For listening, not just hearing

Bitte Schon is the German for "thank you". It is also the name given to those deported from the so called Sudetenland after the war.a The Sudetan Germans were called "Bittschoens", because of their humble behaviour, by the West Germans.

Helmut Kopetzky is a Bittschoen He had last seen his home town of Sumperk 45 years ago, when, as a child, his family were forced to leave.

I was a Bittschoen Too is his radio documentary about his return to Sumperk. Kopetzky was one of a number of prize winning documentary makers who addressed an unusual seminar at RTE recently. It brought together some of the leading, and most innovative radio programme makers in Europe, the US and in Ireland, though strangely not from BBC radio.

In Studio One of the radio centre in Montrose, Kopetzky explained why he made this documentary and made the journey. It was a small, personal story with much bigger implications. As a German Czech co production it was itself an exercise in reconciliation. It was made in both German and Czech and the Czech version won this ear's major documentary prize, the Priz Futura.

Koetzky told his audience of his philosophy of radio, its ability to tell a little story about something bigger. Harri Huhtamaki from Finland produced Cockroach. This experiment in sound was an attempt to investigate power and how children perceive it. It used a poem called Cockroach, 16 musicians and innovative use of sound technology to create a programme that was about rhythms and sounds.

It defied categories. It had won a documentary award, but it might have been a piece of radio art. It dealt with social issues, but only with sound it was just a radio programme.

From the simple story of Helmut Kopetzky to the extravagance of Cockroach, the documentary form is radio at its best. The feature documentary uses the very intimacy of radio, the intellectualism of radio, it pushes boundaries and paints sound pictures in our heads. But, above all, it tells a story.

The existence of the documentary is threatened. In the US documentary and more adventurous radio is an endangered species, producer Gregory Whitehead said. In Europe, while public service radio is protecting the form, most producers feel squeezed out by incessant talk radio, phone ins, and continuous news headlines.

The seminar in RTE was unusual because of its inclusiveness. Of course RTE's own producers were present, but so were programme makers from commercial local radio, from community radio as well as media students broadcast students and RTE trainees.

The seminar was the idea of the commissioning editor for documentaries, Lorelei Harris, whose own documentary, Dreaming of Fat Men, won the Prix ltalia last year. The purpose of the three day seminar was to increase the skills in documentary making, and to push up standards in the craft areas of radio production, she said.

The seminar took place at an important juncture for Irish radio. The Independent Radio and Television Commission is currently considering the applicants for the new national commercial licence it is at a time when a string of community stations have been licensed when there is a debate taking place, about the future of broadcasting generally and specifically about how local radio should be funded. The Minister responsible for broadcasting, Michael D. Higgins, has also promised new broadcasting legislation next year, and RTE has requested a new frequency so it can transmit FM3 as a classical and arts channel for 24 hours a day.

Organising this seminar was an unusual and interesting way to spend some of the licence fee. It introduced Irish programme makers to the very best standards, allowing young students to see and talk to the best in the business. Hopefully it will serve to encourage innovation, not just in RTE, but around the country.

At the seminar, Barbro Holmberg from Finland played and talked about her typical Scandinavian programmes, with their space, elegance and darkness. Regine Beyer, a German programme maker working in the US, spoke of advocacy, documentaries with a strong message and her attempts to offer a balance to what she sees as the conservative mainstream of American radio.

There was also the work of French programme makers Rene Farabet and Kaye Mortley, an Australian working in Paris, with their artistic, intellectual and moving works, or Edwyn Brys, from Belgium with his documentary, Every Day Something Disappears, about a home for Alzheimer patients and the strength of music in their lives.

Speaker after speaker spoke of making radio for listening to rather than just hearing, of radio offering a challenge, of radio of the imagination.

It was 100, years last summer since Marconi, succeeded in sending a radio signal a few metres across his grandfather's villa in Italy. It would be a tragedy if one century later, radio simply became a music box in the corner pumping out, mediocrity and news headlines with no room for different voices.