Director George Rumens writes:
The project has the definite aim of developing a whole European 'Green' channel to itself within a couple of years, although this has yet to catch the interest of substantial sponsors.
The idea of 'narrowcasting' is that the programming will develop a thin dedicated audience of opinion-formers spread over many countries.
We are starting a flagship series called 'The Green News' which will be an in-depth examination of green issues. Another series will be on third world development and yet another on human rights. We are free from the normal constraints of broadcast television in that:
- We can go into great detail. We joke that we interview the world's experts until they drop: a recent interview with the wave energy expert, Dr Stephen Salter, lasted two and a half hours.
- We rarely script a programme.
- We are free to cover nebulous subjects which do not fall within normal broadcast categories. For example, we have covered the Pugwash conference in London and the Fellows conference at the Findhorn Community in Scotland.
- We give a voice to those who are routinely excluded from the media - for example the voice of women worldwide, as in our thirteen part series 'Women and Development'.
- At times of international crisis, we are able to take the longer term view, and to collect material for a comprehensive documentary. During the Gulf crisis we were able to gather about ten hours of film on the great thinkers assembled in London.
- We are not a campaign. We are a forum for discussion whereby representatives from campaign groups, academia and industry can see if they have common areas of agreement.
We feel that we are laying the ground rules for a new public service channel for the whole of Europe, one that is dedicated to our greatest social and environmental concerns.
Greensat, 34 Tredegar Square, Bow, London E3 5AE (tel George Rumens 081 981 3758; Felicity Mawson tel 0376 519 847; Jane Taylor tel 0446 773333).