MN.19.08.1999 - Veronica Revival Planned

This programme comes from a park bench in the Vondelpark, Amsterdam - I was testing out a new Minidisc recorder and it was a boiling hot summers day. Diana and I discussed the success of CNN Interactive with the then boss of the Interactive department in Atlanta, there was news of a Radio Veronica revival broadcast, and a parody on QSLing phone conversations. 12 years on, the memories have apparently not faded. Radioday.nl is still attracting crowds each November- this year's reunion is set for Saturday November 12th 2011. In the UK, a discussion had also started about how much of the UK licence fee should be devoted to serving the interests of non-payers living abroad. The BBC made an attempt to offer Internet access in 1994 with its Networking club set up by the Educational branch of this vast organisation. They quickly discovered that answering queries about modems and problems with operating systems wasn’t really their core business. So it was taken over by a commercial company in November 1995. So it is interesting that the BBC Online is about to try it all again but this time going further by launching free Internet access. The Jupiter communications research group has been predicting that free Net access in Europe is imminent, but the major European Internet service providers like AOL Europe and T-Online are not convinced that advertising and electronic commerce can cover the cost of telephone calls. Likewise, the grey area between public and private partnerships raises its head again. There will be some major questions about unfair competition down the bumpy Internet superhighway ahead no doubt.