Voice of the 3rd World

This research project carried the beautiful title: The Voice of the Third World.

To understand the significance and the idea of the project, and to understand why the project lived and flourished from 1988 to 1992, we will draw your attention to a bit of history. Not to give you a full account of the history, but just to refer to some known phenomena characteristic of this period.

In 1985 Gorbachov started describing "perestrojka" and "glasnost" and a Soviet Union threatened by disintegration. For the first time in all of the ice cold history of the post world war period, a Soviet president was granted extensive coverage in the western media. The cold war was gradually being softened.

In 1986 BBC broadcast a series about people in the Soviet Union. This was one of the first times normal Soviet citizens could be seen on satellite TV, and it was basically the first time we remember the effect of personally experiencing the Soviet citizens as totally normal people, who looked at the world and the West through other eyes than we had expected. Farmers with rubber boots and bad teeth. A woman very skeptical about a Gorbachov who "could speak all right, but not bring soap." CNN broadcast live from the hearings in the American Senate concerning Oliver North and the fishy activities in Reagan's basements.

In Denmark satellite dishes began to pop up in gardens and on gables. The government led a hopeless struggle to control the Danes' possibilities of watching satellite TV, which after all ended with the government having to give up its monopoly within the media.

In 1989 the Berlin wall fell and other falls followed. TV broadcasts from the other side of the Iron Curtain pierced the curtain which the ideologies of both the East and the West had welded together.

Pictures from the third world were still a scarcity. The third world could be spoken of, but not speak, in the Western media. CNN was still not widely known. CNN World Report did not exist. The European TV stations, when dealing with the third world, nearly exclusively delivered broadcasts which saw the third world through the eyes of the first world, while on the other hand the third world's view of itself, and of the rest of the world, was never represented.

The idea of creating a research project for the purpose of bringing pictures from the third world to the Europeans via satellite TV, seems almost trivial today. But not then. To get time on a transponder and transmit satellite TV was an advanced matter at the time, and a leap into deep water for the acting parties.

Still anno 2001 there are many pictures which are never allowed to reach us. Certain countries are out in the cold. Others are just overlooked by the media. Just consider Poland, and how far there is between the pictures from this our neighboring country undergoing a historic transformation. Some countries have still today not earned the attention of the media.

In 1988 the concept was of great immediate interest. Transformed into a project with money, budget and people it was an action research project thought out in a highly oppositional manner. The idea was not to complain to anybody over the lopsidedness in the choice of pictures. The idea was to procure the pictures and broadcast them in a popular and straightforward framework. The idea was also to use the newest TV and satellite technology to carry out what otherwise had been done very sparingly: to lend a voice to the third world. The title of the project thus became ‘The Voice of The Third World’.

One World Channel
In September 1988 the project was approved by the Foundation, and the preparations could begin. In May 1989 the satellite TV channel One World Channel (OWC) started. For 3½ years the station broadcast 1½ hours daily.

The total production during these 3½ years came to 1,800 hours of broadcasts, presented and explained to people all over Europe, and later on also to Asian viewers via an Indonesian satellite.

Contributions from National TV Stations
The broadcasts consisted of programs produced in the third world, by the third world’s national TV companies, then presented, translated and subtitled by One World Channel.

One World Channel managed to receive TV broadcasts from 42 different nations: Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, the United Arab Emirates, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Yugoslavia, Kenya, China, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, North Korea, Pakistan, the Palestinians, Peru, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Egypt.

In addition, OWC also received and broadcasted programs from international organizations like UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, FAO, UNDP and private development aid organizations.

Here are the titles of some of the broadcasts:

• "Production of Trucks in Algeria"
• "Puppet Theater in Indonesia"
• "The Yellow River - a Series from China"
• "The Travel to the West - a Series from China"
• "Magic Tricks and Circus from North Korea"
• "Popular Movements in India"
• "The Egyptian Nobel Prize Winner of Literature, Naguib Mafouz
• "A Poet on Donkey Back through Senegal"

In addition, broadcasts from normal family life in numerous countries.

One World Channel translated the programs from Chinese, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese with the help of volunteer translators.

