25 March 2014
Benie TV and Ouest TV, two recently launched African channels, have chosen Globecast to distribute their programming via satellite to new audiences in West Africa. Via the Globecast service, Benie TV and Ouest TV are now part of the CANALSAT bouquet available on the SES-4 platform.
CANALSAT is a satellite pay-TV package including +150 channels, covering more than 30 countries in West and Central Africa. Ouest TV is a regional news channel, and Benie TV is a Christian channel.
“Viewers in French-speaking African countries are hungry for news programming and specialized content, so joining SES-4 platform is a tremendous opportunity for Benie TV and Ouest TV,” said Lionel Antoine, Sales Manager Africa for Globecast. “The diversity of CANALSAT offer and our leadership position in the African market, enable us to provide the service levels these channels need to achieve a maximum visibility with their target audiences.” (Source: Press release)
24 March 2014
Vizrt Ltd. announced today a deal worth USD 660,000 for the implementation of newsroom, control room and studio production products with Hessischer Rundfunk (hr) in Germany. A new client, Hessischer Rundfunk is the public broadcaster of the state of Hesse, based in Frankfurt and member of the ARD consortium of regional public broadcasters in Germany. The broadcaster decided to purchase Vizrt products after a thorough comparison of different vendor offerings, concluding that Vizrt’s complete workflow best suited their needs.
The deal includes Viz Virtual Studio to create a highly flexible virtual set. Graphics and video from the customer’s newsroom control system (NRCS) are triggered to play in Viz Virtual Studio by a Mosart studio automation system in the control room.
For the newsroom workflow, Hessischer Rundfunk purchased Viz Pilot, Vizrt’s content and control application and the clip store component of Viz One, Vizrt’s video management system, for a complete newsroom content management workflow. Viz Pilot integrates with the customer’s NRCS and allows the journalist to create graphics based on templates. These graphics are added to a playlist in the NRCS along with clips from the Viz One clip store to be used as part of a virtual set in the studio. (Source: Press release)
24 March 2014
Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat) participates in the Gulf Radio & TV Festival in its 13th session. The event takes place March 25th – 27th 2014 in Manama – Kingdom of Bahrain, and Arabsat will also showcase its new satellites during the event.
Eng/Khalid bin Ahmed Balkheyour, President & CEO of Arabsat, said “Arabsat is always keen to sponsor and participate in various media events in the Arab world. Arabsat will be showcasing its new state-of–the-art satellite Badr-7, which is considered a breakthrough in Arabsat satellites combining satellite TV broadcasting services and satellite communications services. Badr-7 is expected to be launched next year on Arabsat exclusive Hot Spot 26° East to cover the Middle East and Central Asia.”
Balkheyour added “The manufacturing and launching RFP of Arabsat four new satellites has been already posed in an international tender in the market , two of them on Arabsat orbital positions, and the other two on Hellas-Sat orbital position, whose majority stake was acquired by Arabsat last year .These satellites will enhance and extend Arabsat coverage to include Europe, the Middle East and Africa. ” (Source: Press Release)
24 March 2014
Euronews, Europe’s leading news channel and MSN Arabia, one of the leading web portals in the Middle East and North Africa, team up to provide users with a comprehensive selection of news programmes from three Euronews services.
Thanks to the syndication of an international and multilingual content agreement, Euronews Arabic, Euronews English and Euronews French, are delivered to different regional North Africa and Middle East sites of the MSN Arabia’s network. Indeed, www.arabia.msn.com is accessible to Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Syria, Tunisia and Pakistan.
The 100 million monthly visitors to the MSN Arabia site can now follow, through articles and video content provided by Euronews, the latest international news and a complete up-to-date selection of programmes on Business, Europe, Culture, Science and Technology, all available in English, French and Arabic. The subjects covered are updated several times a day by the Euronews editorial teams.
“Thanks to our partnership with MSN Arabia, already followed by 100 million visitors each month, we reinforce Euronews’ presence in all MENA countries,” said Walid Chamak, Head of Digital Partnerships at Euronews.
“Beyond the editorial quality, Euronews is a perfect fit for news providers such as MSN Arabia willing to diversify their news sources and target a multilingual audience” he added.
“We are very pleased to have concluded this agreement with one of the world’s leading news providers,” said Basma Samir, Portal Development Executive, MSN Arabia and North Africa.
“This is a great win for both parties. We are pleased and very optimistic about the value this brings to MSNA visitors and users in terms of content quality and coverage not to mention the language diversity. This is only one in many deals that MSNA is working on to power our different verticals and channels to offer our visitors around-the-clock coverage with premium quality content from premium providers,” said Ramy Riad, Executive Producer, MSN Arabia and North Africa. (Source: Press release)
22 March 2014
Dr. Mohammed Bdaiwi Owaid Al-Shammari, the Baghdad bureau chief of RFE/RL’s Iraq Service, Radio Free Iraq (RFI), was shot and killed at a checkpoint near his office this morning in an incident that company managers have called tragic, senseless and shocking.
Dr. Al-Shammari was shot on his way to work in the Jadriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, an area adjacent to the Presidential Palace.
The shooter has been identified as a member of Iraq’s presidential guard.
RFE/RL editor in chief Nenad Pejic expressed extreme sadness and shock at the news. “Al-Shammari went through this checkpoint every day. It is inexplicable to us that this could have happened, and we insist on a thorough investigation and prosecution of the gunman,” he said. “This is a profound loss for RFE/RL and Radio Free Iraq, and our deepest sympathies are with Al-Shammari’s family and the colleagues he leaves behind.”
RFI reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki went to the scene of the murder and promised members of Al-Shammari’s family that the gunman would be brought be justice.
Al-Shammari, 46, was known on the air as Hasan Rashid. He joined RFI in 2006 and was appointed as Baghdad bureau chief in 2012. A journalist since 1993, Al-Shammari served on the editorial boards of several local media institutions, and was an associate professor of journalism at Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. Al-Shammari is survived by his wife and three children.
Al-Shammari is the third RFI journalist to be killed since the Service began broadcasting in 1998. In April 2007, Khamail Muhsin Khalaf was kidnapped and shot dead in Baghdad; one month later, her colleague Nazar Abdulwahid Al-Radhi was shot dead in the southern Iraqi city of Al-Amarah. (Source: Press release)
