Posts from ‘September, 2006’

About 1.4 million people were affected by a technical problem this morning that cut off the national public radio networks based in Hilversum from cable systems in the west and central parts of the Netherlands. According to a spokesman for cable company Casema, it appears that the problem was caused by some overnight technical work by the NOB, [...]

A Pentagon unit has drafted a report charging that US international broadcasts into Iran aren’t tough enough on the Islamic regime. McClatchy Newspapers obtained a copy of the report this week, and it also has circulated on Capitol Hill. It accuses the Voice of America’s Persian TV service and Radio Farda of taking a soft [...]

Sirius Satellite Radio has introduced its first pocket-sized portable radio that allows subscribers to listen to live broadcasts and to digital music from their personal collections. Sirius’ Stiletto 100, which will compete with a similar portable line from rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., will sell for about $350, Sirius said. It also has a short-range [...]

With the battle cry “World War II has begun,” motion picture and television production company Fast Carrier Pictures has started a daily web broadcast entitled World War II Daily that will present the history of the Second World War for the next six years in real time, it was announced yesterday by Fast Carrier’s president, [...]

BBC News faces the threat of industrial action after announcing 108 job cuts. Around 50% of the jobs affected involve members of the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU), which says it it will be prepared to take industrial action if any member faces compulsory redundancy as a result of the cuts.
BECTU is especially [...]

Chinese regulators have approved the sale by News Corp of a 19.9 percent stake in Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television to the Chinese mainland’s largest mobile phone operator, state media said yesterday. The State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC) has approved the sale by Star Group, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media empire, to China [...]

SES Astra has signed a new transponder contract with the British commercial TV broadcaster Five. The additional capacity will primarily be used for the company’s two new channels – Five Life and Five US – which will be launched in October. The broadcaster will initially take half of a transponder at the orbital position 28.2° [...]

VT Communications has been awarded a £1.4M contract with BBC World Service for the deployment of their new Satellite Media Distribution System (SMDS). The SMDS system replaces the current satellite based Global Delivery System (GDS), with DVB based technology. As the BBC addresses the challenges of the global media environment, this technology gives them greater [...]

The Board of Directors of MCOT Public Company Limited (MCOT Plc), Thailand’s leading broadcast media, announced their resignation en masse today to take responsibility for the “September 19 incident”, the company’s board chairman announced. MCOT’s media sway effectively includes television channel 9, 62 radio stations and the Thai News Agency.
 
A state enterprise ‘privatised’ two years ago, MCOT [...]

Members of the US military in South Korea who live off base must subscribe to the AFN satellite service if they want to watch NFL action this year. National Football League games will not be broadcast on AFN Prime Pacific-Korea because about 50 South Korean cable companies intercept the signal and offer it as part of [...]

Irish public broadcaster RTÉ has joined INEX, Ireland’s Internet exchange. With INEX membership, RTÉ says it can deliver quality broadcast material over the Internet in a more efficient manner, thereby increasing the quantity of broadcast material available on its webcast. With consumers choosing what to watch and when to watch it, there is significant opportunity [...]

Lithuanian Conservative MP Vilija Aleknaite-Abramikiene told a press conference today that a recent visit to Ireland had left her nervous about Russia’s influence on Lithuanian expatriates. Lithuanian people who live abroad see the world through the Kremlin’s “window” she said. Without access to Lithuanian television, they watch stations controlled by official Russian authorities. Aleknaite-Abramikiene said she [...]

Internet services in Zimbabwe have been restored after fixed telephone service provider TelOne paid its outstanding US$700,000 debt to Intelsat, a company spokesman said today. ”We were bailed out by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe late Friday,” Phil Chingwaru, TelOne spokesman said. “We were given US$1 million although our bill was only $700,000.”
Intelsat had cut the state-owned  firm from the [...]

Sirius Satellite Radio has launched a subscription-based Internet radio option, offering a subset of its satellite radio channels. As far as we know, the service has been soft-launched and there has been no press release to announce its availability. Sirius subscribers can already listen to Internet streams for free, but at the low bitrate of 32 [...]

The number of blog sites in China reached 34 million last month, a 30-fold increase from four years ago, state media said today despite a series of curbs on media and dissent. China has more than 17 million people writing blogs and more than 75 million people reading them, Xinhua news agency said.
Authors of personal blogs choose [...]