Media Network

ABU shortwave broadcasters meeting in Kuala Lumpur today renewed their support for the creation of a monitoring network to assess the reach and quality of their broadcasts. The backing came at a meeting of the Steering Committee of the ABU Shortwave Coordination Group, ABU-HFC. Over the past few years the committee has been looking into the development of a monitoring unit. Audio monitoring within the ABU-HFC would be a bilateral process, with the ABU providing its support at no extra cost.

Participants in the Kuala Lumpur meeting said the proposed network for ABU members could be extended to other shortwave broadcasters if required. Among other issues discussed were ways to achieve an increase in the audience for shortwave radio. Members noted that other, modern delivery media were overtaking shortwave with new, high quality programming.

Participants said there was a need to concentrate not only on technical issues but also on good quality content. The committee also agreed to provide training content on new techniques used in coordination as well as on updated software tools on the ABU’s online Media Learning Centre.

(Source: Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union)

DRM+ trials in Band III started in Germany on 1 February, 2010. DRM German Associate Members, State Centre for Media and Communication (Landeszentrale fuer Medien und Kommunikation) and the University of Kaiserslautern are using a DRM+ transmitter with a power of 100 watts in VHF Band III (174-230 MHz) to determine whether the DRM+ system together with DAB/DAB+ are suitable for Band III.

DRM+ is an enhancement to the Digital Radio Mondiale system. DRM+ has been approved by the European Standards Organisation – ETSI. The enhancement of the DRM standard for broadcast frequencies above 30 MHz (DRM+) uses the same audio coding, data services, multiplexing and signaling schemes as DRM30 but introduces an additional transmission mode optimized for those bands.

The results of the DRM+ experiment will be published in spring 2010.

Please click here to read the complete press release in German from the State Centre for Media and Communication.

(Source: DRM website)

The Government of India will be creating Broadcasting Authority of India (BAI) that will regulate all the television channels in the nation. This information has been conveyed by the Union Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting (I&B) S Jagat Rakshakan to the Press Trust of India.

The proposed BAI will be established on the lines of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the body for the telecom sector of India. In December last year, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) had set up a task force to provide insight over the proposed formation of the BAI. The task force is expected to present its recommendations during the budget session scheduled for the end of the month.

The formation of Broadcasting Authority of India was proposed as a specific body in order to look into concerns pertaining to the growing media and broadcasting sector. The body is also expected to consider issues such as spectrum, and taxation for the media and broadcasting industry.

(Source: Press Trust of India)

The newly installed 100 kilowatts mediumwave digital transmitter of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, Enugu Zonal Station has been formally presented to the corporation by the Japanese government. The transmitter was donated to Nigeria by the Japanese government through its International Cooperation Agency, JICA,  for the revitalization of the moribund mediumwave service of the Enugu national station.

Officials of JICA presented the equipment to FRCN management led by its Director-General, Yusuf Nuhu, at a ceremony held at Milikin Hill transmitting station in Enugu, yesterday.  The collaborative project between the Japanese government and the Federal Government commenced in February last year and was completed last month following which the station began test transmissions on mediumwave.

Mr Nuhu said the station was a fulfillment of the corporation’s desire to re-introduce purpose-driven educational broadcasting on radio, adding that it was key to revitalizing a robust broadcast of non-formal and distance education programme in the country. He said that the corporation would make further consultations with relevant agencies and persons, especially the local people on the programmes to be delivered on the channel.

(Source: Vanguard)

Related story:

• Nigeria gets further Japanese aid to improve mediumwave broadcasting

Armenia Ru TV is the first Russia-located public service Armenian television broadcaster which will begin working by September 2010. The channel’s key objective is to cover cultural, political, social, economic highlights of the Armenian Diaspora in Russia, Asia, Europe, and the United States. It will provide coverage of interesting events and developments of past and present years as well as Armenia’s history and culture and Armenians in history and culture worldwide. Another main goal is to provide information connecting Armenians all over the world.

(Source: aysor.am)

Spain’s two public television stations, which stopped airing advertisements on 1 January, were the only free channels to enjoy a boost in ratings last month, industry data shows.TVE1, the public broadcaster’s main station, had a 18.6 percent market share in January, a rise of two percentage points over the previous month, according to figures from the Barlovento consultancy. The ratings for its sister station, La2, rose to 3.6 from 3.5 percent.