Return of Marco Polo
The weekly series "Return of Marco Polo" consisted of travel broadcasts which took their starting point on the ship ‘Return of Marco Polo’ and the crew's encounters with different people on its travel around the world.

Return of Marco Polo produced 156 thirty-minute TV broadcasts. One program was broadcasted every week during three years. The ship Return of Marco Polo sailed around the world with its crew and brought the viewers along. To Chile, the Pitcairn Islands, the Easter Islands, Tahiti, Papua New Guinea, China, Malaysia, and many other countries on its travel from Chile to Greece.

One of the crew members knew how to use a video camera. The others learned along the way. The equipment was of professional standard. In the beginning all the editing was done in Norway, but later on all the work with production of the finished broadcasts was passed on to the crew, including the English subtitling. Their work method, which often was depicted in the broadcasts, as well as their products, were innovative, which was confirmed both by the viewers in the form of letters, and by a large number of subsequent examples of broadcasts, seemingly inspired by these innovations.

Here are the titles of some of the broadcasts:

• "Living on a Dot in the Indian Ocean" (from the Maldives)
• "Village life in Kerala" (from India)
• "Mahouts and their Elephants" (from Thailand)
• "Welcome to Pretty City" (from Madagascar)
• "A Stone's Throw from the Nile" (from Egypt)

News
A daily ten minute news broadcast was also produced. The news were an attempt to say something different from what normally was regarded as news. The produced features were for example based on news reports from the UN and UNICEF, as well as the Yugoslavian news agency Tanjug.

Special TV Events
In 1989, One World Channel was the official TV station sending live from The Nonaligned Movement in Belgrade.

Examples of other broadcasts:

• Interview with the current foreign minister of Indonesia, Ali Alatas.
• Interview with the former president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere.
• Conversations with the Indian and the Egyptian diplomats in Norway, where the production of One World Channel took place.
• Interview with the inventor of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Mohamad Yunus. A documentary "The Bank of the Poor" was also broadcast.
• Conversation with Carlos Cardoso from the Mozambican news agency (murdered in November 2000).
• Features from the World's Biggest Flea market in Stockholm, which year after year converted people's used goods to millions of kroner for UFF's projects in Africa.
• Features from the first free election in the history of Namibia (1990).
• Visit by a three person delegation from the ‘English Department of China Central Television.’

Was it Worth the Money?
The expenses of broadcasting 1,800 hours of innovative content and form, faithful to its objectives as a research project, aiming at lending a voice to the third world, were all inclusive - the ship, crew, TV station, volunteers, salaries, printed monthly broadcast programs, promotion of the station, tapes, photocopies, contacts and telephone bills - for a total of 18 million kroner.

This corresponds to 10,000 Dkr/hour of broadcast. As a comparison, BBC used on an average 1,1 million kr/hour of broadcast in 1989-90.

To make ends meet during the first years of non-economically sustainable conditions, One World Channel had to get allies and friends who contributed diligently and freely. Everything from the free printing of the programs, free video tapes from other TV stations and paid advertisements, to free furniture for the TV studio from Kinnarps in exchange for advertisement, and free carpet glue.

10,000 Dkr/hour is so cheap that it raises a totally opposite and obvious question: how on earth was this actually possible? It was possible because One World Channel became a matter close to the hearts of the people involved, and to the people in the participating countries.

The Conclusion of the Project
The project ended as planned in September 1992.

There was, and still is, a long way to go towards a really solid coverage of events and conditions all over the globe. There was every possible reason to seek to continue The Voice of The Third World. The transponder, however, stopped transmitting - and procuring new transmission time and converting to a commercial TV station demanded such a great investment that it was far beyond the reach of both All Europe Satellite Television Ltd. and the Foundation. Therefore the station was shut down, together with the transponder.

We were able to console ourselves with the fact that there - after all - now were more pictures emitted of the kind One World Channel was quite alone in broadcasting between 1989 and 92.

The board of the Foundation writes in the minutes from their meeting in June 1993 that,

• a final report with attachments has been received
• hundreds of films from all over the world have been produced
• 156 broadcast from Return of Marco Polo have been produced
• broadcasts from 42 national TV companies in the third world have been made.

