Posts from ‘January, 2010’

Text of report by official news agency Associated Press of Pakistan (APP)
Radio Pakistan is launching Nepali, Sinhala and Tamil language programmes from its external services from 1 February. The new programmes of half an hour duration in each of these languages will comprise different segments covering news, commentaries, socio-economic development and cultural activities of [...]

The United Nations radio service in Haiti has begun “earthquake preparedness” broadcasts as fears mount about a possible second major quake, which many locals believe could be bigger than the first one that devastated Port-au-Prince. Minustah FM, the UN-run Haitian radio service which lost two journalists during the quake on 12 January, is also now [...]

The United States should pull the plug on funding for radio and television broadcasts into Cuba, Democratic US Senator Russell Feingold urged President Barack Obama in a letter released yesterday. “We remain committed to helping the people of Cuba strive for freedom of press, speech, and other basic human rights” said Feingold, but “cannot afford” [...]

Various Dutch radio stations have been hit by a technical fault on Eutelsat’s W2 satellite at 16 degrees East. The problem happened at around 2000 UTC last night, when all signals from the satellite disappeared. Some Dutch stations use the W2 satellite to feed a number of FM stations, and not all of them have [...]

Research bureau Intomart GfK has released the Dutch radio listening figures for November/December 2009. This month and next month the figures are affected by special Christmas programming on a number of stations, so the changes do not reflect longer-term trends. Radio 2 and Sky Radio both had massive audience boosts that put Sky Radio comfortably [...]

The European Broadcasting Union has told Hungary’s cash-strapped public television company MTV that if it fails to pay off its debt to the organisation then the EBU would consider withdrawing all services including news-exchange and sport broadcasting rights, MTV’s media office said in a statement to MTI on Tuesday.
The debt repayment is trapped between the [...]

EBU Vice President Claudio Cappon, accompanied by Assistant Director General David Lewis, held talks in Warsaw on Friday about a funding crisis for Polish radio and Polish television. Licence fee revenue in Poland has fallen sharply after suggestions that the funding system for public service media might be reformed, and because of a recent government [...]

RRsat Global Communications announced today that it has launched a new platform for the distribution of Spanish and Portuguese language content into European markets over the Hispasat 1D satellite. The Spanish-language version of Moscow-based news channel Russia Today (RT) is RRsat’s first customer for distribution through this platform.
“The European Spanish and Portuguese audience in Europe [...]

Iran’s Arabic-language television network Al Alam said today it has again been taken off air by a Saudi-based satellite operator amid simmering tensions between Shi’ite Iran and US-allied Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia. Analysts say Riyadh and several other Arab governments allied to the United States are worried about a rise in Tehran’s influence in the [...]

A Seoul-based Internet radio station that broadcasts to North Korea said it will air actual voices of North Korean residents for the first time in a feature programme this week. Free North Korea Radio, run by North Korean defectors, began shortwave broadcasts across the border in 2004 and now transmits programmes for five hours a [...]

The CNN website carries a feature on Commando Solo, the “radio station in the sky” that is currently operating over Haiti. There are some interesting details - the mediumwave antenna dangling from the aircraft is kept vertical by a 500-pound lead weight. The aircraft relays the VOA Creole Service, but during lulls in the VOA [...]

Internet companies and civil liberty groups have voiced alarm over a proposed Italian law which would make online service providers responsible for their audiovisual content and copyright infringements by users. The draft, due to be approved next month, would make Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Fastweb and Telecom Italia, and websites like Google’s YouTube, responsible [...]

Although Venezuela’s National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) says that the opposition station Radio Caracas Televisión Internacional (RCTV-I) has the possibility to go back on the air on cable TV, the owners of the Venezuelan channel have accused Conatel director Diosdado Cabello of acting maliciously.
Mr Cabello, who is also the Minister of Public Works and Housing, said [...]

Local radio & TV stations in Kosovo have set up the INC Network, consisting of a lobbying & consultative body, a production house for joint broadcasts, and an advertising sales organisation. Under the leadership of Urban FM in Pristina, various local stations have been working together for a year already to produce the independent news [...]

The European Commission has approved under EU state aid rules the annual financing regime for the Dutch public service broadcasters in light of amendments made to the financing regime and formal commitments submitted by the Dutch authorities. The implementation of the commitments will inter alia clarify the definition of the public service remit and the [...]