The gains came at the expense of Spain’s commercial broadcasters which all posted falls in their ratings. Telecinco, controlled by Italy’s Mediaset, had a 14.8 percent market share in January, down 0.3 percentage points from December, while listed rival Antena 3 stood at 13.7 percent, a decline of 0.9 points over the previous month. Spanish media giant Prisa’s channel Cuatro was the third most watched commercial station with an audience share of 7.3 percent while La Sexta was in last place with 6.1 percent.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s socialist government axed all commercial advertising on the two public channels on 1 January in what was seen as a bid to help private broadcasters, which are struggling with falling advertising revenues.

Last month Telecinco and Cuatro announced they had agreed to merge but keep their channels separate. The merger will give them stronger bargaining power to negotiate with advertisers at a time when Spain’s media is being hammered by the country’s worst recession for more than five decades. Spain’s main association of advertisers has said that “saturation advertising” on TV was turning off viewers while Brussels has warned that Spain faces possible court action for failing to ensure that its television stations comply with a EU-wide limit of 12 minutes of adverts per hour.

(Source: AFP)

The British and Irish governments have agreed to work together to ensure that people in Northern Ireland can still receive the TV services of public broadcaster RTÉ when the analogue signal is switched off. Currently many people in Northern Ireland receive RTÉ’s output via so-called “analogue overspill.”

The analogue signal is due to be switched off in the next two years, meaning the channels will only be available on digital equipment. The governments said they want RTÉ to remain “widely available” in Northern Ireland.

• Read the story from BBC News

Radio Netherlands Worldwide is sending a mini radio station to Haiti. Many radio stations in the country have been destroyed by the earthquake and many of the people that worked there have been killed. It is in disasters like the one in Haiti that information is vital for survival.

• More information and a short video on our main website

The Voice of America and Radio Martí have launched a joint news programme in Spanish called A fondo (In Depth). According to the VOA website, in a co-production of the Voice of America and Radio Martí, a team of journalists, correspondents and producers gathers to offer, from Monday to Friday, the main news that happened in Latin America and United States.

A fondo presents news, interviews and special reports of interest for the countries of the Latin American region. It is transmitted through the frequencies of the Voice of America and Radio Martí at 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm Washington time (0100-0200 UTC), as well as on the Internet at www.voanoticias.com and www.martinoticias.com.

(Source: VOA website)

The President’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2011, sent to the Congress today, includes $768.8 million for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an increase of 1.5 percent from the FY 2010 funding level. The request reflects the continued critical role of BBG broadcasts in support of US foreign policy goals.

The FY 2011 budget supports key new initiatives:

• Upgrading the BBG’s global satellite distribution capacity, infrastructure, and network control centre
• Expanding FM, digital, and new media opportunities
• Improving digital workflows and expanding distribution to mobile devices
• Adding 24/7 FM transmitters in Afghanistan to carry Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America (VOA) Pashto and Dari programming
• Creating Radio Free Asia (RFA) video programming in Burmese,Tibetan, Mandarin, and Vietnamese
• Diversifying distribution of VOA content in Africa
• Addressing critical personnel and capital needs in RFE/RL bureaus

The proposed budget also continues funding for ongoing programming to critical audiences, including:

• 24-hour streams for VOA Persian News Network television and RFE/RL Radio Farda to Iran
• Alhurra, including Al Youm, the daily three-hour Alhurra Television programme broadcast live from the Middle East
• Radio Sawa to the Middle East
• Afia Darfur to Sudan and Eastern Chad
• VOA and RFE/RL Pashto programming to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region
• RFE/RL and VOA Dari and Pashto programming to Afghanistan
• VOA Urdu radio and television broadcasts to Pakistan
• VOA Somali to Somalia
• a 10-hour coordinated RFA and VOA stream to North Korea
• a 30-minute, five-day-a-week VOA Spanish television programme for Venezuela

The FY 2011 budget request balances competing policy priorities with available budget resources. The request proposes to reduce contracting costs and other Agency support expenses through efficiencies. The request also includes several programme adjustments, including the closure of selected language services and programmes, operational efficiencies in broadcast services, and realignment of transmission networks.

Further detail on the requested BBG budget is available here.

(Source: BBG Press Release)

Related story:

• VOA cuts in President’s proposed FY 2011 savings

After a break of about 17 years, the Union of Asian DXers has risen like a phoenix from the ashes. The UADX has published its first Newsletter since July 1993 as a PDF file on the DXAsia website, edited now, as then, by my good friend Victor Goonetilleke in Sri Lanka. Familiar UADX names such as Gerhard Werdin, Sarath Amukotuwa & Sarath Weerakoon will also be helping Victor, who says that the first edition of the E-Newsletter is meant as an introduction and sample. The next edition is scheduled before the end of February. I hope SWLs and DXers amongst our readership will support this venture.

