THE CULTURAL ECONOMY OF CITIESA COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE AUDIOVISUAL SECTOR IN HAMBURG AND LISBON

Eduardo Brito HenriquesUniversity of Lisbon, Portugal

Joachim ThielTechnical University of Hamburg-Harburg, Germany

European Urban and Regional Studies 7(3): 253–268 Copyright © 2000 SAGE Publications 0969-7764[200007]7:3;253–268;014052 London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi

Abstract

This article examines the role that big cities play inan ongoing change towards a ‘global cultural econ-omy’. Starting from Allen Scott’s argument that ahandful of urban flagships may benefit from this shift,it looks for an alternative approach to the territorialdimension of the ‘culture–economy nexus’ based ona more complex understanding of urban culture. Abroad theoretical discussion of Scott’s ideas, as wellas on the key concepts of culture, economy and thecity, is placed alongside two case studies of the de-

velopment of the audiovisual (AV) media sector intwo European metropolitan regions, Hamburg andLisbon. The article concludes that the territorial di-mension of the ‘culture–economy nexus’ is morethan the mere concentration of culturally informedeconomic activity in a few urban ‘master hubs’.Rather, it can be characterized as a non-linear re-fracted shift, to a large extent moving alonghistorically and culturally determined trajectories ofcities and regions.

Introduction: culture, economy and thecity

The increasing importance of culture as a majoreconomic force in contemporary society is afashionable issue in nearly all of the social sciences.However, this increasing interest in the‘culture–economy nexus’ is accompanied by anever-greater confusion about what reallycharacterizes this convergence between the spheresof cultural and economic development, and abouthow and where a ‘culture–economy nexus’ can beidentified. In a recent paper Allen Scott tookforward this discussion, emphasizing the role thatbig cities will play in future as central hubs of aglobal cultural economy (Scott, 1997). We begin byexamining this argument.

The special role that Scott attributes to big citiesas ‘master hubs’ of a new global cultural economy isa product of two main features, both contributing tothe ‘reassertion of place as a privileged locus of

culture’ (p. 324). On the one hand he points to thecontradictory role of globalization; on the other, theimportance of ‘massive urban communities’.Globalization is dealt with as a multifaceted concept.Thus, Scott first puts emphasis on the seemingparadox between cultural production occurringpredominantly in localized clusters, while finaloutputs are channelled into ever more extendednetworks of consumption. ‘Certain key cities’ (p. 325) represent a symbiosis of place, culture andeconomy, thereby functioning as the bulwarks of anew cultural economy of capitalism. Secondly,however, globalization is supposed to imply an everdeeper spatial division of labour, since marketenlargement encourages a more pronounced verticaldisintegration and therefore spatial specialization.

The concept of ‘massive urban communities’ isput forward in order to explain how the symbiosis ofplace, culture and economy works. Massive urbancommunities are characterized by many differentspecialized social functions, thereby substantially

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stimulating cultural experimentation and renewal.Furthermore, these communities are also typicallythe sites of leading-edge economic activity, so thatmany complex interactions between the cultural andthe economic are set in motion. Local cultures helpto shape the nature of intra-urban economic activity;concomitantly, economic activity becomes adynamic element of the culture-generating andinnovative capacities of given places. In other words,massive urban communities are constituted both bycertain specificities of urban culture and by theeconomic importance of a given place within theglobal economic order.

Two criticisms can be raised initially. First, sucha view appears highly reductionist since cities otherthan the handful of ‘master hubs’ are simplyneglected. The case studies of Paris and LosAngeles, which empirically inform Scott’sargument, confirm this impression. Second, his ownemphasis on the specializing effects of globalizationappears to be at least partly contradictory to thenotion of a hierarchical division of labour in which afew places dominate others. In addition to theseobservations, however, an in-depth discussion ofScott’s key concepts is necessary in order to providea broader theoretical framework and a constructivecontribution to the debate.

In very general terms, two approaches to aconcept of culture, which could constitute startingpoints for further discussion, can be distinguished.On the one hand, culture is understood as a set ofcultural practices. In this sense, culture isconsidered as something done by people. On theother hand, it can be seen as a ‘superorganic systemthat existed above and beyond the wills and desiresof (its) individual members’ (Mitchell, 1995: 105).In this sense, culture is considered as something thatimplicitly influences and reproduces people’sactions.

Without reopening a fruitless debate as to whatcould be the appropriate conceptualization, we shalltake up these basic strands of discussion in order toimprove understanding of an ongoing societal shifttowards what we call a ‘culture–economy nexus’.This shift can be conceptualized as a change in bothwhat people produce and how this production isinfluenced. These two directions of discussion havebeen labelled as ‘culture as a commodity’ and‘culture as the bed of economy’ approaches (BritoHenriques and Thiel, 1997).

The first mainly draws on Horkheimer’s andAdorno’s sceptical vision of a global culture industrymanipulating an anonymous mass of consumerswithout any chance of making their own decisions(Adorno, 1991; Jackson and Taylor, 1996). In thecourse of a critical assessment of postmodernity, thisstructuralist argument was taken up chiefly byHarvey (1989) and Jameson (1984) and transferredfrom the sphere of consumption to culturalproduction. Both argued that changes in the logic ofcapitalism had led to a successive integration ofculture into market logics. Or, as Harvey put it:‘precisely because capitalism is expansionary andimperialistic, cultural life in more and more areasgets brought within the grasp of the cash nexus andthe logic of capital circulation’ (1989: 344). With thisfocus both scholars remain sceptical, seeing‘postmodernism as a negative cultural developmentwith its fragmentation and replacement of ethics byaesthetics, leading to a loss of the critical edge andpolitical involvement’ (Featherstone, 1995: 79).Recently, however, more pragmatist views prevail inacademic discussions. The once-threatening cultureindustries are regarded as a new growth sector, ableto solve many of the current problems of de-industrialization and unemployment (Scott, 1996;Hudson, 1995; Kunzmann, 1995; AGKulturwirtschaft, 1995). As regards the city theseviews can be summarized as follows: ‘With thedisappearance of local manufacturing industries andperiodic crises in government and finance, culture ismore and more the business of cities – the basis oftheir tourist attractions and their unique,competitive edge’ (Zukin, 1995: 2).

