Media Network

The planned UK station OneGold, which was originally planning to use the Dutch transmitter on 1395 kHz but has now abandoned that part of the plan, has launched what it calls a test version of its website. No start date has been announced, but the station lists its delivery platforms as FM, DAB, mobile podcast, satellite, and Freeview. Whether these will all be used remains to be seen.

OneGold says it will feature fifteen former [BBC] Radio 1 presenters. The test page lists Mike Read as presenter of the Breakfast Show on weekdays at 7-10am, followed by David Hamilton at 10am - 2pm.

British pay-TV giant BSkyB has reduced its stake in commercial television network ITV by 10.4 percent after losing an appeal against a government antitrust ruling. The stake was reduced to 7.5 percent from 17.9 percent, netting BSkyB about £196 million (€223 million, $306 million), according to a statement. “Sky intends to retain its residual 7.5 percent investment in ITV for the medium term and to remain a committed shareholder of ITV,” the statement added.

The satellite TV operator had snapped up 17.9 percent of ITV for £940 million in November 2006. But competition authorities acted after analysts saw the purchase as an attempt to prevent an ITV tie-up with BSkyB’s fierce rival Virgin Media. Britain’s Court of Appeal last month said that a 2008 government ruling that BSkyB cut its shareholding in ITV to 7.5 percent on grounds of competition must stand. BSkyB’s biggest shareholder is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

(Source: AFP)

Mindel DeLaTorre, Chief of the International Bureau of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has returned from a mission to Haiti which was at the request of the Haitian telecommunications regulator, Conatel, and in coordination with USAID which is leading the US Government efforts in Haiti. In the official FCC blog, she reports on the media situation in Port-au-Prince as of last week:

Only six of 18 TV licensees were on the air, and their operations were intermittent. The two licensed AM radio stations were off the air because they couldn’t afford the fuel needed to run the generators that would power their transmitters. Of the 40 licensed FM stations, 30 were on the air, with a few able to operate between 12-16 hours per day. Damaged facilities and equipment, limited fuel and lack of advertising revenue are really hurting the broadcasters in Haiti now.

• Read the full blog post

Radio Tirana Online is now streaming what I assume to be a relay of the domestic service Radio 1 at 64 kbps. Before and after the news summary at 1200 UTC there was a short commercial for Radio Tirana Online mentioning the URL. The audio level is very high, but the quality is good and there was very little distortion.

SES World Skies has reached an agreement with the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) regarding the long-term use of the 67 degrees West orbital position. The 67 degrees West orbital position offers an extensive Ku-band satellite frequency range and excellent viewing angles for coverage of the Americas and the Caribbean.

The Andean Community consists of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The organisation was established in 1997 to foster the political, economic and social integration of its member countries. One of its long-standing objectives has been the development of the 67 degrees West geostationary orbital position with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for the benefit of the Andean people.

Freddy Ehlers, Secretary General of the Andean Community, said: “We are very pleased with this agreement with SES World Skies for the development of the Andean orbital rights at 67 degrees West. Through this agreement, the Andean Community will deepen and strengthen the economic integration and socio-cultural cohesion of its member countries, as well as expand communications throughout the region.”

(Source: SES World Skies)

The Ekiti State Broadcasting Station (BSES) in Nigeria has been shut down because of a faulty power generator, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. The broadcasting outfits run by the station are the AM Radio (Voice of Ekiti), FM Radio (Golden Voice of Ekiti), and the television station (Channel 41 UHF), all located at Ilokun-Ekiti.

Confirming the closure, the Director General of the station, Segun Aderiye, said in Ado-Ekiti on Thursday, that the station, launched on May 22 1999, was shut seven days ago because its only electricity generating set was faulty. He could neither confirm when the generator would be repaired nor when the radio and television channels would resume transmission, but described the generator problem as a “major fault.”

(Source: 234next.com)

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) managing director Mark Scott says the organisation is still in talks about broadcasting the international television service, Australia Network, into China. Speaking at a Senate estimates committee in Canberra, Mr Scott also said he would find out more about a recent Australian newspaper claim that the ABC has run pro-Chinese military propaganda in a series of documentaries produced by a company founded by a senior Chinese official.

Restrictions on western broadcasts into China have precluded the Australian Network being broadcast there and negotiations with Chinese officials are continuing. Mr Scott also told the committee while Chinese officials were not reluctant to provide a critique of western coverage, they had not put forward views about specific Australia Network programmes.

