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“Studio” rental doubled and to the new basic price, a lot of extra costs were added. The perfect example: Costs for one
hour of live television from the Nest until the spring of 1998:

Transmission costs: Fi. 50 (+ Euro 22),
rental of the Nest: FI 7.50 (+ Euro 3):

a total of aprox. Fi. 60 (+ Euro 28).
Costs after the summer 1998 from the “semi-professional” studio.
Transmission costs: Fl. 50 (& Euro 22),
semi-professional studio costs Fi. 30 (+ Euro 13),
Lights & Air Co. (mandatory?!) Fi. 300 (+ Euro 130)

Still very cheap for international standards, but a big difference for those operating on a no-budget basis, and all of this
for the sake of semi-profesionalisation (?) something that nobody among programmers was asking for in the first place.

THE LETHAL INJECTION

Inexperienced, uninnovative management combined with decisions taken by incompetent politicians and implemented by
of the local bureaucracy, are the main components for the "Fatal Injection" that will terminate tactical television program-
ming in Amsterdam.

Salto's approach to programming for the new millennium is the typical reaction of Dutch non profit organisations to politi-
cal and bureaucratic pressure: in order to get more subsidy, or... worst, to keep the subsidy, they have to pretend to be -to
look- very “professional” (19th Century Industrialist professionalism ) enlarging infrastructure and hiring more -unquali-
fied- personnel to push more paper and to desperately pretend to be important and efficient. This new developments were
combined by Salto's clumsy marketing and public relations schemes trying to look neo-liberal an open to private initiative.
Puerile schemes that are totally unnecessary in a non profit and heavily subsidised organisation. Advertisement depart-
ments and in stead of an active web page and webcasting radio and t.v. programming via real audio and real video, Salto
invests precious time, energy and resources in the publication of a (hard copy) radio and t.v. guide distributed among pro-
grammers (that nobody reads) and that recently patronises tv makers by featuring text about how to make better television
in the language and the attitude used to address primary school students. All of this is also partly due to the fact that all
responsibilities rest on the management shoulders; The board of directors of Salto plays no active role and operates more
like an Honorary Committee that sanctions administrator: jatives.

Salto's imposition of "semi-professionalism” up on programmers has suffocated all tactical approaches to television mak-
ing and has frustrated the development of a new, and very much needed, vocabulary that incorporate all of the many
‘sources that conform television programming in the information era.

Pressure from Above.

Part of the problem is due to the pressure put up on Salto by civil servants that most implement blindly polices devised by
elected officials that in many cases are only interested in delivering the sound bytes that their respective parties instruct
them to deliver, no matter when, no matter where, no matter how. The identity crisis faced by Western politics and politi-
cians at the moment also reflects in the Amsterdam's local media. Events suddenly take place and unexpected changes
are rapidly implemented simply because generalists in decision making positions think that things should be that way.
Generalists that are only interested in their own success no matter doing what a no matter how. Culture and communica-
tions are vulnerable fields for this sort of attacks and it is unavoidable for people experimenting in these areas to have to
confront these situations at some point.

INSTITUTIONALISATION

This is probably the case with very well organised societies like the Netherlands where the institutionalisation terminates
the spontaneous existence of activities such as tactical, local programming. they get strangled by bureaucratic straight
jackets. The short lived leading role played by Dutch artists in video art during the early 70s is the best example to illus-