The second (‘bed of economy’) approach reflectsmajor criticisms of the neo-classical ‘atomistic’ viewof economic actors and attempts to contrast it with aconcept of ‘embeddedness’ (Granovetter, 1985),thus focusing on the general environment of firmswhich is thought to influence their decision-making.The cultural dimension of this environment hasbeen added in the context of the different debatesthat have dominated regional studies since the firstseminal works on Italian industrial districts. Thegrowth of certain regions led to the assumption ‘thatthere is something intangible, in the air, whichpermits innovativeness to proceed in some placesand not in others’ (Storper, 1995: 203). Conceptssuch as ‘innovative milieu’, ‘institutional thickness’or ‘untraded interdependencies’ as routes to

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competitiveness are to a great extent based upon‘soft (cultural) factors’, such as ‘shared rules,conventions or knowledge’ or ‘various forms ofsocio-cultural identification’ (Amin and Thrift,1994: 14). In other words, a certain regional culturalcoherence is supposed to be a crucial preconditionfor regional innovation. This coherence can howeverplay an ambiguous role, since it is likely to hinder aregion’s ability to change. Many old industrialregions display examples of ‘sclerotic milieus’(Läpple, 1994), leaving them unable to change theirdevelopment trajectories.

The integration of the city into these theoreticalparadigms of debate on the culture–economy nexusinvolves a series of problems, although big cities aregenerally considered to play a crucial role in termsof the increasing economic importance of culture.On the one hand, the ‘culture as commodity’approach mentions the city as an important factor,but remains either limited to the commodification ofits morphology and to the city as a site ofconsumption (Clarke, 1997) or takes the pragmaticposition that culture is a promising growth sector.Thereby it neither emphasizes city-specificity norprovides any real theoretical point of departure. Onthe other hand, the claim for coherence of the ‘bedof economy’ approach does not wholly correspondwith what is normally supposed to characterizeurban culture. As Robins (1995: 47) argues, the‘capacity of the city as a container’ is merely one ofits three cultural constituents. More important, thecity gives the challenge of ‘outside’ experience tothose who live at home, a reality that implies thefundamental ambivalence of urban experience. Thepersonalities of the ‘stranger’, which are normallyinvoked to highlight this outside experience insidethe city, represent both the positive (and innovative)challenge and the negative experience of fear orloneliness, a negative side of urban difference whichis Robins’s third constituent of urban culture.

Given this heterogeneity, how could a fruitfultheoretical framework for an enquiry into the‘cultural economy of cities’ be built which goesbeyond the dialectics of ‘local production masterhubs’ and ‘global distribution networks’? Given afocus on the culture–economy nexus, three maintopics can be identified. First, the ‘capacity of citiesas a container’ relates to the way in which cities ormetropolitan regions follow their own internallydetermined trajectories, creating identities which

provide them with a certain degree of internalcoherence. Second, this coherence thesis has to beconfronted with the role of diversity and differenceas key elements of urban culture. How does theinterplay between these ambiguous butcomplementary constituents of urban life influenceboth the cultural production of cities and theirperception from the outside? And third, thisinterplay has to be articulated with the general shifttowards a global cultural economy, thereby adding aterritorial dimension. How does the tendencytowards the commodification of culture determineand change metropolitan development paths, andvice-versa? Scott’s paper offers answers to all thesequestions, but only partially due to its limited focuson a handful of cities. As Knox (1996: 117) puts it:

. . . we need detailed biographies of cities that set localchange in a global context. We need to examine thesignificance of particular cities as sites for theconstruction of new cultural identities and politicaldiscourses, and for new processes of political and culturaltransformation.

A contribution to this challenge can be found in theremainder of this article, where the evolution ofaudiovisual (AV) media industries in two Europeanmetropolitan regions, Hamburg and Lisbon, arecompared.

The audiovisual sector as a case study

Audiovisual media as a paradigm of the‘culture–economy nexus’

A review of the literature concerning the position ofculture in contemporary capitalism reveals apredilection for focusing upon AV media. Theperfecting of manipulation and reproductiontechniques for sounds and images on a large scale is,from several points of view, one of the 20thcentury’s most powerful legacies. It is one of themain technological innovations and one of its mostspecific forms of artistic expression. It was thedevelopment of the mechanical means ofreproduction of culture and information that led tothe first critical reflections on the ever-increasing‘promiscuity’ between culture and the economy,among the celebrated authors of the FrankfurtSchool. AV media play a major role in the current

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process of economic restructuring. Many whoemphasize the advantages or virtues of culturalproduct industries in economic growth and regionaldevelopment to a large extent equate AV media withculture industries (Lim, 1993; Scott, 1996, 1997).Additionally, and independently from its role inregional development, the very fact of AV mediabeing an economic growth sector suggests it is auseful exemplar of the culture–economy nexus. Arecent study, for instance, promoted by theEuropean Commission, estimated that in Germany,Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, Ireland and theUnited Kingdom AV revenues would rise by 70percent between 1995 and 2005, reaching aroundECU 53.9bn (at 1995 prices) by the latter date(Murphy et al., 1997).

Restructuring trends in the audiovisual sector

The AV sector has been undergoing profoundstructural changes in the last few years,encompassing not only the production process itselfbut also entrepreneurial organization models and therules of financing. In the field of organization twomain arguments have been put forward. On the onehand the Californian school of economic geography(see for instance Christopherson and Storper, 1986;Storper and Christopherson, 1987) mainly focusedon a trend towards decentralization. Analysing thechanges that have taken place in the US motionpicture industry since the 1950s, they pointed outthat ‘product differentiation became a key strategyto draw people back to the theatres’, based ontechnical innovations used ‘to distinguish motionpictures from television’ (Christopherson andStorper, 1986: 309). Besides this focus on quality,strategies aimed at an intensification ofinternationalization, ‘both to use foreign markets tocompensate for increasing uncertainty in thedomestic market, and to exploit the cost advantagesof foreign locations’ (p. 310). These authors placedtheir main emphasis, however, on organizationalchanges in the film industry itself, presenting itsrestructuring process as an example of flexiblespecialization (Piore and Sabel, 1984), therebystressing vertical disintegration as the dominanttrend.

Storper and Christopherson (1987) examined this

thesis more deeply, paying more attention to theterritorial dimension of the changes. In this respect,they emphasized the trend of territorialreconcentration of both labour and establishments,although noting that filming itself had started toshow a more diffuse territorial pattern. Thisreconcentration may be explained on the basis of theparadigm of flexible specialization, since ‘verticaldisintegration presupposes the creation of industrialcomplexes, organised around elaborate inter-firm orinter-plant transactional relationships’, which‘include face-to-face contacts and detailed exchangesof information, long- and short-term subcontractingand input–output flows’ (p. 108).

