The Channel | 2003 | September

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the channel | 9
Global Brief
The latest news from the international broadcasting industry
BBC Monitoring strikes oil
OILspace, a provider of online services for the energy industry, has partnered with
BBC Monitoring to enhance the authority and scope of global energy-related news to
the 600 international subscribers to OILspace’s OILwatch service. A specially filtered
energy feed from BBC Monitoring, combined with OILwatch’s current news feeds
fromDow Jones newswires, Platts and Reuters, now gives OILwatch customers access
to essential energy and geo-political news from around the world. This is the first
time that BBC Monitoring Energy News will be made available to such a large
commercial audience and is offered to all OILwatch real-time news customers at no
extra charge.
News from BBC Monitoring is often faster than from agency feeds, which can put
energy professionals in an advantageous position. Local reports of pipeline explosions,
rumours of coups, terrorist attacks, strikes or political strife in oil producing countries
can cause fluctuations in oil prices and share valuation. Hearing this news more
swiftly will enable energy professionals to make more competitive commercial
decisions.
“We were impressed at the speed with which BBC Monitoring reports key stories
from important oil regions such as the Middle East as they break. We know that our
customers will value this additional insight into developments in key oil markets. In
the near future we hope to offer OILwatch subscribers access to country specific geo-
political news from BBC Monitoring for the analyst and risk management
communities,” said Steve Hellman, CEO of OILspace.
BBC Monitoring provides information about the world’s media industry to the
Association for International Broadcasting through a partnership agreement.
Euronews on the up in France
EuroNews has doubled its audience share, consolidated its position as the second
largest news channel in France, and increased its upmarket viewership. The channel
has the biggest increase compared to its two competitors, both national news channels.
EuroNews has also seen considerable growth of upmarket audience share, more than
doubling its audience share of this target from 0.3 per cent to 0.7 per cent. EuroNews
has strengthened its position as the second most watched of all news channels in France
with 548,628 daily viewers (over 15 years old), representing an increase of 14 per cent,
and 153,396 upmarket viewers every day, an increase of 27 per cent year on year.
ABC budget cuts
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has announced budget cuts of US$17m.
The ABC’s managing director, Russell Balding, says the cuts are due to the
corporation’s failure to secure additional funding by the Australian government in the
last federal budget. The cuts had been forecast some time ago.
In his statement, Mr Balding says theABC board has approved management proposals
for cuts to programmes and non-programme areas. Included is the already announced
cut to digital television services. There will be further reduction in television
advertising, schools production, live sport and News and Current Affairs budgets in
television and radio. Around 100 positions will be affected, although redundancies
will be limited to 20 to 25 jobs, said Russell Balding.
It remains to be seen whether ABC AsiaPacific and Radio Australia will also suffer.
Singapore invites new Pay-TV licence
Singapore’s Media Development
Authority has launched a tendering
process for the island state’s second pay-
TV licence. Singapore already has a
subscription TV operation run by StarHub
Cable Vision , offering a tiered
subscription package.
International news channels on StarHub
include BBC World, CNBC Asia and CNN
while entertainment and education
channels include three Discovery
channels, MTV South East Asia, Hallmark,
Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.
Additional premium international
channels available are Bloomberg/
WorldNet, DW-TV, NHK World and TV5. It
is understood that SingTel has expressed
an interest in the new licence, tenders
for which close on 24 September.
Meanwhile, the MDA has launched a
consultation programme seeking public
and industry comments on whether
exclusive carriage agreements between
content providers and pay-TV operators
need to be regulated. The consultation
programme asks what regulatory
framework needs to be adopted if
regulation is initiated.
High Adventure targets Middle East
The difficult political situation in Liberia
has forced the abandonment of plans by
High Adventure Ministries (part of AIB
member NASB) to set up a short wave
station there. Now permission has been
received from the Ugandan government to
set up the station in Uganda instead. This
will enable High Adventure Ministries to
resume short wave broadcasts to the Middle
East. Three years ago, the organization was
forced out of its station on the Israeli/
Lebanese border, which had been operating
for 30 years, when Israeli troops who had
been protecting the area were pulled out.
Rivals clash over new Voice of Peace
A group of entrepreneurs has announced that
the Voice of Peace radio, closed in 1993,
will start broadcasting again from Ramallah
in November. The station says it has been
allocated a frequency by the Palestinian
Authority’s Ministry of Communications.
The announcement has infuriated those
close to the original station’s founder,
Abie Nathan. The original Voice of Peace
(VOP), a non-political humanitarian
station, broadcast from a ship outside
Israeli territorial waters. Israeli journalist
Mike Brand, a friend of Nathan, says the
new group has no rights over the VOP
name or the station’s jingles.
Brand says the new group wants its
station to be political, whereas Nathan’s
supporters are working on a plan which
avoids politics and adheres to the format
of the old VOP, with a humanitarian slant.
BBC World heads for America
BBCWorld, the international news and information channel, is reported to be in talks
with possible distributors in the United States for carriage on a US platform. Notably
the BBC is reported not to be working with Discovery, the operation that distributes
BBCAmerica. Initially, US audiences will receive the standard global channel, but in
time it is expected that regional programming will be introduced, similar to those on
other versions of BBC World.
BBC World news bulletins are currently carried on PBS television, and on BBC
America, broadcast on cable networks across the country.
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