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5
Global Brief
The latest news from the international broadcasting industry
floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE said its decision to banish the television
network was made for reasons of space on the floor, perhaps Wall Street’s most famous site.
But it did not rebut suggestions that the real motive was because it objected to al-Jazeera’s
showing footage of US prisoners of war and casualties of the fighting in Iraq. In late March,
hackers sabotagedAl Jazeera’s web site,in a so-called ‘denial of service’attack. The new English-
language web site was most affected, with experts suggesting that the hackers were located in
the US where the English-language site is hosted.
Britain’s ITN has secured a five-year deal with al Jazeera to distribute the Qatar-based channel’s
archive footage. This archive includes the speeches of al Quaeda terrorist, Osama bin Laden.
The
Al Arabia
24-hour Dubai-based news channel opened on January 1 and was the first non-
government satellite channel to telecast in the pan-Arab region. Privately-funded, and separate
from the
Middle East Broadcasting Channel (MBC)
, also operating from Dubai Media City,
Al Arabia “does not belong to any government of political authority” said the General Director
SalehAl Kallab. Discussions going on to cover all European countries through pay TV services
and cable operators and viewers.
The Yemeni Ministry of Information has extended the broadcast of
Yemeni Satellite Channel
(YSC) to Western European states through Arabsat satellite. In a report monitored by
BBC
Monitoring
, Minister of Information Husayn Dayfallah al-Awadi pointed out that the broadcast
is clear in west Europe especially in Germany and Britain.
“The goal of the ministry is to deliver the broadcast and radio programmers to Arab watchers
and Yemen expatriates”, he added. Al-Awadi said the coming step for the ministry is to extend
the broadcast of YSC to south and east Asia states in mid-year. “Audience could have access to
YSC through A3 satellite after changing the frequency from 12735 MHz to 11938 MHz,” he
said. In 2002, the ministry extended YSC’s broadcast and Yemeni radio to America.
In technology news, the BBC used 13 laptop newsgathering software systems from the TVZ/4BN
partnership for use in Iraq. This new system enables correspondents to transmit reports, heavily
compressed, over a satellite phone or narrow bandwidth Internet connection. US networkABC also
purchased more than 10 of the units which have been in service daily, putting correspondents on the
air in seconds at relatively low cost. Each unit costs no more than £6,000 (around US$9,000) and
were deemed rugged enough to cope with the conditions in the Gulf according to the BBC.
Merlin conjures up business
AIB member
VT Merlin Communications
has
signed a major contract with religious
broadcaster Feba Radio to deliver their
programming on its global short wave
network, providing extensive coverage of
Feba’s key target regions, including the Middle
East, Central Asia and Africa. In addition to
offering Feba the global and technical
capability they require, the signing of this
contract will see VT Merlin become Feba’s
prime transmission partner by offering the
customer broadcast support services,
including scheduling and frequency
management, as well as consultancy.
Merlin has also been announced as the
preferred bidder for the Defence High
Frequency Communications Service(DHFCS)
contract. The contract will deliver beyond
line of sight high frequency (HF)
communication services to the three armed
services and other authorised users. The total
contract value is £220m. The fifteen year (15)
contract negotiated with the Defence
Procurement Agency (DPA) will see VT Merlin
taking over the operation, maintenance and
support of current HF communications
facilities in the UK and overseas.
World gains
BBC World
, the BBC’s commercially funded
24-hour international news and information
has been reporting much good news about
itself. The channel has proved a popular
choice around the world with viewers wanting
to be kept up to date and informed about
the war on Iraq. The most recent research
available from several markets indicates that
BBC World is increasing its reach and share
around the world.
In Australia audience share has multiplied
seven times - the fastest growth of any
channel surveyed. In India audience reach
doubled in the first few days of the conflict.
In South Africa audience share for BBC World
in multi-channel homes has quadrupled.
Twenty terrestrial broadcasters are now
carrying breaking news from BBC World,
increasing the number of homes receiving the
channel by 77.4 million
Spanish from Slovakia
Radio Slovakia International (RSI) added
Spanish to its schedule on 30 March, with an
aim to acquire listeners in Spain and Latin
America. RSI currently broadcasts in English,
French, German and Russian as well as Slovak.
CNBC continues battle
CNBC Europe, the London-based financial and
business channel - and an AIB member - has
had an appeal turned down by Britain’s
Independent Television Commission. As we
reported in the last edition of
The Channel
,
the ITC had ruled that CNBC Europe had
broken sponsorship rules by broadcasting a
series of programmes on the launch of the
Euro currency, part-funded by the European
Commission. It is understood that CNBC
Europe will now take the case to judicial
review in Europe.
War in Iraq - Media Deaths
The war in Iraq, while short, resulted in the deaths of a number of
journalists and media support personnel involved in covering the conflict.
The Association for International Broadcasting remembers those who died in
bringing the news to our televisions, radio sets and newspapers.
14 April
Mario Podesta
(America TV)
12 April
Iraqi Interpreter
(Malaysian media team)
8 April
Jose Couso
(Telecinco, Spain)
8 April
Taras Protsyuk
(Reuters, UK)
8 April
Tareq Ayoub
(al-Jazeera, Qatar)
7 April
Christian Liebig
(Focus, Germany)
7 April
Julio Anguita Parrado
(El Mundo, Spain)
6 April
David Bloom
(NBC, US)
6 April
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed
(BBC, UK)
4 April
Michael Kelly
(Washington Post, US)
2 April
Kaveh Golestan
(BBC, UK)
30 March
Gaby Rado
(ITN, UK)
22 March
Paul Moran
(ABC, Australia)
22 March
Terry Lloyd
(ITN, UK)
Missing, believed dead:
22 March
Fred Nerac
(ITN, UK)
22 March
Hussein Osman
(ITN, UK)
