Dutch Railways Melts Down Yet Again

9292.nl. Not to be trusted again

The sheer incompetence of NS and its failure to run a railway system on time beggars belief. A derailment on the line between Hilversum and Naarden Bussum on Wednesday of this week has meant a fleet of busses is used between the two stations since then. NS advises you to check train times before departure. I stupidly trusted the combined travel service called 9292.nl. At 0730 today they were still showing this as an option.

Sheer chaos at 0814 in Hilversum station. No information. Just touring buses outside.  No information in the bus - just a request to take newspapers with you ! No announcements in Naarden station either. No coffee. Not a word of apology for inconvenience caused.

Reminds me of travelling in the German Democratic Republic....

I'm afraid this is another in the long line of stories. Dutch railways seem to be totally absorbed with expanding and refurbishing their empire of railway stations. They spare no expense installing useless creature comforts (the outdoor electric heating on station platforms is my favorite. A tower with 5 volt USB sockets to charge an empty phone would be far more useful).

Outdoor heating on the platforms. Now that's a great idea! Not.

Meanwhile the trains themselves are overcrowded, cancelled at short notice and expensive for the service offered. It has reached a point where I avoid them, if at all possible. It's becoming a national disgrace!

End of rant. You can now resume what you were doing earlier.

NS are masters of mystery - especially when something disrupts their timetable. 

Brewster Kahle - For the love of media and metadata! Update

A lot of valuable broadcast material is just about to thrown out in Hilversum

Important broadcast material documenting the 20th century, which has cost millions of Euros to make, is rotting in vaults. Worse still, as the economic crisis in Europe worsens, valuable collections are being destroyed. This is complete madness when, in other parts of the world, archivists like Brewster Kahle have come up with practical solutions. Of course, not everything can be preserved. But dumping the lot is destroying heritage which cannot be replaced.

The archivists on the West Coast of the US have a path to preserving heritage for next generations. And I love people who not only have big ideas, but also execute on them. Leo Laporte interviewed Brewster this past week. It's a great interview because Brewster has refined his story of why this is all so important. And he is now getting the backing of many libraries who realise that the old models are breaking down. Libraries provide access to knowledge in coherent ways. And although we often think that "everything is on the Internet", that is just not true. The US Library of Congress has a collection of 26 million pieces. The Internet Archive is collecting about 1 billion items a week. They have around 10 Petabytes (10 thousand Terabytes) which they store inside a former church.

I see the BBC's been to the archive too. There is a clip from Alan Yentob on YouTube.

Scanning books to digitize the content @the Internet Archive

Petabyes of Servers - with backups in Amsterdam it seems

Starting to preserve the physical books...

Few people know that the Internet Archive has also been taping US TV channels off the air since 2009 and coming up with a great search engine to find quotes (like they do on the Daily Show).

West Coast of Europe Connection

Recently had the privilege of talking with Brewster on his visit to Amsterdam to talk with info.nl.

Part of the Internet Archive is also backed up on Petabyte servers in Amsterdam

Brewster and the team on a recent visit to Amsterdam

Love the sticker on his MacBook. 10 Petabytes filed so far....

Call to action - Help and advice needed.

I have compiled and curated an archive of the Media Network programmes I made between 1980-2000. It is about 200 hours of audio material documenting the (inernational) broadcast media for the last half of the 20th century. We did quite a few documentaries on broadcasting before, during and after the Second World War. I am wondering how to transfer this on-line collection to the Internet Archive, together with the metadata that goes with it. I notice that that in general, people on the production side of things are awful at writing useful metadata so that others can find their great productions. That's why I rewrote the summaries. Without that material, it doesn't make sense. I don't get the 10 million downloads a month that the Internet Archive can boast, but having 5000 unique downloads a month of material which is 20 years old still shows it has some value. By all means explore. You can get in touch through www.jonathanmarks.com or About me.

Update: interesting stats from this article in the Guardian today.

Kahle, a computer scientist who made a fortune in the 1990s with tech ventures, including Alexa Internet, dreamed of a Great Library of Alexandria 2.0 since he studied at MIT. The archive's first headquarters was in the nearby Presidio district. In 2009 it moved into a former Christian Science church on Funston Avenue; its pillars and facade evoke antiquity.

