Posts from ‘February, 2008’

Poland’s largest listed media group TVN asked the European Commission yesterday to look into whether the state broadcaster is enjoying illegal public assistance and advantages that stifle competition. TVN said in a statement that Poland’s legal and regulatory framework on the financing of public television through public aid violated EU law.
Poland’s state television, whose main [...]

The European Commission has decided to close its investigation into the funding of Irish public service broadcasters RTÉ and TG4, following commitments from Ireland to amend the current financial regime. Ireland has agreed to clarify the public service remit and to make accounts more transparent.
The Commission concluded that once these changes were made, the regime [...]

Dutch regional commercial station Radio Waddenzee is planning to become a real offshore broadcaster for three days on 1-3 May 2008. The station will be anchoring its lightship Jenni Baynton close to the uninhabited island of Griend, off the coast between Harlingen and Terschelling. The anchorage is on the route of a boat race that takes place on 2 [...]

The International Olympic Committee has awarded the broadcast rights for the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver and 2012 Olympics in London to pay-TV company Sky Italia, overlooking Rai, the traditional broadcaster of the Olympic Games in Italy.
The rights awarded to Sky Italia, the satellite broadcaster owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, cover all platforms, including free-to-air [...]

A team of technicians from Peru’s UPC University gave the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MTC) a report yesterday detailing information on the three transmission standards that could be used in the Andean country for digital television.
Field tests for the implementation of terrestrial digital television broadcasting in Peru began in December to define a Standard [...]

Hufvudsadsbladet, Finland’s top Swedish-language daily, reported today that the parliamentary ombudsman has launched a probe into the switch from analogue to digital television transmissions following a number complaints faulting the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) and its overseer, the communications ministry.
The paper added that one of the issues the ombudsman will investigate is the reasoning behind YLE’s [...]

Podcasting and the ubiquity of MP3 players have doomed digital radio before it even launches in Australia, one of the country’s leading broadcasting academics says. Existing radio broadcasters are relying on the upcoming digital services - set to launch on 1 January next year - to help them stay modern and continue attracting younger audiences.
Digital [...]

Eutelsat Communications today announced that Thales Alenia Space has been commissioned to build the W3B satellite which will provide Eutelsat with significant new capacity for broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband services.
Scheduled for launch in the second quarter 2010, W3B will in principle be co-positioned with Eutelsat’s W3A satellite at 7 degrees East. Based on the Spacebus [...]

Azerbaijan’s Teleradio Director Aflatun Sharifov told APA-Economics that new equipment and transmitters will be installed in Baku and Gandja to support digital transmission. According to him, two transmission packages composing of four TV programs each will be offered in Baku and Ganja. AzTV (state-owned broadcaster) and ITV (Public TV) and private broadcasters like ATV, ANS [...]

Canadian military chiefs have told soldiers not to post personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook because it could prompt attacks by groups such as Al Qaeda, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp said today. Canada currently has 2,500 troops stationed in southern Afghanistan, an area where the Taliban is strong.
“Al Qaeda operatives are monitoring [...]

President Bingu wa Mutharika is to announce the dissolution of the boards of state media houses Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Television Malawi to appoint a merged board, Nyasa Times understands. The government formed a task force last year to work out a merger of the national radio and sole television station. The task force [...]

Serbia’s opposition Social Democratic Union protested today over threats directed against Belgrade-based private B92 TV and radio. In a statement the pro-Western SDU party said that “these threats are considered serious.” “Serbia will have no true future without media freedom,” it said.
Yesterday B92 filed a complaint to a Belgrade’s prosecutor and police and informed them about frequent death [...]

Nina Yacoubian of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) writes: 
On the occasion of the sixth birthday of Radio Okapi, the radio sponsored by the United Nations, MONUC head Alan Doss addressed its listeners on a special programme on February 25 2008, where he encouraged them to serve “themselves,” because it’s “a [...]

The European Radio Project, in which RNW is involved, now has a name - Euranet. The station was officially launched in Brussels today by Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission and in charge of the EU’s communication strategy. The EC felt there was a need for fair and balanced information on EU affairs, she [...]

Six international telecoms companies are planning to lay an undersea internet cable between Japan and the United States. The cable will connect the Japanese town of Chikura with Los Angeles, over a distance of 10,000 kilometres. The project will cost $300 million and be completed in 2010.
Once the cable is in place, older networks in [...]