The broadcasts reached 22 million households in Europe, 2,2 million households in Scandinavia and to all of South East Asia.

The board concludes that it is a research project, which has had a great impact and has been of great pleasure to many people in the world, and that it has contributed significantly to the information about living conditions in the third world.

A small Selection of Letters from Viewers

From Spain March 19, 1991: "One World Channel. I have been watching your program for 1½ yrs. - I find it very interesting + educational. Thank you for being there."

From Denmark, April 1990: "I thank you for the really good and serious program you are broadcasting. I live in Aalborg and can get a really good picture, as I am connected to our Stofanet. I can see your program on our French station in the mornings. Your broadcasts are very serious and at the same time very informative. I wish you all the best in the future."

From Yugoslavia, July 19, 1989: "Hello everybody! Here is an idea for you to make a programme about - a place where Marco Polo was born... Come to Korcula! A lot of greetings to all of you."

From Thailand, November 7, 1991: "Dear One World Channel. During the past few weeks I have had the good fortune and spare time to watch many of your films which appear on Thai Television most weekday mornings. Thank you so much for your selection and range of topics which depict the constructive attempts of people and nations to overcome the injustices, diseases and problems of development and growth which confront them in their daily lives. All your presentations are a refreshing change from and in marked contrast to the 'sensationalized' CNN daily portrayals of mankind's potential for 'self-destruction'. Yours sincerely."

From Holland, May 9, 1990: "Dear Lady, Sir. Programs about the daily life of people in developing countries I like to see very much. When we see or hear news about these countries it is many times bad news: hunger, disaster, fighting and so on. Your programs show the 'other side' of life, you show how people try to improve their lives...."

From Finland, February 20, 1990: "Dear Sirs. One Sunday morning I opened the TV to see if there was anything interesting going on.... quite soon I found your transmission. Since then I have looked at it whenever possible. And I've liked your programme a lot..."

From Norway, Asian student, February 24, 1990: "Dear Sir/Madame, I do watch your TV programmes very often, here in Oslo. It is increasingly becoming one of the most interesting programmes on the TV for me. I do thank the producers as well as those who present these programmes. It is a very nice way of knowing about the culture of other people as well as various development projects being undertaken by people to improve their living conditions. I hope to see more of these films. Thank you. Yours faithfully."

From France, July 20, 1989: "Sir, I am connected to the cable of Toulouse, and I listen to your program each day. It is impossible to have the schedule in the specialized press, perhaps due to the political implication of showing the third world..."

From Holland, August 7, 1989:" Kære TV-danskere" (Dear TV-Danes), "We shall be glad to receive your August schedule for TVT, which for some time now we enjoy in the morning... Since Danish is one of my favourite hobbies, I can appreciate your fine programs all the more. "Mange tak for alt!" (Thanks a lot for everything!). "Venlig hilsen" (Friendly greetings)

From Greece, February 8, 1990: Dear Sirs, I discovered today with great satisfaction your wonderful television program, which I enjoyed greatly. Please accept my warmest congratulations and the expression of my admiration for the quality of the production. I hope and wish you to continue long, very long, in the future. Thank you."

From Denmark: "As you have asked for comments regarding the broadcast on One World Channel, I want to send you a few words! I find the films from the so-called third world countries are very interesting, even though the quality is somewhat varying. But they are films, however, which one does not see on the commercial TV stations. I especially like the Marco Polo series, as I in my young days sailed in the merchant fleet.... Hereby the kindest greetings."

From Switzerland, New Zealander living there, June 25, 1990: "Dear One World Channel... I have become an avid admirer of the Marco Polo series. I would just like to say thank you very much for bringing such a wonderful series into our homes..."

From Hungary, March 20, 1990: "Dear Sir/Sirs, having watched the programs of One World Channel, we would like to tell you how much we appreciate these interesting programmes. Your channel offers a lot of information from all over the world. We are two foreigners together, living and studying in Hungary, so One World Channel is the most important TV-channel for us..."

From Morocco, "To the One World Channel, Thank you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much for this great idea, it's really a One World Channel. There's no one like it in the whole of the world. Really thank you..."

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