The public news and sports channel NPO Radio 1 has one hour a week for documentaries: Radio Doc, a joint program of NTR and VPRO on Sunday evenings. Just a little while longer. At the end of December, the curtain falls for this last independent documentary radio program.
Radio Doc has to make way for an amusing sports program that, according to the NPO leadership, fits better in the Radio 1 format. On Sunday evening, this may approach the desired listening share rather than a social theme or an artist’s portrait. But the NPO decision is contrary to the core task of the public broadcaster: making programs with an educational, informative or cultural purpose. If there is one program on the public radio stations that meets this requirement, it is Radio Doc. Every week it offers a creative and in-depth break from the daily news flow. This allows the public broadcaster to better distinguish itself from the commercial stations on the radio, as prescribed by the Media Act of 2016.
Radio documentary is a much-practiced journalistic form internationally. The maker immerses himself in a subject for a longer period of time, talks to those involved and searches archives. Similar to a long newspaper article, except that the story is told with sound clips that give an extra dimension to the spoken word. It is an intimate journalistic form, in which the listener can conjure up the images themselves. The harvest of almost seventeen years of Radio Doc offers a reflection of our culture that should not be underestimated. The weekly episodes of Radio Doc dealt with the most diverse subjects, from investigative journalism to historical themes, from contemporary developments to ego documents.
More than an ending
Canceling Radio Doc on linear radio means more than the end of a program; an independent genre disappears from the channel. That means a journalistic and cultural loss. The Dutch radio documentary has a long tradition and has often received national and international awards. Recently: in 2018 it received Radio Doc production Rushed the Prix Europe, this year two Radio Docs have been nominated for that prize: the series The man and the moon and the documentary Julie. From hybrid Radio Doc- to podcast-series Virus Stories was awarded the Zilveren Reiss microphone this year, while this year two Radio Doc productions were nominated for De Tegel Audio: the series El Tarangu and the documentary The Shadow Game.
The NPO decided that the 30 to 40 thousand listeners of Radio Doc will have to move to the podcast domain as of 1 January, where the program is now offered after broadcast. The program now has loyal listeners on Radio 1 and people who hear it by chance. Those groups are largely lost for Radio Doc when it is no longer broadcast live. The average age of Radio 1 listeners is around sixty. Many of them do not find their way to the podcast stage independently, while Radio Doc is just building such a good bridge to that. As makers, we fear that this decision heralds the marginalization of the radio documentary. Podcasts (in fact no more than an online distribution method) have their own laws: they are often listened to via smartphone, at a time and place of your choice. They have a goal-oriented, thematic approach and serve a different, younger audience with different expectations.
It is incomprehensible that the high-quality documentaries will soon be distributed exclusively to this – much smaller – podcast audience. As long as it has two categories of followers, Radio Doc should be on both stages. The traditional radio documentary threatens to water down differently in the on-demand domain. There the genre is subject to the laws of the market, against which the Media Act aims to protect it.
NPO leadership, reconsider your decision. Consider Radio Doc as an enrichment of the format, as a program that can both inform and entertain, and keep it on Radio 1.
Tom Rooduijn is a program maker from Radio Doc.
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