On the other hand, Aksoy and Robins (1992) werecritical of this argument, considering that ‘therestructuring of Hollywood is being shaped anddriven by forces that are not adequately recognisedor emphasised in the “flexible specialisation” thesis’(p. 6). Arguing that the ability to extend the marketis more important than a reduction in productioncosts, they emphasized changes that had taken placein the distribution and control of the businessrelative to those made in the production processitself. What therefore stood out in their work wasthe idea that ‘the emerging industrial structure ismade up of a very small number of very largecompanies which dominate the market through theirposition as gatekeepers to the distribution of filmedentertainment on a global scale’ (p. 11).

This argument has been corroborated by otherstudies (Álvarez Monzoncillo and Iwens, 1992). Theacquisition of Columbia Pictures by Sony, and themerger of Time and Warner, reinforce a view thatthe key words in the restructuring of the AVindustry are the transnationalization of investmentsand the formation of large multimediaconglomerates, which tend to take an almostoligopolistic control of the global market. Morerecent accounts however argue that bothorganizational globalization on the distribution sideand fragmentation on the production side of the AVvalue chain are by no means mutually incompatible(Scott, 1997; Lash, 1998). They should even beunderstood as two inherent and constitutive parts ofthe restructuring processes of the whole AV mediasector that take place simultaneously and aremutually dependent, being associated with therequirements of the globalization process.

In addition to these overall trends, the television

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(TV) segment, a field with an ever-increasingeconomic importance in the AV world, has beeninfluenced by a series of changes in the widerinstitutional environment of AV media. The chieffactor of change here has been the move towardsderegulation and the ending of monopolies,especially in European countries, giving rise to aprivatization of TV transmission rights and theproliferation of private channels in many countries.This was brought about as a result of strongcriticisms of the legitimacy of the state TVmonopoly, on the one hand, coupled with theinterests of powerful economic groups, on the otherhand, which considered this sector a highlyattractive investment area, mainly due to therevenue from advertising.1 The opening of thetelevision sector to private investment had diverseeffects, above all in the entrepreneurial structureitself, again displaying the seeming paradox of theoverall structure of the AV sector. Thus, heavyoperating costs of a TV network strengthened theposition of the more powerful economic groups,thereby favouring processes of horizontalintegration and the formation of multimediaconglomerates that were frequently transnational(see Álvarez Monzoncillo and Iwens, 1992; Coste-Cerdan and Schmutz, 1994; Decker, 1994).

Moreover, the proliferation of new networks,increasing the number of viewing hours per day,caused a sudden rise in the demand for programmes.Due to the lack of productive capacity on the part ofdomestic suppliers, this led to a considerable rise inthe international flow of AV products, mainly to thebenefit of American suppliers. As Rebelo (1995: 69)observed: ‘to fill in most of the transmission timewith piles of films, telefilms, series, and sitcoms,selected with just one criterion: low cost’ became thecommon strategy of a majority of TV networks inmost of Europe. This is why, in turn, many NorthAmerican motion picture producers have discovereda new specialized area in made-for-television films(as they have in video2) and a way to expand theirmarkets.

Yet in other fields of programming thederegulation of TV had more stimulating effects onAV production in European countries. Thecontractual needs of private TV networks caused anotable increase, chiefly in the area ofdocumentaries, but also in fiction. Nationalproduction also considerably expanded in

information-rich and studio programmes, made forthe population as a whole and obeying the simplecriterion of capturing audiences.3 Thereforederegulation and the multiplication of TV channelshas also favoured the formation of independentproducers of TV programmes (Álvarez Monzoncilloand Iwens, 1992: 166).

The audiovisual panorama in Germany andPortugal

Notwithstanding the tendencies outlined above, ofEuropean integration and institutional concentrationon the one hand and of local agglomeration on theother, differences on the national level continue toimpinge decisively on the development of AVmedia. This is mainly due to both economic andcultural factors, the latter being particularly evidentin different languages, whereas the former reflectboth ‘hard’ economic differences and ‘soft’ factorssuch as the institutional and regulative frameworksurrounding the media sector. The distinctstructure of AV media production in the two casecountries is outlined below in order to establish alink between the general tendencies and the regionalcases.

Germany is the biggest and economicallystrongest of all EU countries, even if its success isat the moment being seriously questioned by highrates of unemployment and a high level of publicindebtedness. This leading role and thecorresponding purchasing power of a huge internalmarket also has its expression in a highly developedinfrastructure supporting the use of AV media. Arelatively dense distribution of cinemas can betaken as one indicator, although reunification hasnotably reduced the national average. Thus, theinhabitants/screen ratio increased from 19,200 in1990 to 21,900 in 1992, before slightly decreasing(to 21,500 in 1995).4 The admission frequency perinhabitant amounted to 1.5 per year in 1995,displaying stability despite substantially risingaverage ticket prices (from ECU 4.1 in 1989 toECU 5.0 in 1995). Thus German cinemas couldaugment their revenues in the early 1990s by morethan 20 percent.

Diametrically contrary to this relatively successfulevolution of cinemas is the role that national movies

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played in German cinema. The dominance of USfilms is notable, and it continues to grow (Table 1).This weak market penetration by German films haddecisive effects on the structure of national filmproduction. The high risk of being economicallyunsuccessful with domestic production led to thenecessity for public intervention in this sector.Thus, movie production has turned out to be aneconomic activity highly dependent on statefunding.

The main specificities of AV media in Germanylie in the federal structure of the public broadcastingservice. Eight regional corporations are responsibleboth for the supply of the national ARD channeland for eight regional channels which have thepotential of national reception due to cable orsatellite connections. Along with this federal systema second nationwide public channel constituted thebackbone of German public TV until the middle ofthe 1980s. Then, two major changes caused asubstantial restructuring process: the introductionof new transmission technologies (cable andsatellite), and the opening of the TV market toprivate agents. The so-called dual system emergedwith initially two additional channels (SAT1 andRTL), leading to a whole body of private andpublic, general and specialized programmes,5

slightly differing from one state to another since theallocation of transmission licences is in the hands ofnewly established regional authorities.

This considerable extension of channels could –in terms of financing – be compensated by a similarextension of the advertising market. In the first yearsafter the beginning of the dual system even thepublic services increased their turnover inadvertising. From the 1990s onwards however, theylost a huge part of both audience shares andadvertising revenues.6 In terms of pay-TV as anadditional method of programme funding, at present

one channel (Premiere) is transmitting nationwidefrom Hamburg. However, along with the futureintroduction of digital TV, there are plans for adigital pay-TV channel, supplied by cooperationbetween the two German private media majors,Bertelsmann and Kirch. So far this cooperation hasbeen rejected by the European Commission, therebyincreasing the likelihood of a more transparentstructure of future TV supply, also involving publicservices.

