13 February 2013
WRN Broadcast, the international broadcast services company, has today confirmed it’s partnership with the content design and creation company, Somethin’ Else, to syndicate radio content for The BRIT Awards 2013.
WRN Broadcast, which has partnered with Somthin’ Else since 2004 for this annual music awards event, will be transmitting the event on it’s own dedicated events channel – an audio-only channel specifically available for such ad-hoc projects.
David Treadway, CEO, WRN Broadcast, commented, “WRN Broadcast is again thrilled to play a part in syndicating the BRIT Awards – and as such, celebrating the very best in British music and continuing our longstanding relationship with Somethin’ Else.”
The BRIT Awards, which has been going since 1977, is the biggest event in the British music calendar which last year saw Adele, Coldplay and Blur win British Female Artist, British Group and Outstanding Contribution to Music Awards, respectively.
Tom Green, Executive Producer, Somethin’ Else, said, “Somethin’ Else has been syndicating content for The BRIT Awards for over ten years and have consistently relied on the broadcast expertise and services WRN Broadcast provides. We’re very proud to bring BRITs fans this fantastic annual event, wherever they may be.”
The BRIT Awards 2013 with Mastercard will be taking place on 20 February 2013, at London’s o2 Arena. (Source: WRN Broadcast press release)
6 February 2013
From February 2013, Claus Stäcker takes charge of Deutsche Welle’s Programs for Africa. Until recently, he was the ARD (The Association of Public Broadcasting Corporations in Germany) correspondent for southern Africa in Johannesburg.
Claus Stäcker, 45, is the new head of DW’s Africa program, which targets listeners and Internet users in Sub-Saharan Africa. It offers shortwave radio programs and online content in six languages: Amharic, English, French, Hausa, Kiswahili and Portuguese. The shows and reports, produced by DW, are rebroadcast by around 280 partner stations in the region.
Stäcker studied journalism in Leipzig. He first travelled to South Africa as part of a university exchange program in 1992. In the same year, he started to work for German public broadcasters MDR and DLF. In 1994 he witnessed the end of Apartheid and the resulting South African parliamentary elections as a freelance correspondent for the German press. After further study at the US School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, Stäcker worked as a freelance correspondent for ARD in South Africa until 2008, when he officially became the ARD correspondent for southern Africa.
DW’s radio programs reach over 30 million listeners in the region on a regular basis. Audiences in Sub-Saharan Africa can also access information via DW’s website (www.dw.de) or tune into DW – Deutsche Welle’s 24/7 international TV channel in English.
4 February 2013
Arab Satellite Communications Organization (ARABSAT) and BBC have announced the renewal of their agreement for five years to broadcast BBC Arabic TV and radio programmes via Arabsat satellite Badr 4 at 26°E , which covers the Middle East and large parts of Europe andAfrica.
Eng. / Khalid bin Ahmed Balkhyour, President & CEO of ARABSAT, and Nigel Fry, Head of Distribution BBC Global News, both stated that they are very pleased to continue this relationship, with Fry saying that BBC channels are available to many millions of homes across the region as part of a bouquet of popular channels.
Balkhyour said that ARABSAT is currently finalizing the manufacture and launching of its 6th generation of satellites that will secure ARABSAT leadership in the satellite telecommunications and broadcasting market in the region, in addition to ARABSAT diversity of services delivered to its customers to meet all their future requirements.
On 2 Febuary Arabsat announced that it had signed a contract with the Sudanese Blue Nile Channel to join the Sudanese bouquet, broadcast from the recently built platform shared between the Sudanese Radio & Television Agency and ARABSAT. Blue Nile Channel with its wide range of diverse programming is the most viewed Sudanese channel; it broadcasts its programmes to the Sudanese platform via optical fibre.
29 January 2013
BBC World Service has announced the launch of new mobile sites for BBC Indonesia and BBC Hausa in Responsive Design – a technology which tests mobile users’ screen sizes and ensures they download the most optimised version for their device.
With the launch of these two “responsive” sites, all mobile users who visit the BBC Indonesia and BBC Hausa mobile sites automatically will be routed to the mobile optimised versions, thus getting the best possible user experience their device can deliver.
James Montgomery, Controller of Digital and Technology, BBC Global News, says: “These are milestones in the digital development of BBC World Service. This technology – already adopted on the BBC’s international news website, bbc.com/news – unlocks our ability to deliver the very best mobile user-experience. It is particularly well suited for BBC World Service, whose audiences use a huge variety of handset types to access our content, from newest editions of smartphones to low-tech ‘feature’ phones.”
The BBC is at the forefront of the move into Responsive Design in the Asian and African mobile news markets. In February, BBC World Service is planning to launch this technology for its Russian-language news website, bbcrussian.com.
