Posts from ‘September, 2004’

The Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA) has offered to help member organisations who suffered damage from Hurricane Ivan. Grants of up to £1000 each, for uninsured damage, have been offered to Radio Cayman, CVM TV, Jamaica, Radio Jamaica/TVJ and CBC Barbados. The CBA is also covering the freight costs of a package of equipment put together [...]

At the just-concluded 41st General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, the Technical Committee reported that planning is under way with Deutsche Welle for a “roadshow” that will expose members to digital radio implementation techniques. The “roadshow” is expected to expose a large number of engineers to DRM over MF in each organisation/country location visited. [...]

Georgia’s draft law on broadcasting has been severely criticized by the parliamentary committee on financing and budgetary issues. The head of the committee, Roman Gotsiridze, told Georgia’s English-language newspaper The Messenger that “If certain changes are not made our committee won’t support the draft,” adding that once the changes are made the draft will offer [...]

SkyWaves Research Report, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based research publication covering the satellite radio industry, reports today that satellite radio subscriptions are poised for spectacular growth as the holiday selling season approaches.
In its fall edition, SkyWaves Research releases findings of its quarterly channel checks and sales estimates, and it publishes its annual analysis of current [...]

The Israeli Communications Ministry has refused to confirm a report in Sunday’s edition of Haaretz that Minister Ehud Olmert intends to fire Israel Broadcasting Authority Director-General Yosef Barel. IBA spokesman Oren Helman said simply: “The IBA does not respond to reports of this kind. When we have something to say on the matter, we’ll put [...]

The BBC is in talks with several US cable operators about distributing its news and information TV channel BBC World. In a statement released today, the BBC said: “Increasing distribution in the US is certainly a priority for us. We have been working with Discovery, a long-term partner of the BBC, to investigate options with [...]

British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has approved the £2bn sale of BBC Technology to Siemens. According to the Culture Secretary, there was ‘no legitimate reason’ to block it. The news has been greeted with disappointment by the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union (Bectu), whose members working for BBC Technology have opposed the sale since [...]

Walt Disney-owned sports channel ESPN is holding talks with broadcasters in Europe about launching a European version of its 24-hour US channel. “We have had discussions, and are in discussions, with a variety of people,” Russell Wolff, the managing director of ESPN International, told The Times. Wolff said the discussions were preliminary but added that [...]

Free-to-air broadcasters can help meet the fierce competition from satellite and cable television by relying on the quality of their content and the trust they have built up with viewers over the years, the ABU annual General Assembly in Almaty, Kazakhstan, has heard. Other ways to maintain their edge include offering their material on a [...]

BBC World Service has won the Localisation Research Centre (LRC) 2004 Best Global Website Award for its Your Voice interactive websites. The award recognises the most innovative multilingual and multicultural website on the Internet. The Your Voice websites were launched in Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Persian and Urdu in October 2003 with the objective of making [...]

Radio and TV programming in the Netherlands has been modified this afternoon and evening in connection with a public memorial gathering for singer André Hazes that takes place in the Amsterdam Arena this evening. Hazes died on 23 September. Radio 10 Gold is broadcasting the 10 most requested songs by André Hazes at 1500-1600 UTC [...]

A senior official in the Philippine government said today that the government is to consider opening newspapers, radio and television networks to foreign ownership. Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri said on ABS-CBN television that “It’s a good idea because once media operators come to the Philippines … then the Philippines could be a center for [...]

The Dutch domestic radio listening figures for July/August 2004 have been published by research bureau Intomart GfK. It has been another disastrous month for public network 3FM, which has seen its audience share plummet further to 5.7%. It’s not all bad news for the public broadcasters, though. Radio 1 has seen its share jump by [...]

Victor Goonetilleke reports: On the 22nd of September the order went from the Director General Engineering at SLBC to Ekala SW transmitting station to stop all Domestic SW transmissions due to the high cost of electricity. With it a long journey of Domestic SW has come to and end. MW ceased last year. However, the [...]

Carlton Books and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) will publish the Official History of the Eurovision Song Contest on March 1, 2005. Author John Kennedy O’Connor explains, “The book will be available across the continent and Australia in multiple language versions. It’s a lavishly illustrated, full colour book with some exceptionally rare photographs and artwork. [...]