Portugal’s AV sector has likewise undergone aseries of quite rapid and deep changes in the last fewyears that in a way have followed the trends seen inother European countries. The situation of the AVsector in Portugal, however, has specific problemsthat are the result of both the size of its internalmarket and the legal and institutional framework inwhich AV production is embedded. The residentpopulation of Portugal is a little under 10m peopleand per capita income continues to be among thelowest in the EU, despite rapid economic growthsince the mid-1980s. These two facts explain whythe motion picture cinema network is quite small,with one of the highest inhabitant/screen ratios inEurope in 1995: 35,200 inhabitants per screen.Moreover, despite a notable shift towardsmultiscreen and multiplex cinemas since the end ofthe 1980s, especially in the two main urban regions– Lisbon and Oporto – Portugal’s cinema structureis still poorly adjusted to the growing trends ofmarket segmentation and product differentiation.Mono-screen cinemas provided 62 percent of thetotal in 1995.

As far as demand is concerned the annual percapita average of visits to cinemas is also one of thelowest in the EU, and, contrary to the generalEuropean trend, substantially decreased in the firsthalf of the 1990s. While in 1989 12 million ticketswere sold, in 1994 the number had decreased to

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Table 1 Distribution of films in Germany according to origin (% of total), 1989–95

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

German 16.7 9.7 13.6 9.5 7.2 10.1 6.3US 65.7 83.8 80.2 82.8 87.8 81.6 87.1European 16.3 5.6 4.0 6.2 3.4 6.5 5.1Other 1.3 0.9 2.2 1.5 1.6 1.8 1.5

Source: European Cinema Yearbook

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little more than seven million. Thus, a growth inbox-office receipts in the same period was the resultof a progressive rise in the average price of tickets,which made it even more difficult to reverse thedecline in audiences.

Distribution is, as in other countries,concentrated in the hands of a small number ofagents which frequently control the screening sectoras well. Only one distributor in Portugal – FilmesLusomundo, originally a distributor and today apart of a vast multimedia group whose business alsoincludes cinemas (some in Spain), TV, press andradio – controls about 60 percent of Portuguesecinemas (Cádima, 1996). It is no surprise, therefore– because Lusomundo is the exclusiverepresentative of North American majors, workingin a joint venture with Warner on the opening ofmultiplex cinemas in Portugal – that more than 60percent of motion picture screenings in Portugal areof American production. Unlike in Germany,however, movies from European countries play amore important role in the Portuguese market(Table 2). The limitations of the market clearlyexplain the crisis that Portuguese motion pictureproduction is passing through. An inability to relyon the home market, plus the lack of channels thatallow distribution abroad – outside the restrictedcircle of film festivals – results in Portuguese motionpicture production being rather small, modest ininvestments and heavily subsidized.

Unlike the cinema, TV in Portugal has beenexperiencing a period of euphoria, which began withthe formation of private TV channels in thebeginning of the 1990s. Although rather late incomparison to other European countries, 1992 and1993 saw the launching of regular transmissions bytwo private channels – SIC and TVI – obliged bycontract to transmit to all of mainland Portugal.From then on, Portuguese television wavelengths

were shared by these two channels and two publicchannels, RTP1 and TV2,7 thereby implying aduplication of the number of daily viewing hours.As in the rest of Europe, this not only led to anincrease in the importation of fiction8 andentertainment programmes,9 but also stimulateddomestic production.

Besides this, TV became the chief beneficiary ofadvertising revenues and caused a sudden and veryrapid rise in advertising investments. Portugal haseven become the European country with the highestadvertising spending rate as a percentage of GDP:1.1 percent in 1996, TV accounting for 58 percent ofthe total, or ECU 510m. Not all the channels,however, benefited from this growing advertisingrevenue to the same extent. SIC and RTP1 finishedup by capturing around 90 percent of prime timeaudiences and the corresponding share of advertisingrevenue, whereas TVI suffered a serious financialcrisis, being obliged to reorganize several times.

Cable TV appeared shortly after the opening ofthe private channels. The number of peopleacquiring a cable TV link has risen rapidly, but it isfar from reaching saturation point. Cable TVtherefore seems to be a sector that will enjoyappreciable growth in the next few years. A recentlaw finally ended the monopoly of generic TVchannels and opened the way for the appearance ofprivate thematic channels (national, regional orlocal) to be transmitted through cable TV.10

Audiovisual media in Hamburg: looking forcompetitive advantage in a decentralizedurban system

It is impossible to understand the role of AV mediain the urban economy of Hamburg without taking

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Table 2 Distribution of films in Portugal according to origin (% of total), 1989–95

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

Portuguese 1.2 1.7 3.5 4.3 5.5 6.0 5.6European 26.1 27.2 28.5 19.7 11.9 27.0 35.1USA 72.1 70.3 66.9 67.7 72.6 62.2 48.9Other 0.6 0.8 1.1 8.3 10.0 4.8 10.4

Source: European Cinema Yearbook

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into account both the role of the city in thenational urban and regional system, and theregionalized structure of a huge part of GermanAV media supply. Hamburg, besides Berlin,Munich and Cologne, has always played a majorrole within this system. Social changes inGermany, stimulated by political, technological orinstitutional shifts, always constituted ‘windows ofopportunity’ for the AV sector in Hamburg,thereby requiring processes of adaptation whichsometimes affected even the wider environment ofthe media productive system. Hamburg is, afterBerlin, the second biggest city in Germany, with1.7 million inhabitants, and a further 1.3 million inthe surrounding districts. One of Hamburg’sspecificities is its status as a ‘city-state’, that is, it ison the administrative level of the German Länder,thereby functioning as local and regional authorityat the same time.

The end of the Second World War and thesubsequent separation and reorganization ofGerman territory have probably been the mostimportant events in the history of Hamburg’s mediaeconomy. The old port city benefited from thissituation for two main reasons. First, to a certainextent it inherited a part of Berlin’s former capitalfunctions, namely national primacy in the newssector. This was partly due to geographicalproximity and to the attractiveness of its waterfront,but also because of the ‘provinciality’ of the newGerman capital, Bonn. As one of the main agents inthis context the most important German newsagency, ‘dpa’, established itself here. Second, thefact that Hamburg belonged to the British zone ofoccupation had a double effect on the developmentof AV media in the city: a liberal British policy wasfavourable both to the growth of an endogenousinfrastructure for film production, and to theestablishment of the NWDR (Northwest-GermanBroadcasting Corporation) as a pioneer among theregional public broadcasting corporations inGermany. Even when the West GermanBroadcasting Corporation (WDR) was separatedfrom it in 1956, the NDR was able to maintain animportant position (Steinkopp, 1987). Furthermore,the occupation authorities sought to import as muchof their own culture as possible, therebyencouraging the emergence of studios dealing withmovie dubbing in order to guarantee a high level ofpenetration (Steinkopp, 1987: 27). In this context

the existence of good theatres helped ensure asupply of movie actors and dubbing speakers.

