Posts from ‘August, 2008’

Research Bureau Intomart GfK has today published the Dutch radio listening figures for June/July 2008. Market leader Radio 538 has lost share, but it still comfortably ahead of its nearerst rival, public network Radio 2. The other big loser this month, perhaps surprisingly, was Q-music, which saw its share slip by 0.5 percent after many [...]

The leading Israeli peace activist Abie Nathan has died in Tel Aviv at the age of 81. Mr Nathan, who was born in Iran, was educated in India and served in the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He immigrated to Israel in 1948. In 1966 he made headlines worldwide by flying [...]

Korean broadcasting companies face sanctions for their commentators’ inappropriate or racial comments during the coverage of Olympic Games in Beijing. The Korea Communications Standards Commission said on Monday that it will hold a committee this week to determine the level of penalty on major national television networks – MBC, KBS and SBS.
The Commission will also review [...]

The state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcast Holdings (ZBH) has formally notified the seven journalists, who it once suspended on accusation of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the run-up to the March 29 harmonised elections, of its intention to retrench them. The seven were served with letters on Tuesday, notifying them of the company’s intention [...]

An extraordinary shareholders’ meeting of Japan International Broadcasting Inc. has today elected Hatsuhisa Takashima, former Chief Commentator at NHK, to the company’s board of directors. Takashima is to be appointed President and CEO on 1 September 2008. Japan International Broadcasting Inc. is to launch Japan’s first 24-hour all-English broadcasting service in February 2009.
Japan International Broadcasting Inc.  [...]

Voice of America (VOA) this week launched www.USAVotes2008.com, an interactive election website offering an online meeting place where visitors worldwide can learn more about the historic US presidential contest.
“The website is tailored to meet the diverse needs of our international audience,” said VOA Director Danforth W Austin. “By engaging our online visitors directly, we hope [...]

President Lee Myung-bak appointed KBS Business President Lee Byong-soon as the new president of the Korean Broadcasting System on 16 August. The new appointee will complete the term of former KBS President Jung Yun-joo, which will last until November 2009. Lee began working for KBS in 1977 and was previously the president of KBS Media.
In [...]

Astral Media has launched the first North American commercial FM radio station under licence with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Radio International. Virgin Radio began broadcasting at 4:00 p.m. EDT yesterday, 25 August, on Astral Media’s 99.9 FM Toronto frequency and replaces Mix FM. Energetic, innovative and irreverent will be the trademark of Virgin Radio, as it focuses on delivering a [...]

Dutch Internet oldies station Radio Mi Amigo 192 will be broadcasting live from Scheveningen on 31 August at 1200-1800 (1000-1600 UTC). The DJ’s will be playing songs from the Top 192, comprising listeners’ favourites from the offshore radio era 1960-1989. There will also be live music from cover band ReaXtion.
From 1800-1900 there will be an [...]

The website of Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) has added the facility to sort and/or filter the online DRM broadcast schedule to display just a subset of the complete schedule, or display it in a different order. This makes it easy to find all the DRM transmissions of a specific broadcaster, or from a specific site. The [...]

About 150 applications to launch new television stations in India are awaiting approval from the government, the Press Trust of India reports. Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sushma Singh said close to 400 broadcasting channels had been given permission by the ministry and about 150 applications were  pending. The ministry has already given licences to 33 [...]

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has drafted a new national programme for broadcasting in Kurdish on private channels in addition to the state-owned Turkish Radio Television Corporation (TRT), the Cumhuriyet newspaper reports.
The programme seeks to align Turkish legislation with the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join. It would allow public and private [...]

A British government agency is funnelling anti-Al-Qaeda propaganda to news organisations in a bid to damage the global terror network’s “brand”, The Guardian reported today. Citing a secret Home Office document it had seen, the daily also said that the ministry plans to utilise websites to “channel messages … in Internet forums”.
According to the paper, the report [...]

European television and radio broadcaster RTL Group said today that its profit rose nearly 17 percent in the first half of the year, but warned the advertising market was shaky. Europe’s biggest broadcaster, which is 90 percent owned by German group Bertelsmann, reported a first half net profit of €338 million ($496 million). That was up 16.6 percent from [...]

Radio monitoring icon Tom Kneitel, W4XAA (ex-K2AES), passed away in Florida on 22 August at age 75. He had been in poor health for the past several years. Tom was Senior Editor and founding Editor of Popular Communications magazine. The grandson of animation pioneer Max Fleischer and son of animator Seymour Kneitel, “Tommy” preferred the [...]