About 50 staff work here and another 100 work elsewhere in the bay area and in 32 scanning centres, usually in libraries, around the world. The centres digitise books, microfilm and regular film. Automation proved imprecise so it is done manually, each worker processing 800 to 1000 pages per hour. This labour means material such as Boston's John Adams Library, the Hoover archive and the 1930 US census are now online and free. Institutions such as government agencies, libraries and universities, many outside the US, pay modest fees for special requests.

The archive has also stored 750,000 actual books at a nearby climate-controlled storage unit, a literary equivalent of the Svalbard global seed vault. There is space for another 780,000.

Engineers "crawl" the world's top million websites, capturing and storing pages which link to other pages which are captured and stored. Every three months they start over, because the list of top million sites constantly changes. An average web page lasts 75 days. In 2009, they raced against the clock to save as much as they could of the web-hosting service GeoCities, before Yahoo shut it down. If the owner of a defunct website prefers that the pages remain dead, he or she can ask the archive to remove them, requests that are almost always granted.

Engineers also collect news from more than 60 TV stations worldwide and YouTube videos, selecting the latter according to Twitter mentions. "It's not perfect but tweets give us an idea of what people consider important," said Alexis Rossi, the web collections manager. She estimated that the 10bn URLs saved each every three month cycle represented – very, very roughly – about a 10th of the internet's output:

Only God knows what's happening in Hilversum

The commercial Telegraaf Media Group made a big splash a while back with social media (by acquiring Hyves.nl) and also backing a hyperlocal network called Dichtbij.nl (Nearby or Neighbourhood). This was accompanied by loud calls by the TMG for public broadcasting to get out of the news business because they were operating with an unfair advantage. TMG need to find new leaders. Because evidently, the current vision isn't working. Hyves has plummeted in popularity since being acquired by TMG, now being overtaken by the number of Twitter users in the Netherlands. Another classic example of a newspaper buying a social media network and thinking this is going to be a great advertising outlet. Better still, the users make the content, so no expense on writers and editors. I see that Sanoma Media is also getting rid of its public blogs site weblog.nl, giving it away to Wordpress.




And then there is the hyperlocal network. What a disaster that is. It's simply a list of local crime, news of social collapse (neighbourhood arguments) and specialises in the aftermath of traffic accidents. We never see pictures of the victims. It's always shots of emergency services clearing up the mess. Because NONE of this is news you can use, it isn't a viable platform for social discussion. So no ads of any value because there's no traffic. My local community radio station is an automated juke box for much of the day.

And so, frankly, if there was a major emergency in the area (floods on the way because melting snow?) how on earth would I find out?

Be better prepared for the worst - then hope for the best

Eindhoven - in what used to be the world's largest radio factory

Happy New Year! 

It's going to be a really tough one - for those who do nothing. But one filled with opportunities to bring about much needed change in society.

I've been asked to contribute some media predictions to the great Nic Newman list, published by each year by a digital strategist I admire. Decades ago I worked briefly with him when he was also a producer at Radio Netherlands, before he pursued a career within the BBC, shaping much of its early online journalism, especially in BBC World Service.

So what do I expect for Dutch media in 2013? For a start, I think you need to look beyond broadcasting.

Winners and Losers

I think the city of Amsterdam has the opportunity to establish itself as a leading smart city, setting an example of how life will develop for cities of around 1 million. These cities have a completely different set of challenges to London, Tokyo, Mexico City, and New York. So rather than play the smallest of the megacities, why not lead in one of the largest of the medium-sized smart cities? Having superfast connectivity to the rest of the world and plenty of the right infrastructure in place (or nearly ready) means there are no technical blocks in place.

The only barrier may be international ambition. Things have to go very seriously wrong in the Netherlands before the phoenix rises from the ashes. Life in small countries can become very parochial and laid back, especially when times are tough. And I would argue we're only just entering the worst of times to come.

Amsterdam needs to make it a lot easier to start a business - fortunately that's happening

The current tendency in the Netherlands is to become very inward looking. And for a small country that's made its name from trade and tourism, now is not the time to be shouting If it ain't Dutch, it ain't much. Especially when you haven't been watching the fierce competition from neighbouring countries. While it is a great place to try things out, the Dutch market isn't big enough to support many world class business models - in splendid isolation.