Thus, events at the beginning of German postwarhistory created two basic pillars for mediaproduction in Hamburg: its role as ‘news centre’,manifested mainly in the growth of Germany’slargest print media cluster,11 and the emergence of atechnical infrastructure for film/TV production,with the NDR as the crucial hub. The maindifference between these two pillars has always beenthat print media were in general market oriented,whereas the AV sector depended to a very highdegree on public regulation and/or subsidies.12

The NDR as the pivotal institution withinfilm/TV production gained even more significancewith the acquisition of Studio Hamburg. Thisoriginally emerged as a private initiative, but hasbeen owned as an 80 percent subsidiary of thebroadcasting corporation since 1959 and 100 percentsince 1971. This advance into the private sector onthe part of the public institution turned out to be thedecisive step for the city when TV transmission wasopened to private activity in the 1980s. Theconcentration of production facilities in StudioHamburg was the principal point of departure for anindependent production structure.

Two further sectors were able to develop inHamburg, again more or less independently fromthe two principal pillars, namely music productionand advertising. Whereas the first was mainlydetermined by the fact that the four major musiccompanies in the world13 merged with formerly localsound-carrier producers (Kirsch and Schröder,1994: 136), the growth of the latter was due tospecific needs on the part of the local food andtobacco industry.

Film and TV as core sectors of AV mediaproduction were able to maintain a certain level ofactivity in Hamburg during the 1960s and 1970s,although the city lost much of its significance in themovie sector. Due to a need for public support infilm-making, the heavily subsidized economy ofBerlin attracted the majority of both German filmproduction and dubbing of foreign movies. Thus,Hamburg’s role for a long time remained mainlyoriented to the public TV market, determined bythe activities of the NDR. The disappearance ofcinema film production from the city and thesubsequent outflow of good actors in the early 1980sresulted in a sceptical view as to the future of AV in

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the face of deregulation and privatization of thesector. The anticipated battle for advertising as animportant source of programme funding madeofficials paint a dark future for Hamburg.14

However, several factors contributed to the factthat those negative forecasts were not fulfilled. First,the print media began to diversify and to direct theirattention towards television, either acquiring sharesof whole channels or organizing singleprogrammes,15 in order to minimize the riskassociated with reorganization in the advertisingsector. Thereby they were able to apply theirexperience both in production and in a privatelyorganized market. Second, advertising itself wasgreatly stimulated by the introduction of private TVchannels. In this context Hamburg benefited fromthe simultaneous existence of advertisers and TVproduction infrastructure, the latter mainlyprovided by Studio Hamburg. Third, theinfrastructural complex of Studio Hamburg helpedpersuade the new TV channels to establish theirheadquarters or at least parts of their productivecomplexes in the city. In addition, along with thetendency to outsource parts of the programme, itencouraged the emergence of a whole body of smallfilm production companies and studios which wereable to exploit the agglomeration economiesprovided by dense cooperation networks betweendifferent parts of AV production. Fourth, in ageneral environment of an AV boom, even the filmindustry of Hamburg experienced a revival, to agreat extent stimulated by strong politicalcommitment and the establishment of publicfunding on the part of the city-state authority. Ashad happened in the 1950s, the urban landscape of aport city made Hamburg attractive as a location even

for international productions. Thus, theestablishment of the dual broadcasting system inGermany constituted a window of opportunity forAV media production in Hamburg, which could beto a very large extent exploited by the vast majorityof this sector.

Examination of regional employment data showsthat this success was only evident in terms of jobsafter 1992. Except for ‘advertising’, which was themost dynamic of all media sectors in the 1980s(Kirsch and Schröder, 1994: 92), the subsectors ofAV media – as compared to the national average –displayed a ‘latecomer’ performance, only increasingtheir national employment shares in the 1990s(Table 3). Using the 12 most importantmetropolitan regions instead of the national territoryas the geographical base, Hamburg’s figures revealthe same, slightly more dynamic tendency, with15.3, 16.2 and 16.8 percent of the total in 1987, 1992and 1997, respectively, and a continuously positiveevolution in ‘Radio/TV stations’.

The size distribution of enterprises reveals aheterogeneous pattern (Table 4). While the actualtransmission of radio/TV programmes requireslarge units, activities more related to contentproduction seem to be spread over a complex firmmix. Notwithstanding the fact that employmentstatistics exclude freelance and self-employmentactivities, this pattern lends support to otherevidence of enterprise strategies visible in Hamburg.On the one hand, there is a strong tendency towardsconcentration, globalization and diversification intoother media sectors. On the other hand, thisincreasingly concentrated structure is ‘fed’ by anincreasingly dense network of small enterprises andstructures of self-employment. Taking Studio

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Table 3 Relative importance of AV employment: Hamburg in the national context, 1987–97

1987 1992 1997

Hamburg % all Germany Hamburg % all Germany Hamburg % all Germany

Film prod/distrib 2,290 13.2 2,970 12.5 3,565 13.3Radio/TV stations 3,180 9.5 3,760 9.4 4,480 10.3Advertising 5,045 10.7 7,910 11.2 8,990 11.4AV total 10,510 10.7 14,640 10.9 17,030 11.4

Total employment 718,680 3.4 791,350 3.4 732,320 3.3

Source: employment statistics, own calculations.

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Hamburg as an example, this hub of Hamburg’s AVeconomy has transformed itself into a holdingcompany, reorganizing individual business units asprofit centres, and at the same time extending itsoverall activity towards Cologne and Berlin in orderto guarantee its presence in the AV media businessin Germany overall.

