Danish public broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR) is being pressurised by the government to scrap plans to close its foreign language news services. A few weeks ago, DR said it was going to close down DR International, which produces news in English, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Somali, and southern-Slavic languages. The decision was part of a plan to save nearly DKK 100 million (13 million euro).
But Minister of Culture Brian Mikkelsen declared at a meeting of the parliamentary cultural committee that he would investigate whether the programming could be saved. He stressed that he could not get involved in the actual decision about cancelling DR International, because that decision was made by the board of trustees. Offering the news in foreign languages was not a part of the public service contract between the Ministry of Culture and DR, according to Mikkelsen.
Danmarks Radio has just relaunched its website, and for those who don’t speak Danish the pages in foreign languages are harder to find. You have to click on ‘Andre sprog’ (other languages) in order to see a list of available news services. An easier way is to click on this link and bookmark the page.
Danmarks Radio to reduce budget by 95 million kroner
on Sep 30th, 2005 at 13:40
It costs them 13 million Euro for that news service? That is more than the cost of NOVA on Dutch TV?
on Sep 30th, 2005 at 14:25
No, the news service doesn’t cost 13 million euro - that’s the total amount DR wants to save. To make it clearer I will add a link to the earlier story we ran on this.
on Oct 1st, 2005 at 10:51
Wonder if they will also object the plans to shut down 243 and 1062 kHz? So far this appears to be a really low-profile matter, with Stig Hartvig Nielsen being the only one who cares at all…
on Oct 2nd, 2005 at 08:43
Each year national broadcasters seem to reduce their foreign language output and for those of us whose danish is not perfect or even existant - it represents the closing of another window on an ancient and rightly proud nation.
DR has provided quality news in english for decades - I hope they reconsider their position.
on Oct 2nd, 2005 at 12:50
Well, Denmark has always had a strange attitude to foreign languages. Remember, Danmarks Radio was forced to close its shortwave service in English against its own wishes, because an Act of Parliament was passed that specifically forbade it to broadcast in any languages other than Danish. When the DSWCI wanted to make a special programme including English, they had to ask permission from the government to do it!