Posts from ‘March, 2012’

The live Weblog closed on Saturday 24 March 2012.

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I have written a series of articles reflecting on the changes in international broadcasting since I started appearing on the Media Network radio show in 1981, and looking ahead to the coming decade. The articles are available [...]

The Communications Commission of Kenya may soon take back broadcasting frequencies from holders who are not using them, for redistribution to other players as demand continues to rise, especially for radio. This comes as a report by Deloitte criticised the ‘first-come first-served’ approach used to allocate frequencies saying it does not support effective use of [...]

After almost two years of preparations, the Rwandan Parliament yesterday launched its radio station, Radio Inteko, on FM 101.5. The radio station was officially launched amid celebrations from a cheerful audience comprising of senior government officials and a blend of local musicians.
During the event, the Minister in charge of Cabinet Affairs, Protais [...]

Andy Burnham (ex of Radiofax) writes: “We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the closedown of the shortwave station Radiofax later this year and I have taken on the task of uploading archive programmes from my weekly technical programme Sparks and others, from the early programmes, going right up until the closedown in September 1992.
“I [...]

Swaziland plans to crack down on criticism of King Mswati III by making it illegal to bad-mouth Africa’s last absolute monarch on Facebook and Twitter, the justice minister said today. “We will be tough on those who write bad things about the king on Twitter and Facebook. We want to set an example,” justice minister [...]

A controversial attempt to expand Internet addresses far beyond the likes of .com, .org or .net has provoked a rare threat from the US government to withdraw a key licence from the body that runs the Internet’s core functions.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) depends on its US government contract to coordinate [...]

A company called Boxfish, which just came out of stealth mode and is gearing up for a public launch, has built a system that captures every word spoken on television in the US, UK, and Ireland in real-time.
“We believe that there’s another internet that isn’t being captured, and it’s in real-time,” co-founder Eoin Dowling said. [...]

Brussels is willing to bear the costs of Portuguese language broadcasts on Euronews for two years so long as state-owned broadcaster RTP maintains its shareholding in the pan-European news channel and pays its annual fees, Vice-President of the European Commission Viviane Reading said.
RTP will also have to guarantee to keep the broadcasts going long after [...]

The Kenyan government plans to ban importation of analogue television sets into the country in the next four months as a way of speeding up uptake of digital TVs locally, it has emerged. Information and Communications Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo yesterday said that the move will help reduce use of analogue TVs and help the [...]

The Trinity Broadcasting Network, which bills itself as the world’s largest Christian network, is embroiled in a legal battle involving allegations of massive financial fraud and lavish spending, including the purchase of a $100,000 motor home for family dogs.
Brittany Koper, a former high-ranking TBN official and the granddaughter of its co-founder, [...]

The free-ranging Internet is under assault by mobile applications that connect people exclusively to content kept in “walled gardens” online, according to a US study released on Thursday. While 59 percent of the experts surveyed for the study felt that the Web would continue to thrive, they also thought “apps” for [...]

Chinese web users frustrated by the blocking of sensitive terms have come up with a system of bizarre code words to allow them to post on a political saga that has gripped the blogosphere. China blocks all information deemed sensitive under a vast censorship system known as the “Great Firewall”, but [...]

Polish Radio carries the following announcement on its English website: “From Sunday 25 March, the English Section of Polish Radio External Service is changing its broadcast times and the nature of its transmissions. As of Sunday, the English Section will NOT be available on Short Wave, ending almost 80 years of broadcasts on this spectrum. [...]

Reporters Without Borders says it condemns the occupation of the headquarters of the state radio and TV broadcaster ORTM in Mali by renegade soldiers since Wednesday, and the interruption of broadcasting by many other radio and TV stations as a result of an apparent military coup against President Amadou Toumani Touré.
“Whether this is [...]

SES announced at the Samsung Africa Forum in Cape Town, South Africa, that it is collaborating with Samsung to drive digital broadcasting via satellite in sub-Saharan Africa. Samsung will introduce an LED television with an integrated free-to-air satellite receiver, the Samsung LED TV Free Satellite, that will be distributed in [...]