The process of ‘softening’ of the barriers betweensingle media subsectors is being carried to anextreme as the city moves into the informationsociety. In particular, the publishing groups that hadalready broadened their activity with the emergenceof private TV channels now constitute one of themain vehicles in the construction of a multimediacluster. Again this activity of big economic groups iscomplemented by dynamic evolution of small‘multimedia’ agencies being set up as spin-offs fromadvertisers or other media firms. In this senseHamburg may substantially benefit from thecoexistence of a great variety of media enterprisesable to accomplish both content and technologicalproduction tasks. On the other hand, there are alsocritical voices arguing that the print media’sdiversification hinders rather than helps innovationsince their main interests consist in the maintenanceof their shares in the advertising market. Therebythe city could run the risk of relying merely on thecontent-elements of multimedia, neglecting thesignificance of technological know-how (DIW, 1998:192).

What will happen cannot yet be assessed. Thepolitical commitment on the part of thoseresponsible for economic development policy isremarkably strong. A new funding programme forstart-ups in the multimedia sector and a centre ofmultimedia production have been established (seeWirtschaftsbehörde Hamburg, 1998). The next fewyears will show whether Hamburg is able to deal

with this new window of opportunity, therebycompensating for losses in the news sector due tothe German government’s move to Berlin.

Audiovisual media in Lisbon: restructuringin a context of peripheral urban primacy

Unlike Hamburg, which is a metropolis integratedin a developed and balanced urban system,occupying a central position in relation to the maininternational flows, Lisbon is a peripheral capital,marginal in the context of the European economiczone, but enjoying a position of primacy in thenational context. This is why it has also been one ofthe chief beneficiaries of the modernization ofPortuguese economy and society in recent years(Gaspar et al., 1998). Lisbon and its metropolitanarea today corresponds to a vast urbanagglomeration that encompasses 18 municipalities,housing 2.5 million inhabitants. Although it is notsmall even by European standards, in thePortuguese context Lisbon is a major influence sinceit contains about a quarter of the country’spopulation.

This primacy, however, is not limited todemographic aspects. The prominent position of theLisbon metropolitan area in the country, which ismarked by a poorly developed urban networkshowing a manifest historical lack of strong regionalcapitals, also has a functional and qualitativesignificance. Lisbon has always been a privilegedarea on the Portuguese economic map, being thecentre of decision-making (from ministries tocompany head offices) and the locus of the mostinnovative and important activities (universities,laboratories, capital-intensive industries, andinformation-intensive services).

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Table 4 Employment (%) in the AV sector in Hamburg by size of firm, 1997

Employment (%) in firms with

1 2–9 10–49 50–99 100–499 �500worker workers workers workers workers workers

Film prod/distrib 3.2 18.2 28.7 25.9 24.0 –Radio/TV stations 0.1 0.1 4.1 6.5 3.0 86.2Advertising 4.9 22.9 33.6 12.2 26.3 –

Source: employment statistics, own calculations.

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The particular conditions for development thatLisbon enjoys within the Portuguese framework –which is reflected in the Lisbon and Tagus Valleyregion’s per capita GDP, significantly higher thanthe rest of the country and near the Europeanaverage – give rise to a cultural consumption thathas no quantitative or qualitative parallel in anyother Portuguese urban agglomeration. Lisbon thusaffirms its position of capital in the cultural field,polarizing the country’s scarce ‘creative energies’,institutions and agents responsible for thecommodification of culture. As in no other area ofPortugal, Lisbon has acquired some of theadvantages of the urban agglomeration in thedevelopment of cultural industries. These include amarket of more abundant and diversified,experienced and/or skilled labour compared to therest of the country, and therefore better adjusted tothe flexible labour relations that are characteristic ofthe cultural industries; the formation of externaleconomies, which in the case of cultural industriestranscend the question of cost reductions, as even‘cultural creativity is not just an effect of the lonelyruminations of the individual, but is more anoutgrowth of multiple stimuli situated at the pointof interaction between many different agents’ (Scott,1997: 333); and the development of a series of

‘institutional infrastructures’, whether formal orinformal (as in the networks of interpersonalacquaintances and joint work practices).

It is not surprising, therefore, that in theparticular case of the AV sector, more than 75percent of national employment is concentrated inthe Lisbon area (Table 5). This concentration tendsto be more pronounced as the degree of ubiquity ofthe activity decreases, or the technical and skillsdemands increase. So in the area of motion pictureexhibition (Film/video projection) Lisbonaccounted for ‘only’ 62 percent of existing labour inPortugal in 1997, rising to over 75 percent in thecase of film production. This concentration reachedits highest level in the field of Post-productionactivities (editing, dubbing and subtitles, sound,graphic animation), in which a high level oftechnical skill is required.

A slight deconcentration can be observed in theproduction activities. Motion picture exhibitionreveals the opposite tendency however, the region’sshare increasing by 7 percent from 1995 to 1997.This seems to show that the gap between Lisbonand the national territory is being extended on thedemand rather than on the supply side.

The situation is similar regarding the number offirms. Only Radio and Television Activities,

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Table 5 Relative importance of AV employment: Lisbon in the national context, 1990–97

1990 1995 1997

Designationa Lisbon % all Portugal Lisbon % all Portugal Lisbon % all Portugal

Advertising 3,315 79.3 4,540 78.8 1,07,800 78.6Film/video prod 3, 130 92.2 3, 320 85.8 1,01 455 85.9Post-prod activities 3, 325 94.2 3, 225 96.1 1,01 215 92.2Film/video distrib 3, 300 93.7 3, 220 76.1 1,01 190 64.6Film/video project 3, 700 50.8 3, 500 55.4 1,01 680 62.2Radio/TV activitiesb n.a. n.a. 3,490 77.4 1,03,460 74.0News agencies n.a. n.a. 3, 295 89.4 1,01 315 85.1AV total 4,765 75.0 9,590 77.3 1113,110 76.6Total employment 717,810 32.1 713,650 32.0 1,012,020c 43.1

Notes:a The designation followed is used in the Portuguese Economic Activities Classification (EAC).b Both TV and radio programme production activities and activities concerning storage, distribution and transmission areincluded in this category (EAC 92200).

c The enormous leap in total employment between 1995 and 1997 mirrors a series of privatizations of national enterprises.Source: Ministério do Trabalho e da Solidariedade. The information used here comes from data supplied by firms to theMinistry of Labour. Thus the real extent of such activities may be under-assessed, since the self-employed and public enter-prises are not included. The latter may have particular consequences in the field of Radio/TVactivities.

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combined in the same class for statistical purposes(EAC 92200), show a somewhat anomaloussituation. While firms are scattered all over thecountry (only 28.3 percent were located in Lisbon in1995), there is a strong concentration of labour inLisbon (77.4 percent in the same year). Thisapparent paradox, however, can be explainedthrough the differences in how firms work, theirmodel of organization and the geographic pattern ofradio and TV. In fact, while there has been a certainproliferation of local radio stations that are not verydemanding in terms of programming, big nationalradio stations, and above all TV networks, which aremore demanding from the technical and work skillspoint of view and have large labour forces, have allbeen established in Lisbon.

