The 2012 Community Media Forum Europe’s Mapping and Ratings workgroup has mapped community media in Europe through a survey of media authorities and national federations. In total, 2,237 radio stations and 521 television stations in 39 countries responded, although 10 countries reported community media as nonexistent.
The subsequent country ranking is intended to draw attention to “the third media sector” of national governments, politicians and media authorities in order to recognize or to improve community media conditions.
The primary ranking results were put together by a CMFE workgroup and have also been reviewed by the members of the CMFE experts group. Classification was made on an index scale setting a value of national commitment for the third media sector for each country. Five variables were used for the rankings: community media spread, regulation, governmental financial support, technical structure and general development assessment.
Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands came out on top of the list, with good scores for both radio and television.
The CMFE Mapping and Ranking project will be on the agenda for the CMFE and AMARC conference events Media Diversity for Democracy in Brno, Czech Republic, Oct. 4–6, 2013.