Support services company VT Group has secured a contract to broadcast 20 hours a day of analogue and digital output from the Polish public broadcaster Polskie Radio using its network of European and global transmission sites. VT will deliver the programming on shortwave to listeners in Europe and Israel. Broadcasts by Polskie Radio’s External Service, Poland’s international radio service, will be delivered in Polish, English, German, Hebrew, Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian.
Programming, originating in Warsaw, will be brought into VT’s Media Management Centre in London for scheduling and distribution to various transmission sites using VT’s Global Media Network - a combination of fibre connectivity and satellite delivery. The majority of transmission will go out from VT’s site at Woofferton in Shropshire, supported by other sites including Rampisham and Skelton, and partner sites in Dhabiyya in the United Arab Emirates and at Moosbrun in Austria.
Most of the programming will be analogue but there is also provision for 1.5 hours a day of digital output using DRM digital short wave.
VT’s John Prior, General Manager Broadcast and Security, commented: ” We are delighted to be appointed as Polskie Radio’s exclusive shortwave transmission partner supplementing their existing output by satellite and Internet. The move demonstrates a continued commitment to short wave from a major European broadcaster.”
The four-year contract with Polskie Radio, which started in late October, is worth some £1.5 million and means VT now has nearly 40 customers for its transmission services. Polskie Radio’s daily output will place it in the company’s top ten broadcast customers.
(Source: VT Group)
Andy Sennitt comments: This confirms our report of 15 October, but at that stage the contract was said to be for six months. A four-year contract is good news for Polish Radio listeners.
on Nov 10th, 2009 at 11:40
Both of them…
on Nov 10th, 2009 at 22:14
But is this four-year contract binding beyond its conditions, without an option of a premature cancellation? I would not proceed from such an assumption, since an editor of the German service said that shortwave transmissions will continue “at least until 2010″.
Anyway it is quite revealing to read between the lines of this PR text.
on Nov 10th, 2009 at 22:51
So VT charges about U$85 / 57 euro per broadcast hour? Of course, sometimes there are two frequencies used simultaneously.
From my own observations the German transmitters usually provide a noticeably better coverage of European CIS than more powerful UK rigs. Moosbrun/Austria gets in pretty well, too.
on Nov 12th, 2009 at 20:02
Sure VT will do a good job for Polskie. In my day, we weren\’t charging at those rates SRG - much more, but life is more competative now I guess.