RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

demand is there , sooner ог later some station will arise ог will shif t its format to meet that demand . The problem with such an assumption is that many elements of communities can't articulate their demands very clearly (especially if they happen not to speak the majority language) , while others аге numerically too small and/ ог too economicaily deprived to furmsh the fmancial support a station needs . If a station can be supported through national funding (license fee, annual appropriation) , that may lessen the 'need' for an element to be large enough anđ/ог financially enougl) to warrant service, but license fees and governmental appropriations аге under increasing attack in most countrjies that still have them , partly because the politicians who hžve to approve increases in either of them regard that as unpalatabie to the electorate , anđ hence damagmg to their chances for re-election. The mcreasing willmgne.ss to see private enterprise active ог even dominant in fields of endeavor which traditionally fell into the 'public' sector also makes it hkely that broadcasting will be 'privatized' to an mcreased đegree . Does this mean that 'commumty service' is a disappearing concept? Probably not , although it may disappear in certain forms . For exampie , the day may come when the BBC decides that it no longer can justify the expenditure of funds on a long-runnmg radio serial such as "The Archers" simply because too few listeners remam , no matter how mućh those happy few may treasure the program. The Westdeutscher Runđfunk (WDR) m Cologne someđay may determme that too small a commumty of listeners exist|s for the radiophonic experiments of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The NHK may discover that there's hardly a radio-listening Ifarmer left for certain of its agricultural .broadcasts , and no citydwelling listeners , either . But those communities аге national communities , and , although it's perfectly reasonable to acknowledge their existence and to attempt to serve them through national broadcasting , the major changes and therefore possibilities that confront radio in the remammg уеагз of this century and probably on into tha next I аге at the local level . Reconsideration of spectrum use , the availataility of low-cost, high performance eguipment (although many broađcast engmeers would regard that as an охутогоп! ) , and some evidence of citizen activism (not as much as in the late 60s and early 70s , to be sure , but тоге than in most other penods withm the lif etime of broađcasting ) all combine to make it possible to consider ог to reconsider the role of radio m the life of the community .

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