Posts from ‘January, 2008’

The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has awarded a ten year licence in principle to Choice Broadcasting Limited FM (trading as 4 FM) for the provision of a new music-driven service aimed at listeners in the 45+ age category. The franchise area for the service is for Dublin City and County and commuter belt, Cork City [...]

Germany has decided not to invest more money in Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). After ten years, DAB simply hasn’t caught on in Germany. Just 200,000 DAB receivers have been sold in a country with a population of 83 million. The Kommission zur Ermittlung des Finanzbedarfs der Rundfunkanstalten (KEF), which decides financial policy regarding broadcasting in Germany, [...]

Radio station WWVH in Hawaii, operated since 1948 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to broadcast time, frequency and other announcements, recently powered up innovative replacement antennas.
In a seven-year project to adopt a technology used on Navy ships, NIST has installed new antennas encased in fiberglass rather than traditional steel supports, to [...]

M Jusuf Ronodipuro, one of the founders of Indonesia’s state broadcaster RRI, passed away on Sunday. He was 88. Born in 1920, Jusuf suffered a stroke in June 2007 and had been in and out of hospital since then.
Along with Bachtiar Lubis, Jusuf was the first person to read Indonesia’s 1945 Proclamation of Independence on [...]

At its meeting on 24 January the BBC Trust gave its approval, subject to certain conditions, for the BBC in partnership with the Gaelic Media Service (GMS), to launch a Gaelic Digital Service (GDS). Following a full Public Value Test, the Trust has approved the service to launch now on cable, satellite and broadband, but [...]

Al Jazeera English (AJE) is aiming to turn up the heat on its rivals in the global 24-hour news broadcasting industry. The station, which celebrated its first anniversary last November, is planning a hard relaunch in the second-quarter with “new programmes and new people”. 
Nigel Parsons, AJE’s managing director, says that the broadcaster is in ‘pole [...]

Comcast Corp will shut down AZN Television, its English-language network targeting Asian Americans, in April because it couldn’t make the channel work financially. But the cable giant reiterated its commitment to serving this demographic. A spokeswoman said Comcast still will offer 11 networks and two VOD services for Asian Americans. AZN’s Asian Excellence Awards show [...]

Media Guardian writes: RTÉ must have known that axing its mediumwave service would be unpopular, but the Irish broadcaster could not have expected the furore that has followed. RTÉ’s decision to unplug its mediumwave service on the island has provoked a political row that even encompasses the Good Friday agreement.
The station stands accused of abandoning nationalists in [...]

According to the website of Dutch-based English-language commercial station Radio Seagull, the station is now relayed nightly between 2200 and 0600 UTC on 105 FM on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The power of the transmitter is reported to be nearly 300 watts.
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The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) warned on Friday that it could block Free2View’s satellite signal, or take other action, if the UK-based free-to-air broadcaster continued operating without a licence. Free2View launched its satellite broadcasting services last week. It will provide consumers with access to a variety of channels, such as live news programmes [...]

The Guwahati Station of All India Radio (AIR) will start the ‘News on Phone’ (NOP) service from today. Talking to an Assam Tribune correspondent, a senior official of the station said, “The taste of the listeners both in urban and rural areas have, no doubt, changed and we are aware of it. We need to keep improving [...]

The good news is that Rohde & Schwarz have produced a new portable receiver specifically tailored to worldwide requirements of mobile radio monitoring. Its wide frequency range covers 9 kHz to 7.5 GHz. The bad news, if you’re a hobbyist, is that the R&S PR100 portable monitoring receiver comes at a starting price of US$17,400 (base [...]

The Sunday Telegraph reports that the company which owns half of Britain’s radio and TV masts is offering to slash its prices in a move that could secure regulatory approval for its £2.5bn merger with rival National Grid Wireless and provide a major fillip to Britain’s troubled commercial radio industry.
Arqiva - which is owned by [...]

With effect from 28 January 2008, the VOA Urdu Service (Aap Ki Duniya) is to discontinue all shortwave channels. The SW schedule was 0100-0200 UTC on 7145 and 9740 kHz, 1400-1800 UTC on 7495 and 9370 kHz, and 1800-1900 UTC on 7425 and 7495 kHz.
Most of the channels carrying the Urdu service are moving to VOA’s Deewa Radio in Pashto. From 28 [...]

The New York Philharmonic’s concert in Pyongyang on 26 February will be broadcast live on satellite television, a statement from the orchestra said yesterday. The concert, which was announced on 11 December, is to open with the US and North Korean national anthems, the orchestra has said.
The program will be standard fare: George Gershwin’s “An American [...]