Posts from ‘December, 2006’

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said yesterday that the licence of opposition television channel RCTV would not be renewed, giving ammunition to critics who say he is muzzling opponents to build a one-party state. Chávez has had a long-running battle with opposition television channels, RCTV, Venevision and Globovision, which he labels “horsemen of the apocalypse” and “Trojan [...]

The new Dutch station TMF Radio has published an apology on its website for interrupting a funeral on Wednesday, when rapper Ali B launched the station with fireworks in the village of Staphorst, which was selected for the launch because it’s “the most boring place in the Netherlands” according to the station. Unfortunately, the organisers had not been informed that, just a few [...]

BBC Monitoring has confirmed that Radio Mogadishu has been taken over by allies of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The station - based at Villa Somalia, the former presidential palace in the capital - had previously been under the control of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).
The takeover took place today (28 December) as UIC [...]

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)
Beijing, 28 December: China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has issued a circular Wednesday [27 December] ordering a crackdown on companies illegally broadcasting TV programmes on the Internet. The SARFT circular prohibits cooperation between SARFT-affiliated institutions and “online [...]

Seven radio stations and one television station in Serbia have been shut down for broadcasting without a licence. The Republic Broadcasting Agency (RRA) has shut down the following stations for broadcasting illegally on the territory of Belgrade: radio stations Kruna, Hit, Kriket, OK, Kontakt, Radio 24 and Maksis, and the television station Palma.
Some station officials showed [...]

Kenyan Information and Communications Minister, Mutahi Kagwe says the government will increase its level of investment in the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation to make the station more relevant to the socio-economic lives of Kenyans. KBC managing director, David Waweru, said KBC will go international by extending its radio and TV signals to the entire African region.
(Source: [...]

The Azeri National TV and Radio Broadcasting Council decided at a meeting today that the broadcasts of the Russian TV channels Channel One and Rossiya and the Turkish STV (Samanyolu) and D on Azerbaijan’s national frequencies be ended in 2007. The broadcasts of the Turkish channel D will be stopped on January 3, 2007 and [...]

Text of report by Taiwanese newspaper The China Post website on 27 December
Cheng Wen-tsan, director-general of the Government Information Office (GIO), said yesterday [26 December] the Kuomintang cannot sell its Broadcasting Corporation of China [BCC]. The opposition party confirmed it sold all its BCC shares, together with two channels, to Jaw Shau-kong, former board chairman [...]

Text of report by Russian news agency Ekho Moskvy
Moscow, 27 December: The head of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications, Mikhail Seslavinskiy, has said that the Soviet-era network of radio jamming stations should be preserved and used in case of emergency. “It has been mothballed for the last 15 years and its economic [...]

Arabian Television Network (ATN) said today it and MTV’s parent company Viacom would launch MTV Arabiya in the second half of 2007. ATN said in a statement the new 24-hour satellite station would tap the youth market in the Middle East where about half of the population is under 25 years of age.
The new free-to-air [...]

In 2007, German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk will play the European anthem, Beethoven’s ”Ode to Joy”, after the German national anthem at closedown. Germany takes over the chairmanship of the European Union for six months starting on 1 January, and playing Ode to Joy was the idea of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The European anthem is largely the work [...]

Next week, VT Communications begins a contract to broadcast 90 hours of Deutsche Wellle programmes in 14 languages to more than 100 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. According to Media Guardian, this will increase to 150 hours a week in May. According to the newspaper, Deutsche Welle has two contracts with T-Systems International, one [...]

Former BBC chairman Marmaduke Hussey has died at the age of 83, the broadcaster said today. Hussey was appointed to the top BBC job in 1986, steering it for a decade during which it was criticized for alleged left-wing bias under conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the BBC said.
His journalistic career began in 1949 when he [...]

Internet and phone services were disrupted across much of Asia today after an earthquake damaged undersea cables, leaving one of the world’s most tech-savvy regions in a virtual blackout. From frustrated traders seeking in vain for stock quotes to anxious newshounds accustomed to round-the-clock updates on world events, millions of people from China to Japan [...]

TMF Radio, the newest national radio station in the Netherlands, launched at 1100 UTC. The station is broadcasting on cable and Internet. The opening moments of the station were also carried live on the TMF TV channel. You can see photos of the studio in the Weblog of Sky Radio technician Ben van Berk.
TMF Radio
More [...]