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7
Global Brief
The latest news from the international broadcasting industry
The Channel
- supported by
BTV World joins AsiaSat 3S
Asia’s leading satellite operator
AsiaSat
and
the People’s Republic of Bangladesh’s
national broadcaster
Bangladesh
Television (BTV)
announced on 23
February the signing of a lease agreement
for C-band capacity on AsiaSat 3S. The
Bangla-language satellite channel
BTV
World
started broadcasting in March,
providing daily broadcasts of news and
current affairs, drama, entertainment,
cultural and educational programmes from
Bangladesh that serve overseas audiences
in the Asia-Pacific region.
“We chose AsiaSat 3S because of its
excellent channel neighbourhood and
strong audience penetration. In addition,
the region-wide coverage of AsiaSat 3S
enables us to extend our reach to the
whole of Asia and Australasia with the
latest news from our country, to introduce
our culture and economy, trade and
tourism to the rest of the world,” said
Mostafizur Rahman, Director General of
BTV. “We are also planning to produce
programmes in English for the
international audience.”
New Sri Lanka international TV service
To celebrate the Silver Jubilee of the
introduction of television to the country,
Sri Lanka launched the World Service of
the Independent Television Network (ITN)
on 8 March. In cooperation with TV Lanka,
special ITN Programmes are broadcast
from 1500-1800 UTC daily, plus ITN’s
Lakhanda Radio service. The service is
beamed to the Middle East, Australia and
parts of Africa and Europe from the Apstar
2R satellite at 76.5 E. With 1 in every 18
Sri Lankans living overseas, the
transmissions cater for the cultural needs
of expatriates.
BBC has Chinese broadcasting first
BBC World Service programme
Outlook
came live from Beijing in a broadcasting
first on 25 and 26 March. It was the first
time foreigners have been allowed into a
Chinese broadcast studio for a live
transmission with an overseas
broadcaster. Outlook joined Radio Beijing
for a co-production of the programme,
the first time a state broadcaster has
collaborated on such a project.
Trans World Radio chooses WRN uplink
Trans World Radio (TWR), the
international Christian broadcaster
producing radio programming in more
than 180 languages and dialects
throughout the world, has transferred its
satellite services for Sky Digital to the
Eurobird satellite via World Radio Network
(WRN), the London-based international
transmission service provider.
French TV5 channel number one in North Africa
The international French-language cable and satellite channel TV5 is now ahead of
its rivals with viewers in North Africa, pulling in almost eight million viewers a day.
Findings by Oxford Research International reveal that TV5’s daily audience in the
region has grown by 163 per cent in the last two years. In Morocco TV5 had 5.4m
viewers, with 1.8m in Algeria and 623,000 in Tunisia, placing the channel ahead of
BBC World, CNN International and Euronews.
North African viewers see TV5 as “a cultural channel and open to the world”, and
prefer news programming and documentaries over films, dramas and entertainment
shows, according to the research. “The outstanding audience in Morocco makes TV5
the first Francophone channel ahead of French channels TF1, France2, France3 and
France5, as well as ahead of Franco-German channel Arte,” said TV5.
TV5 is a joint venture between France2, France3, France5, Arte France, RTBF
(Belgium), TSR (Switzerland), Radio Canada, Tele Quebec, Reseau France Outre-
Mer (RFO) and le Conseil International des Radios-Televisions d’Expression Francaise
(CIRTEF). The channel now has a worldwide audience of 23m.
CIS broadcasters to establish news pool
ITAR-TASS news agency reports that the heads of the CIS countries’ television and
radio companies have agreed to establish an interstate information pool to exchange
items on the most important events taking place in CIS member states. The All-Russia
State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company [VGTRK] is the project’s initiator
and coordinator while the heads of TV associations in Russia, Armenia, Belarus,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine and Tajikistan have signed a
memorandum to begin preparing for the pool.
The interstate information pool will be a regional alternative to expensive transnational
services. It will also suggest ways of establishing a single regular news bulletin called
Eurasia
, which will be a counterpart of the Euronews round-the-clock news channel.
2003 “one of bloodiest years” for journalists
At the beginning of March, the International Press Institute (IPI) published its World
Press Freedom Review 2003 which highlights the extreme sacrifices made by
journalists reporting from the battlefront. With 19 journalists killed in Iraq, 14 during
the war, five in the aftermath, and two missing presumed dead, 2003 was one of the
bloodiest years in recent times for war reporters. Whether reporting unilaterally or
embedded in military units, journalists paid a heavy price; many died as the result of
enemy fire, friendly fire, suicide attack, mistaken identity, accident or sudden illness.
The experience reinforced the media’s need to confront safety issues, while inviting
the military to review their terms of engagement, their lines of communication with
the media in wartime, and the way in which the deaths of journalists are investigated.
It is significant that a number of deaths in Iraq might have been avoided if combat
soldiers had been given the same information as their superiors regarding the
whereabouts of journalists.
Away from Iraq, a further 45 journalists in 19 countries lost their lives in 2003. The
most dangerous region was Asia where 19 journalists were murdered: seven of them
in the Philippines and three each in Nepal and India. Elsewhere, in Bangladesh, violent
assaults were perpetrated against the media and improvements in Sri Lanka were
endangered by political intrigue. Moreover, the countries of Burma, China andVietnam
still imprison and arrest Internet users for promoting democracy. In the Americas,
where 17 journalists were killed, Colombia, with nine deaths, remains the most
consistently dangerous country in the world to practise journalism. Four journalists
were also killed in Brazil and the country is representative of much of the region
where death threats, stringent libel laws and official harassment all play a role in
suppressing the media. Cuba also passed harsh jail sentences on 28 journalists trying
to report freely, making it the country with the most imprisoned journalists in the
world. There were four journalists’ deaths in Europe, three of them in Russia, with
the other found dead under suspicious circumstances in the Ukraine. Throughout the
region there are continuing battles between the media and government. In other
European countries, such as Azerbaijan, Belarus and Spain, the media suffer violence
and harassment. Two journalists were killed in Africa, both in Cote d’Ivoire where
the war that supposedly finished in July 2003 still exerts an influence. Ethiopia, Eritrea,
Swaziland, Togo and Zimbabwe continue to suppress their media. In the Middle East,
excluding the war in Iraq, two journalists were killed in the Palestinian Territories
and one died as the result of interrogation in Iran. Although quieter than the previous
year, in the Australasian and Oceanic region officials still verbally attack the media.