The Mistier Side of Things

The city of Amsterdam experienced a creative boom before the first Internet bubble burst around 2002. Several US companies invested in the West Coast (of Europe) city, partly because it has a similar creative culture to San Francisco and Palo Alto. But the guys in Amsterdam didn't read the excellent history of Silicon Valley by Steve Blank. Because it was the military not VC's that funded Silicon Valley. In Silicon Polder they made the mistake of assuming people would stay when the party was over. They overdeveloped office space in parts of city that do not attract creatives. The office blocks surrounding the AJAX football stadium may have attracted some of the banks, but staring out at someone else's car park is not inspiring at all for creatives.

Sorry, but I never feel safe around the Amsterdam football stadium

It's bleak - even in the summer

The Brighter Side

Everything's in place to make this the creative hub of Amsterdam

Inspiring, even in the winter

The docklands area to the East of Amsterdam Central Station, on the other hand, look set to become the real creative centre of the Netherlands. It's a healthy mix of design agencies, where Holland has world class talent, and a thriving startup community, which is also moving in the right direction. That's because it's open to attract world class talent, through schemes like Startupbootcamp. Local talent is welcome to apply, but the bar is set very high. Disclosure: I'm actively involved in selecting companies for the next series of programs, and I've been amazed at the talent that has pitched to the team of mentors and investors.

Eindhoven has a plan

Realising the Industrial Age is Over

Eindhoven is a city with vision

I've also been impressed at the city of Eindhoven, which is fast becoming a high-technology hub, reinventing itself after Philips exited the city, leaving a wasteland of empty factories. Whilst there are high-tech companies on the outskirts of the city in the High Tech campus, they are also re-thinking the city centre, encouraging design studios and artists. They are one of the candidates for European Cultural Capital in 2018, and I hope they pick up the award when it is decided later this year.

Hilversum Biggest Loser in 2013

I expect an entrepreneurial triangle to emerge between Amsterdam, Delft/Leiden and Eindhoven, because the life sciences and high technology sectors are great at developing next generation technology but poor at telling the story. When prodded, they come up with the reason why it is so important. Behind every great inventor is a brilliant marketeer. Apple wouldn't have been able if Steve Wozniak hadn't teamed up with Steve Jobs. In these days where every company is a media company, a bright idea is not enough.

Hilversum is currently specialising in closing things down

Will Hilversum adapt in time?

Biggest loser for 2013 has to be the media city of Hilversum. It built its reputation in an era of scarce distribution (remember when it was a name on the radio dial? - no, most people don't). Its boom period was the 1980's and early 1990's when big game shows drew huge TV audiences and formats developed in Hilversum sold very well abroad. They were bussing the Germans in when a VAT advantage made it cheaper for RTL to produce in Hilversum rather than Cologne.

The TV monitors in Hilversum railway station are not really doing much to establish the city as media savvy...

Sadly Hilversum isn't working

But the mistake was to rely too much on the broadcast model, when it was clear at the start of 2000 that the future was broadband not broadcast. Both broadcasters and politicians defended an antiquated system of public broadcasting for decades over it's sell-by date. And now, with another 100 million coming off the public service broadcast budget, the ivory towers are crashing down. Because the first to suffer are the creatives, (because the managers always protect their own infrastructure first) Hilversum is becoming a vast wasteland of empty office space.

Too many unsafe paths ahead if the only vision is television

Unlike Leiden, Delft, Eindhoven and Amsterdam, media city Hilversum has no University. And because it is not part of the entrepreneurial triangle, and it's impossible to reach the place during the rush hours, the really creative companies are moving out. Everyone wants to be much closer to Amsterdam - ideally in the centre. While it makes sense to keep news production and transmission infrastructure in Hilversum, there's no reason for a feature producer or a creative production company to go anywhere near the place. Hilversum will need to find and attract other sectors to rebuild the wastelands of empty offices. At the moment, they're still in denial.

Don't Pick the Wrong Examples

Holland could learn a lot by looking at countries much smaller than themselves rather than always looking West towards the US. That's because the media strategies that work well in a country of 310 million, fail miserably when the potential is only 17 million. Look instead at how New Zealand has embraced film-maker Peter Jackson and photographer Trey Ratcliff.  It's a world class approach which has put their creative industry on the map. Or examine how Danish producers like Søren Sveistrup created epic productions which have been seen the world over. They did it with Danish public TV, which has also gone through a funding crisis.