Radio/TV and Advertising activities (althoughthe latter is not limited to AV media) are the mostimportant areas in terms of permanent employment,employing about 3,500 and 7,800 workers,respectively, in 1997. These figures, however,underestimate the real extent of jobs generated, asthese activities use a high level of casual labour thatcan include both unskilled workers and qualifiedprofessionals (from extras to translators and actors).

The launching of private channels forced therestructuring of the TV sector and introduced somechanges in AV production organization in Lisbon.The lower productivity of the public channelscompared to the private channels, and the fall inadvertising revenue of the former as a result of newcompetitive conditions, led to a rationalization oflabour and a drop in the number of jobs (down 20

percent between 1992 and 1996). The employmentgenerated in the private sector and the rise in thenumber of independent producers, associated to adegree with vertical disintegration of production,occurred as the TV channels sought to reduce theirfixed costs and obtain a wider range of products, andallowed the sector to compensate for the job lossessuffered by the public channels.

At present, as can be seen from Tables 6 and 7,Radio/TV activities seem to be centred around twotypes of enterprise. First, a fairly restricted group oflarge units that dominate the production andtransmission of programmes and correspond to thenationwide TV and radio networks. Second, a largegroup of small enterprises, the local radio stationsand independent producers of TV programmes thatsupply the nationwide networks or aresubcontracted by the latter to execute specific tasks.

It is evident that some signs of fragmentation ofTV production are already visible, with astrengthening of the ties between a group of largeunits and a nebula of small producers, independentrecording studios, enterprises providing subtitles,and scriptwriters, which carry out their activities inorbit around the former. There is still a long way togo, however, before reaching the ‘transaction-intensive agglomeration of specialized firms’ (Scott,1996) that functions on the principles of flexiblespecialization. The weakness of the Portuguese AVmarket and the relative immaturity of its TV systemmean that investment is still high risk and know-how limited, conditions which together inhibit theappearance of new independent enterprises.

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Table 6 Employment (%) in the AV sector in Lisbon by size of firm, 1995

Employment (%) in firms with

1–4 5–9 10–49 50–100 100–499 �500workers workers workers workers workers workers

Advertising 14.2 14.7 45.9 11.8 13.4 0.0Film/video prod 33.8 29.4 36.9 0.0 0.0 0.0Post-prod activities 7.6 21.4 45.5 25.5 0.0 0.0Film/video distrib 10.1 17.1 29.0 43.8 0.0 0.0Film/video project 3.8 17.7 62.0 16.5 0.0 0.0Radio/TV activities 0.8 2.4 5.8 9.0 54.2 27.8News agencies 1.7 9.1 10.1 0.0 79.1 0.0

Source: Ministério do Trabalho e da Solidariedade.

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Conclusion: territorial refractions of theglobal cultural economy

The search for an appropriate conceptualization ofthe culture–economy nexus in the city formed thepoint of departure for this article. In this contextthree crucial topics have been identified as a generalframework for shaping empirical analysis, two ofwhich are concerned with the internal situation ofmetropolitan areas, indicating ‘coherence’ and‘diversity’ as constituent dimensions of urbanculture. The third topic is concerned with the linkbetween this focus on the urban and a generaltendency towards a ‘culture–economy nexus’ incontemporary society.

The conclusions that can be drawn from theempirical evidence we have presented suggest thatthe hypothesis that a general shift towards a globalcultural economy is occurring, with mainly positiverepercussions in a handful of ‘massive urbancommunities’, misses the point. The territorialdimension of the ongoing shift in capitalist societiesoccurs in a manifoldly refracted way and can by nomeans be understood as linear. Thus, despite aseries of similarities concerning city size and eventhe importance of AV media in regionalemployment, Hamburg and Lisbon move alongcompletely different development trajectories withinthe global cultural economy.

In theoretical terms, perhaps the most strikingargument is based upon the non-linearity of culturalproduction and consumption, which seriouslychallenges Scott’s idea of a local–global dualism.The more products and services ‘are infused . . .with broadly aesthetic or semiotic attributes’ (Scott,1997: 323), the more their consumption requires a

process of ‘decoding’ which generally does not obeythe same ‘meaning structures’ of the ‘encoding’process of cultural production (Hall, 1980: 130).Globalization as an increase of transnationalinteraction inevitably reinforces this asymmetrywithin the ‘communicative exchange’. This impliesa fundamental contradiction between the ‘global’and the ‘cultural’ dimensions of the global culturaleconomy which in turn has strong repercussions forits territorial pattern. Scott’s master hubs certainlydo play a specific role as important places of culturalproduction, as can be seen in the importance ofHollywood movies in nearly all European markets.However, they by no means constitute paradigmaticexamples for a bipolar territorial logic of localproduction and global distribution.

Thus culture actually hinders rather than fostersglobalization, thereby shaping the globaldistribution process from two directions. On the onehand, geographical extension of AV distribution isculturally selective, being channelled via culturaland linguistic criteria, or other historical linkages.The great success of Brazilian soap operas inPortugal may be one example of how globalizationfollows traditional routes, though in this caseinverting the colonial power relationship. On theother hand, if AV distribution goes across culturalborders, it requires strategies of ‘embedding’ intothe receivers’ environment. In the simplest form thismeans the dubbing of movies such as in the case ofpostwar Germany. But even this simple ‘translation’had a series of side-effects, for instance providingHamburg with a part of the infrastructuralpreconditions for its present success as a media city.

Another, more recent example from Germanywhich has not been outlined in the case study above

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Table 7 Firms in the AV sector in Lisbon by size, 1995

No. of workers per firm

1–4 5–9 10–49 50–99 100–499 �500 Average

Advertising 264 101 106 8 4 0 9.4Film/video prod 47 16 6 0 0 0 4.6Post-prod activities 6 7 6 1 0 0 11.2Film/video distrib 8 6 5 1 0 0 10.9Film/video project 9 13 12 1 0 0 14.3Radio/TV activities 14 13 9 4 10 1 68.4News agencies 2 4 1 0 1 0 37.0

Source: Ministério do Trabalho e da Solidariedade.

