Europa Television: the Forgotten Channel

Armed with the slogan ‘From Europe, for Europe’, the first European television channel went to war against (commercial) American television in 1985. Satellite technology had made it possible for broadcasters to reach audiences beyond national borders. Afraid of losing their hold on their national audiences, European national broadcasters joined forces and founded ‘Europa Television’. Together they set out to bring high quality television to the European people, to counter commercial pulp. Despite the channel’s original optimism, it lost the battle after only thirteen months of broadcasting. Millions in funds were lost and the book on the channel was closed. Yet, over thirty years later, the dream of European television has not died. When the European Commission published ‘Strengthening European Identity through Education and Culture’ in November 2017, it had a special role in mind for television. The Commission believed a European television channel could bring Europeans together. With the likelihood of a revival of a European channel, this is a timely investigation into the little researched Europa Television project. Europa Television was a European broadcasting initiative of the public broadcasters the ARD (Germany), NOS (the Netherlands), RAI (Italy), RTE (Ireland), RTP (Portugal) that aired from October 1st, 1985 until November 27th, 1986. The channel broadcasted from Hilversum, the Netherlands. This master thesis answers the question of how the channel’s identity was shaped through negotiations that helped build and break it. A special emphasis is placed on how the channel tried to create a European identity. Identity is considered as dynamic, the result of construction and as a negotiation between competing narratives of different actors and factors. In order to study these identity negotiations, Dutch newspaper articles, radio and television broadcasts, Europa Television records and, for the first time ever, Europa Television broadcasts were used. As Europa Television came into being in the midst of the European Economic Communities’ (EEC) attempts at creating a European identity, other studies have emphasized the EEC’s role in the project. This thesis argues that claims of its heavy influence are exaggerated as the EEC had little impact on the project, notwithstanding friendly words of encouragement and a small one-time donation. Instead, it argues that the Dutch government played a crucial role in the channel’s birth and demise, a role which other authors have neglected to 4 acknowledge. Supporting of the channel with millions of guilders, the Dutch government played a fundamental part in the channel’s founding, yet their desire to protect the Dutch television system soon placed Europa Television in a difficult (financial) position. This thesis shows that Europa Television lacked a clear identity. The channel’s vague, multi-interpretable policy plans lacked direction and caused confusion among staff. Europa Television was a European channel in name but had neither defined what it considered to be European television, nor who their European audience was. The channel tried to create a sense of European identity for its viewers by emphasising a common past and religion, as well as through informing viewers about differences between cultures in Europe. However, claims that describe the channel as propaganda do not correspondent with the results of the channel’s images analysis. Moreover, this analysis showed a mixed representation of positive and negative images on the European Economic Community and European cooperation. This thesis also shows that there was an irreconcilable divide within the Europa Television about the commercial nature of the channel. Some actors wished to reach a niche audience with high culture programming, while other actors wanted to reach larger audiences with more popular programmes. Its mission to fight Americanization was neglected by the channel as much of its programming was American. Finally, the thesis argues that through Europa Television experienced many setbacks from external factors and actors, the channel was not ruined through negotiations, but doomed from the start due to its flawed set up.