“They certainly don’t go through critiquing Australia Network programming,” he said. “They are speaking more generally about western coverage of issues like Tibet, western coverage of issues like that rather than a specific critique of the ABC.”

Mr Scott has also pressed his case for an expansion of Australian international broadcasting and questioned why the national broadcaster should have to tender every five years to continue running the Australia Network television service. He put his case for expanded Australian international broadcasting, to create what he called an integrated radio and television brand, bringing Australia Network and Radio Australia closer together.

But Mr Scott says the tender process required by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for Australian Network is a constraint not applied to other public broadcasters like the BBC. “There are some disadvantages in arguing long-term sporting rights and satellite rights and other, and those 600 contracts that we have to deal with distributors when there’s the instability that can come up around a tender basis,” he said. “But of course if we’re asked to go to tender we will.”

(Source: Radio Australia News)

Modern Times Group (MTG) today announced that it has acquired 50% of Raduga Holdings from Continental Media for an undisclosed consideration in cash. Raduga is the sole owner of LCC DaoGeoCom, which operates Russian nationwide DTH satellite pay-TV platform Raduga TV.

Raduga TV was launched in February 2009 and had 70,000 active subscribers as at 31 December 2009. The platform offers a package of more than 50 TV channels, including a wide range of Russian channels, as well as the localised versions of leading international channel brands such as Discovery Channel Russia, Eurosport Russia, National Geographic and Jetix. The package also includes Viasat Broadcasting’s Viasat History, Viasat Explorer, TV1000 Russian Kino, TV1000 East and TV1000 Action East channels. Russian networks CTC, Domashny and DTV, which are operated by CTC Media, Inc, are also available on a free-to-air basis on the platform together with a number of other Russian free-TV channels. MTG owns 39.4% of CTC Media, Inc.

The Raduga TV channel package is priced at 300 roubles (approximately US$ 10) per month on a three or six month pre-paid contract basis. The channels are encrypted with the Irdeto conditional access system and made available through the Asian Broadcasting Satellite ABS-1 (75° East) Northern Beam, which covers more than 90% of the Russian Federation and is managed by Russian satellite operator GeoTelecommunicatons (GT). Subscriptions can be purchased from retailers across Russia.

The remaining 50% interest in Raduga has been retained by Continental Media. The two owners will share management control of Raduga, which will be proportionately consolidated by MTG and reported in the Group’s ‘Pay-TV Emerging Markets’ business segment within the Viasat Broadcasting business area.

Viasat Broadcasting will now provide DTH satellite TV services in a total of nine countries – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia – and distribute its Viasat branded channels via third party operators in 25 countries across Central and Eastern Europe and in the US. The nine platforms have over one million subscribers. The pay-TV channels had attracted over 39 million subscriptions as at 31 September 2009.

(Source: Modern Times Group)

The European Commission has warned the Lithuanian national telecoms regulator RRT that obliging terrestrial broadcasters to use specific suppliers to transmit their programmes constitutes a barrier to competition and prevents new terrestrial transmission service providers from entering the market. The Commission says that regulators no longer need to intervene in broadcasting markets in principal. However, RRT intends to continue regulating Lithuanian terrestrial broadcasting markets because of the exclusive market position that has been granted to transmission service providers Lietuvos radijo ir televizijos centras (LRTC) and TEO.

“Lithuanian authorities must ensure that their licensing regime does not hamper effective competition in broadcasting transmission markets,” said Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner. “These markets no longer warrant regulation in the EU due to greater competition in many Member States and the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting.”

Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: “The current broadcaster licensing regime grants certain transmission service providers a monopoly to transmit their content and stops alternative transmission infrastructures from emerging. This situation seriously hampers competition and is detrimental both for most broadcasters and consumers.”

On 4 December 2009, RRT informed the Commission it had analysed markets for analogue and digital terrestrial television and radio broadcasting transmission services. RRT defined seven relevant markets depending on whether frequencies are assigned to the broadcaster or the broadcasting transmission service provider.

RRT justified these narrow market definitions on the basis of the different situations broadcasters face in the two types of markets:

• Broadcasters using radio frequencies assigned to them may choose to develop their own infrastructure which they - to a large extent - install at the incumbent (LRTC’s) sites, i.e. even if broadcasters install their own equipment, often they need to purchase broadcasting transmission facilities services from LRTC. Alternatively, broadcasters can opt to purchase the full range of broadcasting transmission services from another provider (mainly LRTC).
• In contrast, broadcasters who use radio frequency assigned to the transmission service provider must purchase broadcasting transmission services from the provider that was appointed in their broadcasting licence. Broadcasting licences, issued by the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission (Lietuvos radijo ir televizijos komisija) in tender procedures, specify the service provider (LRTC or TEO) which a broadcaster is allowed to use. Broadcasters have no choice of supplier.

