Posts from ‘April, 2004’

The BBC is launching the bbcnews.com site’s latest innovation – a breaking news desktop alert service - in an online advertising campaign aimed at international news seekers in Western Europe. Based on the key message All the news you need, the campaign promotes the range of news available on the award-winning site and enables [...]

Listeners in Botswana will have more opportunity to hear BBC World Service programmes from Monday 3 May. Gabz FM 96.2 will start broadcasting BBC English for Africa programme Network Africa in the capital Gaborone. Simon Kendall, Business Development Manager for BBC World Service Africa and Middle East Region, said: “We are delighted listeners will be [...]

The BBC World Service pays tribute to the late Alistair Cooke in Letter to Alistair on 15 and 22 May. The veteran broadcaster died at his New York home in March this year, aged 95. For 58 years he presented Letter from America, the world’s longest running speech radio programme. First broadcast in 1946 it [...]

WQXR, the classical music station of the New York Times. announced this week that it’s negotiating with ABC Radio to set up a national classical radio network in the US, aimed especially at markets without a commercial classical station. Programming would be produced by WQXR independent of its current programming. Tom Bartunek, president and general [...]

Indian commercial radio station Win 94.6 FM in Mumbai closed down yesterday after two years of broadcasting. The station’s owners, Millenium Broadcasting, say that they cannot afford to continue because of the high cost of renewing their broadcasting licence. Hundreds of listeners, some in tears, called the station after it announced the decision on Wednesday. [...]

Due to a technical problem at Radio Netherlands, we were unable to send out this week’s Media Network Newsletter. It’s a Dutch holiday tomorrow (Queen’s Day) so the chances of getting the problem fixed before Monday are slim. I’m not sure whether the problem is with listserv itself, or with the RNW mail server. These [...]

The US Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association (SBCA) plans to file formal comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) following claims by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) that satellite radio providers SIRIUS and XM Satellite Radio are violating FCC regulations by providing local weather and traffic reports to subscribers.
“The claim that satellite radio [...]

The Italian parliament today gave its final approval to a controversial media bill that critics say will further reinforce prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s tight grip on the country’s media. The bill replaces a previous draft which President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi refused to sign into law in December on the grounds that it gave [...]

US-funded Alhurra TV is making inroads in the Middle East after six weeks on the air, according to a survey out today. On average 29 percent of those polled in an early April survey by the French company Ipsos-Stat watch Alhurra, with a low of 18 percent in Egypt and a high of 44 [...]

Members of Slovakia’s parliamentary Media Committee have rejected plans to cancel the shortwave broadcasts of Radio Slovakia International (RSI) for financial reasons.
“I will speak to ministers and try to bring arguments explaining the importance of sustaining shortwave broadcasting of Radio Slovakia International”, said Slovak Radio director general Jaroslav Reznik after the Parliamentary Media Committee decided [...]

The US National Telecommunications and Information Administration has released its report on Broadband over Powerlines (BPL). The report comes out in favour of the position adopted by the international broadcasters and the North American Shortwave Association, representing shortwave listeners. The report says:
“HF radio is a very practical means of communicating directly with the people of [...]

Jonathan Groubert, the producer/presenter of Radio Netherlands’ European Affairs magazine, EuroQuest, will be the featured guest on Wisconsin Public Radio’s global call-in show “Here On Earth” this Sunday, May 2, at 9pm CET, 7pm UTC or 2pm CT.
He and host Jean Feraca will be discussing the European Union’s expansion to 25 nations and what this [...]

The knock-on effects of the unprecented efforts of the US Federal Communications Commission to “clean up” American TV are already becoming apparent. Steven Bochco, producer of gritty cop series “NYPD Blue”, one of America’s many export successes, says that he’s “ready to give up” on the show. “If we have to keep reining ourselves in [...]

A technical fault caused several brief interruptions to the programming of Dutch commercial broadcaster Arrow Rock Radio this morning. At 1123 UTC the station announced that there would be a period of silence while it switched to another studio, and asked listeners to stay tuned. Programming resumed after a break of just under 10 minutes, [...]

The US government is soliciting technical, administrative, and operational support for the shortwave element of its psychological operations, run by US Special Operations Command. The procurement is open to full open competition, and all proposals from responsible sources will be fully considered.
The requirement is to conduct shortwave broadcasting transmission of informational news for coverage over [...]