Whilst it is true that Holland is the king of the talent-show formats, it needs to do much more in other media fields in order to survive, let alone lead. People will tire of the Voice, just as they got bored with Big Brother. Reality TV is so fickle, it's not the foundation for a thriving industry. It's just the icing.

Careful Nokia - learn lessons from Hilversum

Saw a story this afternoon that Nokia is selling its headquarters in Espoo, Finland and then leasing it back.

The firm said it received €170m for its headquarters from Exilion Capital Oy, a company owned by four Finnish institutions specialising in the management of real estate private equity funds. The funds managed by Exilion Capital invest mainly in commercial and residential properties in Finland’s growth centres. Nokia expects to complete the sale by the end of 2012.

“We had a comprehensive sales process with both Finnish and foreign investors and we are very pleased with this outcome,” said Timo Ihamuotila, Nokia’s CFO.

“When good opportunities arise we are willing to exit these types of non-core assets. We are naturally continuing to operate in our head office building on a long-term basis,” he added.

In October 2012, Nokia posted its fifth consecutive quarterly loss. The firm recorded an operating loss of €576m ($752) for the quarter ending September 30, 2012, dwarfing the €71m loss the firm posted in the same period in 2011. Net sales also dropped 19 per cent year-on-year from €8.98bn to €7.24bn.

Meanwhile in Hilversum, the scheme to outsource the Dutch Media park just North of the town to a separate company has ended in tears.

 TCN which exploited the park has gone into receivership. And the prospects for the whole area don't look good. A little while ago RTL said it would stay in Hilversum for the next 10 years, but I guess this latest development may mean a rethink. Many of the buildings used by public and commercial broadcasters are either being emptied, or will become empty in the next six months. 

Rent, compared to Amsterdam, wasn't that expensive. But Hilversum is a logistics nightmare to get to in the morning and its become a facilities centre rather than a creative place to be. The architecture is less than inspiring. 

NS - Communications Confusion Continues. #FAIL

No information, so time abandon the journey

Dutch railways goes from bad to worse. Arrived at Hilversum Central Station at 1345 this afternoon to find that no trains were running in either direction. The information boards simply say wait for announcements. Which of course don't come. Talked to the driver of the train on Platform 6. How long have you been here? An hour. Any news? Well my colleague says there's a power cut along the line between Bussum and Utrecht. Should I wait? Can't say, but I hear 16.30 at the earliest. I check Twitter. Other passengers say they're hearing the problem may not be solved before 10 pm at least. Someone has dug through a main power cable. Still nothing on the Tannoy. Give up. Abandon ship. Head home in the rain.... Useless. When will they take customers seriously? Someone outside solving people's problems is the very least I expect from an organisation that demands all my privacy details before it will allow me to travel on credit. (take the 320 bus over there to Amstel Station and change for Schiphol...We've arranged a coach in 20 minutes for those trying to get to Naarden) Why is customer service so terribly hard?

Chaos outside the station. No information. No direction. No plan

Living in a studio

I note that the old KRO studios in Hilversum (from where Radio Netherlands used to do it's weekly audience participation programmes in the 1950's)  are up for sale. Apparently someone is turning them into apartments. I'd want my bed in Master Control.

Media Network Ends its 30 Year Run

Andy Sennitt - Retiring Editor Media Network

Media Network web editor Andy Sennitt announced late this afternoon that their international media news blog is closing down as of Saturday March 24^th  2012. Andy is retiring. Radio Nederland Wereldomroep (Radio Netherlands Worldwide) is heading off in a very different direction in the future. So it makes sense to bow out knowing that a job has been well done. Several thousand people a week have relied on Andy’s sharp eye in spotting international media developments and their implications for those who work in the business of international story-telling. I understand the plan is to keep it online as a reference, since it’s a searchable record of media stories over the last decade that has more than academic value. That’s good news.

I hope you’ll join me in thanking Andy for great time and effort he put into editing the on-line version of Media Network. There are over 15,000 stories on the blog going back to October 2003 and he’s continued the tradition of international media reporting in fine style. That can only come from someone who is fascinated by the medium – it’s not a job – it’s a passion. As you can hear in the Media Network vintage radio archive, Andy was a regular contributor from the very start of the programme in 1981. I particularly remember that show we did about the offshore radio days. Andy has spent his career following the media, especially radio. He worked for BBC Monitoring in Caversham Park, UK as well as becoming Editor of the World Radio TV Handbook in Denmark. He moved the HQ of the WRTH to Amsterdam and Diana Janssen recruited him to work on a web-version of the radio programme.  