In its letter the Commission has invited RRT to closely monitor market developments in terms of infrastructure and services competition, at retail and wholesale level, as competition may emerge from alternative platforms (e.g. cable and TV over internet (IPTV)) or because existing terrestrial transmission services infrastructure have been replicated.

The Commission has told RRT that the Lithuanian licensing regime for broadcasters is a legal obstacle to competition in five of the seven relevant markets. It also said it would reserve the right to examine whether the exclusive right granted by the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission in broadcasters’ licences to transmission service providers conforms with EU law. The Commission also said that its comments do not prejudge the outcome of a further review of the implementation of EU Directive 2002/77/EC on competition in markets for electronic communications networks in Lithuania.

(Source: European Commission)

China Radio International(CRI) launched China’s first Estonian and Lithuanian websites today. Both the Estonian and the Lithuanian one will publish information on China’s business, culture and tourism in the form of texts, photos, audio and video webcasts. The launch of the two websites has made CRI Online, a multi-language website of CRI, the web platform with the largest number of language services in the world. CRI Online, officially set up in December 1998, now offers 61 language services and 18 webcast stations.

(Source: CRI)

SES Astra announced today that it has signed a long-term agreement with M7 Group for two additional transponders at 23.5 degrees East. The newly contracted capacity will be used for the further extension of the HDTV lineup of CanalDigitaal, M7 Group’s direct-to-home (DTH) platform for the Dutch market and will bring the number of total transponders contracted by M7 Group at this orbital position to four.

The Luxembourg-based M7 Group provides DTH-services in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg using the brand names CanalDigitaal, TV Vlaanderen and TéléSAT. Following the agreement, CanalDigitaal will launch a broad range of new HD channels from mid-February onwards, including HD channels from the Dutch public broadcaster NPO, and commercial broadcasters RTL and SBS.

As a result, the CanalDigitaal HD channel lineup for the Dutch market will more than double over the next three months. In addition to the four transponders now contracted by M7 Group at 23.5 degrees, M7 Group currently also operates four transponders at the ASTRA 19.2 degrees East position. By using an Astra Duo LNB, Dutch DTH homes are capable of receiving programmes from both orbital positions via a single fixed dish.

(Sourcce: SES Astra)

The Australian reports that multi-cultural broadcaster SBS may soon join the ABC in launching a dedicated 24/7 free-to-air news channel. The move is being discussed as part of a top-to-bottom review of SBS activities ordered by new chairman Joseph Skrzynski who took over in December. Mr Skrzynski’s call for a full review of all activities comes two years into SBS’s current four-year strategic plan. He said a 24/7 world news service was one of many opportunities under discussion, but funding would be critical.

• Read the full story

Georgia is in talks with US companies on airing its Russian-language television channel in the Caucasus region after accusing its French broadcast partner of bowing to pressure from Russia, a Russian paper said on Friday. The broadcasts of First Caucasian, which was launched in mid-January via Eutelsat’s satellite, stopped at the end of last week. Tbilisi accused the French operator of bowing to Russian censorship demands. The firm strongly denied the charge *.

The channel targeted audiences throughout the Caucasus, including in Russia’s troubled republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, as well as the former Georgian republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, recognized by Moscow as independent states. Georgia’s public broadcaster, which incorporates the channel, is holding talks with US firms on broadcasts in Russian territory via their satellites, Kommersant said.

“We are in talks with American operators, with several of them, but I have no right to disclose our partners’ names or give contract volumes before the talks are completed,” First Caucasian director Zurab Dvali told the daily. “We hope the Americans will not bow to Gazprom,” another official at the channel told the paper, referring to a contract between Eutelsat and a media unit of the Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom.

Eutelsat earlier denied that Russian pressure was behind the decision to cease the broadcasts, saying a final contract with Georgia’s cash-strapped broadcaster had not been signed. Gazprom-media dismissed the allegation as “nonsense,” the paper said. Company spokesman Irina Zenkova said, as quoted by the daily, that the contract with Eutelsat was signed in March 2009, well ahead of Georgia’s plans to broadcast in Russian.

Eutelsat spokeswoman Vanessa O’Connor said earlier the company hopes to agree a broadcast contract with First Caucasian in the future. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s administration said the channel was to provide an unbiased coverage of events, mainly in the volatile Caucasus, for Russian audiences.

