Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.11.2018, Qupperneq 12

RÚV is Iceland’s public broadcast-
ing service. Its mission is to inform,
educate and entertain everyone. It
operates several radio stations and
one television channel, all of which
are also online. Broadcasting was seen
as a public good, thus RÚV had a legal
monopoly until 1986, and it remains
one of the most used public broad-
casters in the world; 95% of residents
consume it at least once a week.
RÚV is home to many culturally
important programmes, including
the annual Eurovision Song Contest,
which usually claims well over 90% of
the viewing audience on the night is
airs. It often has the rights to broad-
cast national sports teams and the
long-running and beloved New Year’s
eve satire show, Áramótaskaup. Its
Kastljós investigative
news program ended
S i g m u n d u r D a v í ð
Gunnlaugsson’s tenure
as Prime Minister in
2016 in cooperation
with Reykjavík Media.
He used to work for
the broadcaster, but
became very critical of
it once he was in government, promptly
cutting its budget. In a fine example of
the Áramótaskaup, that decision was
made into a parody of Miley Cyrus’
“Wrecking Ball” music video.
But does the “public” in “public broad-
casting” include immigrants, too?
Who is “the public”?
The company has hired a full-time
employee dedicated to increasing and
improving services in English. This
important task falls on the dedicated
shoulders of Alexander Elliott. He is
officially the only member of staff dedi-
cated to this effort, but he has support
throughout the company. “I have the
support of everybody in the building
and have already called on more than a
few of them for help, advice, ideas and
so forth,“ he explains.
Since Alexander joined the broad-
caster, the previously sporadic and
infrequent English-language service
has become a daily online reality. The
recent episode of Kveikur, a television
exposé of abuses of immigrant labour,
was subtitled in English and Polish.
Immigrants now make up around
ten percent of the
population and many
have not learned the
local language. While
nearly all Icelanders
speak English fluently,
immigrants often feel
excluded from impor-
tant parts of society,
l ike news and pop
culture. It is hoped
that providing more
news and entertain-
ment will make immi-
grants feel like a part of
the community. Alexander noted that
“RÚV okkar allra” (Everyone’s RÚV) is
more than just a slogan, it is central to
RÚV”. He also believes including immi-
grants in more and important parts of
culture will have other positive effects,
as “the new service will hopefully play
a future role in helping people learn
Icelandic as well.“
Alexander’s role is to help RÚV
perform its crucial statutory duty, “to
provide everyone with at least some-
thing they enjoy or find value in. It was
an obvious gap, knowing how many
people don’t speak Icelandic, to have
services only available in Icelandic”.
The news comes first
Alexander’s position is very new and
his work is just beginning. Right now
his job is to get the news up every week-
day. He told the Grapevine that he tries
to produce original content every week.
“It’s all very new still,” he says. “It
started with just news stories, but is
developing into more audio and video
as well. Translations of
the news into English
are already being done
well by Grapevine and
a handful of other
good sources, so I see
the national broad-
caster’s role as being
more in the radio and
television side.”
The project has
gotten off to a modest
s t a r t , c o n s i s t i n g
mostly of the few daily
online news articles,
but Alexander teased the possibility of
audio and video programs.
“There could be scope for some
broadcasting,” he says. “A daily news
bulletin on the radio is one thing we
have discussed as a possibility. In fact,
RÚV used to do exactly that every day
but it stopped about a decade ago.”
There was a daily morning news
bulletin on RÁS 1, but it was cancelled
due to a lack of staff who felt comfort-
able reading the news in English. That
was also the time of the financial crisis,
so budget cuts might have killed it
anyway.
New horizons
The project’s modest scope is only
the beginning, though. “I hope to grow
this (original programming) as the
project evolves,” he says, adding his
hope to extend the service to enter-
tainment, which is a majority of RÚV’s
daily programming.
When asked about future prospects
of the project, Alexander is optimistic.
“RÚV’s goals will change, evolve
and remain ambitious in the very long
term,” he says. “Translating news into
English was the first milestone, creat-
ing the first original radio programme
in English (available online) was
another, subtitling a really important
news programme about the abuse of
foreign workers into both English and
Polish was another. I hope there will be
many more of these little milestones,
and who knows where it will lead to.
That’s what’s so exciting about my job!“
Don’t forget Poland
Poles are by far the largest group of
immigrants, making up about 40% of
all residents of foreign origin. Not all
Poles speak English, which puts them
at particular risk of isolation and
exploitation. Alexander was emphatic
when asked about this, “Polish is next
on the list“.
Many immigrants are not yet aware
of this new service, but like public
broadcasting the world over, money is
tight. When questioned about advertis-
ing, Alexander was blunt. The company
wanted to spread the word “as widely
as possible, as cheaply as possible” is
the honest answer. We wanted to get
a decent amount of content up before
we started promoting the service. Now
we are at that point, yes, we are look-
ing at things like radio ads and social
media. And let’s not forget the power
of word-of-mouth among the interna-
tional community here in Iceland.”
You heard the man, tell your friends!
Words:
Colin Arnold
Dalrymple
Photo:
Art Bicnick
“‘RÚV okkar allra’
(Everyone’s RÚV)
is more than just
a slogan, it is
central to RÚV.”
“I hope there
will be many
more of
these little
milestones,
and who knows
where it will
lead to.”
Ending
Exclusion
Iceland’s Public Broadcaster Increasing English Service
Alexander Elliott, project manager at RÚV
12 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 19— 2018