Radio Centraal (Antwerp, 106.7 fm), is one of the very few non-commercial (no advertising) and independent (no structural subsidies) radios in the north of Belgium. It is funded by its collaborators and functions in a basic-democratic way. Radio Centraal has recently been convicted to pay a fine and will be taken off the air during one week in June, because they defied the very stringent regulatory constraints which make that its transmissions are only audible in a small section of the city. We consider such regulatory constraints as soft censorship, a democracy unworthy. To protest against this, but also to put this (local) case in a wider perspective of citizens rights to communicate, the right to make our own media and the right to be listened to, we call upon you to sign this online petition.
Are 'our' media still Your media?
Do you sometimes also question the current media-landscape ? Do you also have the feeling that audience-numbers, and thus commercial interests prevail ? That even public broadcasters seldom leave the beaten track ? Do you believe that citizens should also be able to exert their communication right to produce their own media ? That there is little space for the unexpected, for the local, for small things, as well as big issues ? Do you also miss auditive adventures ? With music that cannot be listened to elsewhere ? Spaces where talents get the chance to grow or even mess about in a funny way ? Where minorities get a voice and are empowered ?
In the whole of North-Belgium there are only three radio’s with an independent, non-commercial profile and organised in a basic-democratic way, by each community for its own community. Spaces where people can realise their creative ideas in a flexible way, be it on a weekly basis or a single project. Radio Scorpio (106.0 fm) in Leuven, Radio Katanga (105.1 fm) in Aalst en Radio Centraal (106.7 fm) in Antwerp. Radio Progress in Sint-Niklaas is still active, but did not get a licence during the recent round of frequency allocation in the summer of 2004.
Especially in big cities such community radios fulfill a specific and increasingly important role in terms of social inclusion and participation. It is, however, precisely there that the equally sounding commercial stations dominate the spectrum. Alternatives, on the other hand, are forced to operate at very low emission power at the margins. Take the case of Antwerp and that of Radio Centraal. The station, celebrating its 25th birthday this year, is totally independent and self-supporting without transmitting any advertising. Last summer Radio Centraal got a new licence as “city radio”, but due to the very technical regulation in place it can only transmit at 14watt, not enough to carry it’s signal across the city. In large areas of the city the radio can no longer be listened to. Because Centraal defied these regulatory limits, to reach its many publics, they were forced to pay a fine and will be taken off air for a week from 18th till 25th of June 2005.
In doing so, the Flemish media regulator is silencing one of the very few really independent and non-commercially operating radio’s in North-Belgium, temporary now, but structurally in the long run. Such forms of soft censorship are a democracy unworthy and cannot be accepted!
As collaborator, listener, sympathiser or just concerned citizen, we call upon you to protest against this decision and also support our aims regarding the democratic, social and cultural relevance of alternative community media, media diversity and regulation that supports such initiatives instead of gagging them.
- For the recognition at a regional, national and international level of governance of the cultural and social benefits of (local) independent and non-commercial media-initiatives
- For a statute of non-commercial radio’s
- For the adaptation of technical norms allowing for another voice to be heard next to the abundant commercial offer