(Source: RIA Novosti)

*) a verdict by the The Paris Commercial Court is due tomorrow, Monday, 8 February.

Related stories:

• First Caucasian TV takes Eutelsat to court
• Eutelsat denies Kremlin pressure to cut Caucasus TV channel

Text of report by Iqbal Khattak headlined “Taleban ‘force’ Radio Pakistan to discontinue VOA broadcasts” published by Pakistan newspaper Daily Times website on 7 February

Peshawar: The Radio Pakistan management has decided to scrap the agreement with the Voice of America (VOA) to broadcast its Pashto-language radio programmes after receiving “direct threats” for airing “American propaganda”, Daily Times has learnt.

The VOA launched its Pashto-language radio station, ‘Deeva Radio’, last year, targeting audience in the Tribal Areas and the NWFP [North-West Frontier Province]. Deeva Radio is aimed at offering the locals with a chance to speak out against the Taleban in the region. Radio Pakistan aired Deeva Radio programmes during its prime time slot - 7pm to 10pm.

A senior producer at Radio Pakistan Peshawar told Daily Times, “The Taleban and other anti-American groups in the country threatened to bomb the Radio Pakistan Peshawar premises if the station continued airing Deeva Radio programmes”. He said, “The Radio Pakistan central management ended its agreement with the VOA in light of the terror threats and political pressure, as many local listeners went to the (print) media to force the government to cancel the agreement.”

“The programme content was polemic at best, which added fuel to the local anti-American sentiment. It also created the impression that the programmes were being recorded at the Peshawar station, which has never been the case,” the producer added. However, Radio Pakistan Director General Murtaza Solangi said the state-run broadcaster aired Deeva Radio programmes during September and October. The broadcast was cancelled after a month on mutual agreement between the Radio Pakistan and the VOA.

(Source: Daily Times website, Lahore, in English 07 Feb 10 via BBC Monitoring)

Dutch Public Broadcasting (NPO) wants to launch a new radio station in 2011. NPO Director of Radio Programming Jan Westerhof explained to the broadcasters’ magazine Spreekbuis that the new station, Radio 7, would take over the programming currently carried in the evenings and weekends on Radio 5.

Radio 5 now has a split personality. The new daytime format known as ‘Radio 5 Nostalgia’, which is targeted at the older listener and plays music from the 1950s and 1960s, has been very successful. It has helped increase the the station’s market share from 0.6 to 2.7 percent. But from 7 pm, when the specialist programmes start, the audience drops dramatically. Mr Westerhof believes that it is better for each network to have a coherent personality.

The NPO plan is for daytime programmes on the proposed Radio 7 to be delivered by the larger public broadcasters, while the small ones will continue to have their programmes aired in the evenings. Not surprisingly, the larger broadcasters are attracted to the idea, as they would have more airtime, but the minority broadcasters aren’t so keen. Another bone of contention will be whether the mediumwave frequency, 747 kHz, remains with Radio 5 or is reallocated to the proposed Radio 7. The specialist broadcasters naturally believe they should have it, and say that public broadcasting shouldn’t be about audience share, but about pluriformity.

But the NPO’s plans extend further. Mr Westerhof suggested that some music programmes currently on Radio 2 could be moved to Radio 5 when the specialist programmes switch to Radio 7, and he argues that Radio 2 can then concentrate on targeting a younger audience, closer to that of pop music network 3FM. This is a controversial point, and will certainly not go down well with the commercial stations, and probably not with 3FM either.

There is already a battle going on for the future of Radio 4, which plays a lot of classical music. Mr Westerhof says this network also needs to lower the average age of its audience, currently 64 years. But there has been a negative reaction to some programme changes that have already been made, particularly the replacement of its breakfast show, and things got so heated that Radio 4 even had to close the listeners’ forum on its website.

Mr Westerhof admits that not everyone will be happy with the changes, because people like familiarity, but says that refreshing a schedule normally means something has to disappear. Concerns have also been expressed by the broadcasting organisations about the financial implications of starting a new network. Since it’s unlikely that any additional funding will be provided by the government, they’re worried that it may have a negative effect on the overall quality of the programmes. Mr Westerhof argues that the public broadcasters have already saved 20 percent of the radio budget in the past five years, and believes that there are still ways to squeeze more efficiencies out of the total.

Before Radio 7 and the other changes arising from it can become a reality, the minister responsible for broadcasting, Ronald Plasterk, has to give his approval. He will decide in the summer whether or not to agree with NPO’s proposals.