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illustrates how the need for ‘embedding’ can befostered by the emergence of a domestic competitor.MTV – the world’s biggest music channel – initiallyentered the German market with its original USprogramme. After the establishment of VIVA,which is transmitting similar content but adapted tothe needs of the German audience and presented byGerman speakers, MTV lost substantial marketshare, having in the meantime changed its strategy,providing its own German programme from abranch office in Hamburg. Thus, even the extremelyglobalized and niche-oriented market of pop musicis not immune to cultural barriers and prefersnational solutions. This preference is one of themain reasons for the persisting importance of thenational environment of AV production, uponwhich the second set of arguments against thelinearity of a global cultural economy is based. Fromthe national point of view the differences betweenour two case studies are clear. National differencesalso offer helpful insights into the dimensions ofurban cultural production, into the logics of‘coherence’ and ‘diversity’ outlined above.

In the case of Germany and Portugal thesedifferences are above all mirrored in their status asparts of the European centre and periphery. Thisdichotomy manifests itself, for instance, in terms ofpurchasing power, and also in the role regionalproducers and distributors have in global filières ofthe cultural industries. Simultaneously, it has astrong regional dimension since it reflects thedifferent divisions of labour within the nationalterritory. Whereas Lisbon’s predominant role asnational hub of the AV industry arises out of itscharacter as the predominant urban space in thenational territory, Hamburg’s position can beunderstood as a fluid one, constantly beingrestructured in competition with other metropolitanregions within the national urban system. It is anopen question which of Scott’s facets of the divisionof labour will dominate in the end. There are hintsas to both a polarizing dynamic and an increasingspecialization between the metropolitan regions.

Additionally, even the way in which ‘massiveurban communities’ impinge on the development ofthe cultural economy is substantially influenced bythe national territory. There are some factors whichfavour agglomeration in itself as a productive spacefor the cultural economy, such as the existence of a‘redundant’ and flexible labour market, which

favours economic activity based upon self-employment, short-term contracts and virtualenterprises, as well as the existence of Scott’s‘different specialized social functions’ that stimulatecultural production. But again, whereas Lisbon, atleast in the national context, represents thesefeatures automatically, Hamburg’s agglomerationeconomies live in continuous comparison withothers, ‘massivity’ in this sense being no longer themost important factor, but replaced by thepeculiarities of the place.

The third and last argument against linearitydraws on a conceptualization of AV media as a fieldof overlapping technological paradigms thatcompete for the leisure time of consumers. As canbe seen from the impacts that the growth of privateTV had on Hollywood’s movie production, thiscompetition has been one of the main driving forcesof regional restructuring processes. Even what islabelled ‘multimedia’ is not likely to undermine thisdynamic, adding a new means of transmission to thepreviously dominant ones rather than replacingthem. However, the ‘melting’ of differenttechnologies, of technology and content, productionand consumption, may change the overallproduction and distribution processes of AV media,just as TV did with cinema movies. This is to say,multimedia does constitute a new quality of the‘culture–economy nexus’, as Lash (1998) argues,thereby having strong impacts on the territorialpattern of the cultural economy; but these impactswill by no means be visible in a linear one-way roadto Los Angeles.

Notes

A first version of this paper was presented at the tenth ACEIInternational Conference on Cultural Economics, Barcelona,14–17 June 1998. Thanks to David Prosperi as discussant,and also to Helmut Deecke for his critical remarks. Part ofthe research was funded under the project ‘RepensarPortugal na Europa. Perspectivas de um pais periférico’(PRAXIS XXI, 2/2.2/MAR/1743/95) carried out by CEG.Special thanks to the EUNIT network on Industry,Innovation and Territory funded by HCM which gave riseto this fruitful cooperation.

01 Jhally (1991) characterized the operating logic ofcommercial TV networks as the sale of audiences toadvertisers. Recent innovations in transmission technology,however, have given rise to another type of business based

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on the direct sale of programmes (such as subscriptionnetworks, pay-per-view, and video-on-demand).

02 The video is not only a promising market for NorthAmerican producers. It is estimated, in the case ofEurope, that ‘the video market [is] generating twice asmuch revenue as cinema screenings and meeting over halfa film’s production budget’ (Media Programme, 1996: iv).

03 These are also the programmes that make up the newtélévision compassionnelle that is emerging and to whichMehl (1996) refers: they include, for example, talk-showson light, up-to-date themes.

04 Data taken from European Cinema Yearbook, 1996.05 The Statistical Yearbook of the European Audiovisual

Observatory indicates that in January 1998 there were 14public and 22 private channels with potential nationalreception.

06 Whereas ARD and ZDF still covered 77% of televisionconsumption in 1988, this share fell to 35% in 1993(Donsbach and Mathes, 1995: 513), partly due to thelimitation on advertising in public television (20 minutesper day and not after 8 p.m.) (Schuler-Harms, 1997: 96).

07 RTP1 is financed by means of an ambiguous schemesimultaneously based on state subventions and advertisingrevenue. TV2 started working on the same system, laterbeing transformed into a pure public service channelfinanced exclusively by the state.

08 In this context Brazilian soap operas (telenovelas) havebeen playing a particular role, even stimulating nationalproduction of similar programmes.

09 This occurred at least partly to the detriment of otherareas of AV consumption: video retail turnover, takingboth sales and hiring into account, has dropped by about25% since private TV channels started operating inPortugal.

10 A project to create a package of three channels on a pay-TV system by a consortium consisting of Lusomundo,SIC and TVGlobo of Brazil has already been announced.

11 This importance is mainly due to the fact that three ofGermany’s largest magazine publishers are based inHamburg. The nine highest-circulation newspapers of thecountry are published here and 58% of the turnover inmagazine advertising is accounted for by Hamburg’spublishers (Kirsch and Schröder, 1994: 66).

12 Regulation in the case of TV, subsidies in the case ofcinema film production, the latter due to the poor marketsituation for German movies.

13 Although Sony’s activity in Hamburg only encompassesclassical music; the German base is in Frankfurt.

14 See the contributions to a symposium organized by themedia research institute of the University of Hamburg in1984 (Hoffmann-Riem and Ziethen, 1985).

15 Thus, the biggest German newspaper and magazinepublisher, Springer, held 20% of SAT 1 and 24.9% ofDSF (German Sports Television) in 1994 (Donsbach andMathes, 1995: 509).

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Correspondence to:

Eduardo Brito Henriques, Faculdade de Letras,Cidade Universitária, 1699 Lisboa Codex, Portugal.[email: eduardo.b.h@mail.telepac.pt]Joachim Thiel, Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg, AB 1–06, 21071 Hamburg, Germany.[email: thiel@tu-harburg.de]

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