerful, (from different perspectives) radio stations. |
A way had to be found to stabilize the situation, in order for the medium to function properly and contribute to the economic development of Greek society. A solution was thought to be the foundation of the National Radio - TV council (NRC) in November of 1989. It was an institution which promised a lot. Its members were people from the area of science, literature, art and politics. They gave it legislative and regulative authorities in order to control radio and television with objectivity, pluralism being the main concern. After six months of existence it had to announce a Journalistic Code of Deontology of programs and advertisements. Also it had to set directions and give advice to the private and public sectors for aligning to the principles of the deontology. The council could impose sanctions for the violators and make the selection of the licensees-to be-after careful consideration of the applicants' credentials. Although the main concern of the council was to stabilize the situation that existed in radio broadcasting, because of its other "political" priorities the situation had still left unbalanced. Unfortunately, the fear of the political influence of media owners in manipulating the public opinion, lead the government to the option of keeping the council dormant and control its decisions. This was not only a Greek tactic; in Italy the top regulating instrument, the Constitutional Court, faced the same problems. The passing of the Broadcasting Act in 1990, lead many associations and legal scholars to note that the Act in practice legalized the existing situation in broadcasting and was therefore contrary to the decisions of the Constitutional Court. Wondering for other reasons that lead this institution to this dormant stage we see that if we examine its composition, we could question why this mode of selecting the members was established, as it ensures the dominant representation of one or the other political ideology. Even if these people want to decide independently; there is the political perspective of their decision, so there is always a political attitude. Then we have a top regulating instrument that takes political decisions. Probably in other countries the things are a little bit different. In Sweden there is a politically independent intellectual figure, of common acknowledgment, who becomes the president of the corresponding instrument which governs media affairs without being politically influenced. In the U.S.A, the FCC is the major institution that controls all the electronic communications in the country. As Carter & Franklin point out, the members of the committee are agreed upon by the two major parties, no more than three members may be from the same political party. But its presider officer is appointed by the president of the U.S.A. The Chairman, chosen by the President, is the chief executive officer and has major administrative responsibilities, including the setting of the agenda. The composition of the Greek council affected the setting of the agenda of issues that the council had to examine. In that way the council was facing problems of political interest which were not related directly to the main core of the problems of the Greek radio. The Greek radio continued facing problems like the decreasing revenues, especially as the new medium-Free Television came into the picture. The council could not prevent the increase in the taxation for radio stations and this resulted in the increase in the prices of the advertisement. This had the effect of less demand of advertisements. Although the Council was strongly related to the political world, it could not control policies that the government established which looked at the economic exploitation of the medium. The royalties a station has to pay to the record companies for the music it is airing, also increases its operational costs. Even if this institution was supposed to have the role of the supervisor of the Greek media affairs, its inability to function properly let many problems uncontrolled and become a disease for the Greek radio institution. The illegal competition of the sales of advertisements between the legal and the illegal radio stations that exist in Greece was a major obstacle for the healthy development of the medium . The illegal stations sell time to the advertisers with very low cost in order to steal advertisements from the legal radio stations. Certainly this problem also falls in the sphere of responsibility of the Council. The bottom line was the shrinking size of the Greek currency available for commercials and the over segmentation to a number of stations while at the same time the main bulk of it went to the three highest rated stations. That, combined with increased operational costs that came up after all these economical problems, led to programming specialization and the establishment of format radio. |
| 3. The format radio - A proposal for a future study-Conclusion |
When we refer to a particular format of radio we mean that we're dealing with a specific kind of programming structure. Hasling refers to the format of a station as the "sound" of the station, which is actually the main consideration of a radio station to maintain a certain degree of consistency so that listeners will know what to expect. Concerning the development of format radio in Greece, the Greek market was "pure" for broadcast media and specially for radio. Therefore it is going up to this moment through phases that have happened in other countries of the world, in the 30s or 40s. In the U.S.A, radio started as a medium for everyone, programmers tried to please as many people as possible. When most people speak of "old-time radio," they mean the mainstream network entertainment programs. Radio developed its program formats in the 1930s (Smith). However, later on and especially when other media came into the picture, it was discovered that in order to survive, radio had to find ways to target its own audience in an efficient way, becoming more competitive. The answer to the problem was specialization. Greek radio is going through a similar stage, as the first municipal stations had programs for practically everyone, but as new radio projects came into picture they had to compete for the same audience. Most radio stations specialize. Rather than attempting to program for the general public, a radio station chooses a target audience, that devises a programming format to reach an audience that shares certain common characteristics -characteristics that in turn, are targeted by specific advertisers. Instead they tailored programming to reach a specific segment of the audience and then sold advertising time to companies that