Victor has also written an article about Eclipse Monitoring on 15 January 2010. A UADX blog will also be starting soon. Thanks to Alok das Gupta and his son Abhishek for technical help in getting this material online.

The 2011 Budget proposal would eliminate VOA Croatian and Greek language broadcasts. As proposed in 2010 and accepted by the Congress, VOA Hindi will cease broadcasting in 2010; these savings are also reflected in the funding summary. While the overall funding level for VOA is increasing from 2010, funding related to these language services within VOA will be eliminated. These reductions help to offset the total funds needed in 2011 to support ongoing programming and new priority needs. … Each year, BBG undertakes an assessment of each language in which the BBG entities broadcast, fulfilling a congressional mandate to ‘review, evaluate, and determine, at least annually, after consultation with the Secretary of State, the addition or deletion of language services.’” Terminations, Reductions, and Savings document of President Obama’s FY 2011 budget, OMB Website.

(Source: KimAndrewElliott.com)

Excerpt from report by French news agency AFP

Paris, 1 February 2010: European satellite operator Eutelsat on Monday [1 February] denied succumbing to Russian pressure to end broadcasts by Pervyy Kavkazskiy, a TV channel broadcasting from Georgia that is depicted as the first Russian-language channel in the Caucasus not to be under Kremlin control.

Eutelsat said it had broadcast the channel for the trial period of a week which began and ended on the agreed dates and that it was now awaiting the signing of a contract to resume broadcasting.

“From our point of view there’s no reason not to sign a contract with them,” Eutelsat spokeswoman Vanessa O’Connor told AFP, adding that broadcasts would resume as soon as the contract was signed.

Paris-based Eutelsat, Europe’s leading operator of satellite-based services, has put itself “at the service of Russian censorship”, said Pervyy Kavkazskiy on Sunday in a statement obtained by AFP in Paris.

The channel said Intersputnik had signed a contract to provide satellite television services for Gazprom Media, a subsidiary of the Russian gas giant that is closely controlled by the Kremlin.

“After it signed a major contract with Russian satellite company Intersputnik on 15 January, Eutelsat decided to stop broadcasting Pervyy Kavkazskiy, a Russian-language Caucasus channel,” the statement added.

The Eutelsat spokeswoman said that Intersputnik had been one of the operator’s clients for several years and the recently announced agreement merely prolonged existing arrangements.

[Passage omitted: Broadcast details for Pervyy Kavkazskiy; tension between Russia and Georgia recalled; Chechen leader's widow on staff]

(Source: AFP news agency, Paris, in French 1416 gmt 1 Feb 10 via BBC Monitoring)

Despite the above report Levan Gakheladze, chairman of Georgian Public Broadcasting’s (GPB) board of trustees, said this evening that Eutelsat has refused to host the First Caucasian Channel. Mr Gakheladze blamed “Russia’s pressure” for the operator’s refusal to sign a contract with GPB. “Talks have ended without result,” he told Civil.Ge by phone. “We plan to sue the company in the Paris court.”

Gia Chanturia, GPB general-director, who was holding negotiations with Eutelsat in Paris, said the operator failed “to give any logical explanation of its decision.” Quoting Vanessa O’Connor in the above AFP report, Gia Chanturia, said that the operator offered new conditions in the contract, which were “totally unacceptable for us.”

Mr Gakheladze said that GPB would launch talks with three other satellite operators on hosting of the First Caucasian, but declined to specify the companies. Currently the channel continues broadcasting through Internet and in Georgia it goes out on cable.

(Source: Civil Georgia)

Related story:

• ‘First Caucasian’ satellite broadcast suspended

Trans World Radio (TWR) is set to launch in part of the UK on DAB digital radio on 1 April. The Christian broadcaster will be available to DAB listeners in the North West of England as they launch on the MXR multiplex, covering an area stretching from Nantwich in the south past Windermere in the north.

TWR currently broadcasts on satellite channel 0138, Freesat channel 790, online at twr.org.uk and at selected times on shortwave and mediumwave. Russell Farnworth, CEO of Trans World Radio, said of the launch: “This is an exciting development and an important first step towards national coverage.”

(Source: Christian Today)

The BBC has released a collection of archive material about Lord Haw Haw’s wartime broadcasts from Nazi Germany. I am pleased to report that this material is available worldwide, unlike some other archive material which is restricted to the UK. The collection contains a 37-minute feature first broadcast in 1940 called ‘The Ear of Britain’ about the BBC Monitoring Service, where I worked for four years in the 1970s, as well as lots of recordings of Lord Haw Haw’s broadcasts. That includes his final broadcast when, speaking slowly and with slurred speech, he had clearly consumed a lot of alcohol!

• Browse the collection