Andy isn't on Facebook (and only by accident on Twitter). So if you want to contact him with wishes and memories of his time at the wheel, the address is medianetwork@rnw.nl  

It’s not going to be possible to replace the Media Network news blog. But I will increase the frequency and focus of this Critical Distance blog to include more international media stories. I have been playing around with the Storyful platform, which allows you to mix video and audio clips to add to the traditional text and photos. So if you’re interested to follow what we get up to, visit this blog, subscribe and contribute to the next stage of the journey. We’re also on Facebook and Google+.  I hope we can persuade Andy to drop by from time to time. But for now, Andy we salute you. Big time!

Creative Collapse in Hilversum Continues

Hilversum Danger Signals

The Dutch Broadcast magazine reports this morning (in Dutch) that negotiators from the political parties in power at the moment (VVD, CDA and PVV) have started three weeks of intense negotiations on how to make another round of cuts in public spending. 


They won't be saying anything for another three weeks (officially) but they have (of course) already let slip that another round of budget cuts in public service broadcasting are on the cards. Perhaps another 100 million Euro will be taken away in 2013, on top of the 200 million they cut out of of regional, national and international broadcasting for next year. 


In the case of external broadcasting, they decimated the budget of Radio Nederland Wereldomroep bringing it down from 46 to 14 million Euro. It may well not even be that in the end. 7? 5? 0 million? It's looking that way for 2013.


The current plan for the rest basically reduces the Dutch public broadcasting from 4 channels (3 national and one regional network) to 3 channels (effectively combining NED3 with the regional's) to make a structure that looks like public broadcasting in Germany and a commissioning process which looks more like Channel 4 in the UK. Radio is hiding in the corner, hoping it won't be noticed. But it will! Commercial radio is hurting big time and they haven't forgot the unfair licensing of FM frequencies 


Yes, cuts were needed in public broadcasting which under the present ludicrous (yet still unique) system of public production companies has never been further away from its public. Unlike neighbouring countries, there is no independent body which allows citizens to influence the overall policy of public service broadcasting. There is no dialogue with those who pay for the privilege of watching and listening to (mostly) bland magazine shows spread over far too many channels. 


Yes, public broadcasting has maintained reasonable market shares; for the time being. But the current senior management teams have done little to prepare their staff for the role of public broadcasting in the most austere times we are about to witness probably in a century. And when it comes to understanding what is happening in the digital household of the future, it's clear to me that they haven't a clue. No, most people don't want to live in a shop, with sales-people on every screen. And how many searches for talent can we tolerate in a lifetime? 


Lack of Vision is Killing


I still meet mini-media moguls in Hilversum who are spending as though they were working in San Francisco. "Yes, cuts should happen - everywhere except in my programme". It reminds me of what went wrong in the Netherlands just before the great floods of 1953, when no-one anticipated that stronger, coherent sea defences were needed. It's certainly calm before the storm.


But, as long as the vision in Hilversum is traditional television, the weaker the argument towards the henchmen in the Hague - and the Dutch public who pay for it all through government taxation rather than a licence fee. I'm sure the politicians have already decided. Balancing the budget is the excuse needed to press the accelerator pedal. If Hilversum doesn't anticipate what's coming in programme and public value terms, then it doesn't have a future. Because without understanding and winning public support for it's future purpose, it has little influence with the politicians and, ultimately, no point.


So is anyone in Dutch public broadcasting working on a serious Plan B? 

"The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious." 

— John Scully 

Hilversum Meltdown

Is it just me, or has the local bus company serving the area outside Amsterdam just bought a fleet of ice-cream trucks to ferry around the passengers? It certainly seems to be reminiscent of the vans that used to come round the housing estate back in the UK. These are fitted out with an engine which seems to be slightly too small for the size of the chassis, so it squeals along even though there are no hills at all in Hilversum.

Connexion, the bus company, seems to have made some strange choices for its signage system. They have spent a fortune putting up new LED signage which can only display text, and although these have been up for a couple of months now, they still aren't working.

Meanwhile the screens in the buses must have been bought at a discount store because they are frequently burned out, or in this case, they display the schedule of another bus. Hope we're not financing this fiasco. Er, I'm afraid we are.