wished to reach that segment (Smith). This programming concept makes life easier for two particular heads of station departments: Program and Sales. These directors now offer specialized services as i.e. the program director can limit his employment choices to the right people for News-only, Album Oriented-Rock, Talk or even Sports Radio. For example a radio station specialized in Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) has a very lifestyle orientation and promotes aspects that are relevant to the interests and attitudes of its listeners (Keith & Krause). Producers now can focus on a specific kind of programming which they know best. Seeking the right music becomes much easier than before, and the targeted audience which usually suffers from information overload what is called "Media Clutter", responds favorably to being able to have what it enjoys the most, on a 24 hour basis. The life of the Sales director becomes easier. This particular manager can locate the right potential advertiser for a specific audience that the programming director has targeted for the particular radio station. This results to more efficient advertising and more revenues for the radio station. The main reason that promotes specialization of radio opposed to other media is the "flexibility" of radio, which exists in its nature. Its nature justifies also the characterization of the "secondary" medium. As Crisell explains, the listener's use of radio is not so much determined by the program routines it offers as by his/her own daily routines, the times when his/her personal circumstances allow him/her to listen or prevent him/her from listening. This gives an extra advantage to radio to be more flexible on its programming comparing to other media, unlike television, whose programming is strongly related with their audiences use. Radio can adjust itself to changes in the trends of the market very easily. The cost of production is much cheaper. With radio you can do just anything at all, you can turn the whole program around in just 24 hours or less, something you can't do with television or with other media because you need to schedule yourself in advance. Radio becomes a much cheaper and accessible medium for small businesses to advertise their products. Radio is most flexible both for advertisers and for producers, who among other things may have the option to express themselves creatively. |
Keeping these characteristics in mind we should question what formats are the best for the Greek market. It's hard to say since there are very few formats that have not been tried yet. Here is what things look like so far: There are a few general interest stations at the higher end of the ratings scale. There also certain specialized stations that follow some kind of format, like TOP 40' stations, news oriented stations and so on. Some of the formats that we haven't seen yet are a New Age or Jazz station, or (utilizing certain AM properties like the fact that the signal is carried further and has poorer quality) a talk only station. There may also be room in medium waves for a station with music from the 30s for which there is no need for high fidelity. Maybe there is also room for municipal stations with local publicity and sensitivity to whatever happens locally. |
Considering the particularities of the Greek market and the current success of the existent radio formats, it would be really useful as a future extension of this study, to try to explore on this question. Anyone who would try to propose a format for the Greek market will have also to consider the characteristics of the Greek society that influenced the evolution of the medium. In order to prevent any dysfunctions of the model-format of programming he will have to design in from Greek reality; the researcher will have to make a content analysis of information that refers to the overall profile of the Greek listeners identity. This information can be deducted from specific parts of this paper through the examination of the role of the Greek society to particular aspects of the radio evolution. |
Concluding, I can see a lot of room for new kinds of format radio in this market but always keeping in mind the use of the AM-band. The diversity of programming that can exist in the FM-station can lead to the separation of the FM-AM station programming. About 1965 in U.S. the FCC provided the impetus for the diversification of FM programming into popular and even 'talk' formats previously limited to AM stations (Sterling). |
Potentially, there may be a huge audience for different kinds of music, as black or reggae music. Regarding classical music I see the possibility through the cooperation of a University. As far as Greek music is concerned I can not see many specializations in the Greek market because of the underdeveloped Greek record industry. As by this time there is limited left space to transmit and my prediction is that there will be small Radio stations dealing with very specific kinds of music surviving "on the fringe" of the commercial ones. By having less people working for them and trying less imaginative ideas, is a bad idea to keep in mind the American market. So can it be that it is better to have this chaos if with it there is still the chance for experimental expression? Or is it better to have a more rigidly regulated market with clearly defined commercial criteria which will let little room for anything "alternative" to occur? I hope that as the radio media scene is still being formulated in Greece, there is still a chance to have a nicely balanced end result which will consist of a fairly regulated market with room and aid for the artists and the experimenters of the medium. Non-profit ventures co-existing with commercial ones, especially as digital technology makes room for new stations in the frequency spectrum. (Keeping also in mind the utilization of the medium wave band). |
For radio to be successful in the years to come it will need serious changes in its concepts and formats. As Joanson also points out: the major obstacle is for radio to overpass the nolstagic obsession with its own glorious past and the conservatism in its approach to programming new quality format radio. Is there any reason to believe that the trend in the years to come will be towards format radio? Current indications say "Yes" as I attempt to show in parts of this paper. If so, I hope that we will be able to see in Greece stylish format stations formed for different kinds of audiences both adapting to their needs and tastes as well as trying new ways which will overall improve Communication through this powerful and recently rediscovered Medium for Greece. |
| ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY |
* Original in Greek