4 October 2012
Today ZEFR (formerly MOVIECLIPS), a premium content network with more than 900 million monthly views, announced it has opened its new London office, marking the Venice, CA based company’s first initiative outside of the U.S. To lead this international expansion ZEFR has appointed Daniel Adams as its Vice President of Business Development, International. Daniel has deep experience in online content partnership negotiation and management in the European territories. He comes to ZEFR from Dailymotion where he was Vice President of International Content.
In this new role, Daniel will oversee ZEFR’s partnerships with key media companies worldwide. As 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the U.S. there is a massive opportunity to partner with the key media properties internationally and ZEFR will utilize its physical presence in London to effectively reach these markets. The international expansion of ZEFR brings huge value to the company who recently rebranded itself from its former name, MOVIECLIPS to ZEFR, after completing the movie category on YouTube with partnerships with six major Hollywood studios. As ZEFR, the company will further its growth as it begins to include additional content categories in music, TV and sports.
Continuing its growth, ZEFR recently acquired two top engineers and a product manager who were formerly engineers at legacy Los Angeles tech company, BetterWorks. With the new engineering hires, ZEFR now boasts a team of 13 engineers, further strengthening its dedication to creating innovative technology in Venice.
4 October 2012
Two renowned international news channels, RT’s Rusiya Al-Yaum and Russia Today have joined the exclusive High Definition (HD) television bouquet offered by YahLive, the UAE-based direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television service provider.
The addition of Rusiya Al-Yaum and Russia Today channels, broadcasting in Arabic and English respectively, means that YahLive with over 40 HD channels is continuing to build the HD Hotspot for the Middle East and North Africa at 52.5 degrees East.
Available free-to-air (FTA), both Rusiya Al-Yaum and Russia Today broadcast 24/7 to more than 550 million people in over 100 countries around the world. The channels are based in Moscow with a network of bureaus all over the globe, including New York, London, Miami, Los Angeles, Paris, Dubai, Beirut, Baghdad, Cairo and Delhi, and another TV studio in Washington, DC. RT is the only Russian TV channel to be nominated twice for the International Emmy Award in the News category.
Russia Today is the flagship news channel of the RT network and covers major political, economic and cultural issues of our time, with supporting analysis and documentaries, for viewers wishing to question more…. Rusiya Al-Yaum, Russia’s first Arabic news channel, has a rolling 24-hour schedule of political, economic, cultural and sports stories supplemented with movies, documentaries and feature broadcasts.
Mohamed Youssif, YahLive’s CEO, said: “The addition of these two acclaimed channels further strengthens the position of YahLive as the hotspot for High Definition television in the region. We’re selecting channel partners based on the quality of their programming and the multi-cultural mix of our
audience across the region. For example, Russia Today is the second most-watched foreign news channel in the United States.
“High Definition is the future of television and, because we have the capacity and engineering infrastructure, YahLive can offer the future today. The range of channels available on the platform also means that there is something for everyone,” added Mr. Youssif.
Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor in chief, stated that: “We are delighted to extend our reach across the Middle East and North Africa with YahLive. RT’s viewers in the region are already dedicated and engaged, and we’re excited that now we can further enrich their viewing experience by delivering our best programming in HD, bringing the intensity of the frontline to their living rooms.”
YahLive has benefited from the shared knowledge and experience of the global satellite operator SES. Using SES’s extensive knowledge of HD TV, YahLive has developed a high-quality, robust and secure HD TV standard for its services in the region. SES operates 44 Direct-to-Home (DTH) platforms across the globe, carrying more than 5,200 TV channels, of which more than 1,300 are in HD.
YahLive is a joint venture company with Yahsat, the United Arab Emirates-based satellite communications company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company, and the global satellite operator SES.
About YahLive
YahLive is a joint venture between Al Yah Satellite Communications Company, Yahsat, and SES, a global satellite operator. Launched in 2011, YahLive offers state of the art broadcasting, newsgathering, distribution and contribution feed capacities, bringing about a new era of high-definition (HD) and 3D TV services, from Y1A satellite positioned at 52.5 degrees East, covering the Middle East, Africa and West Asia.
YahLive offers broadcasters access to extensive satellite capacity to enable the latest innovations in the broadcast world, such as HD and interactive TV.
Through YahLive broadcasters can introduce new HD or interactive channels without worrying about capacity constraints, and also extend their audience reach to new regions with YahLive’s wide-reaching coverage.
About RT
RT is a global multilingual television news network, broadcasting around-the-clock from Moscow and Washington, DC to more than 100 countries on five continents in English, Arabic and Spanish. With a global reach of over 550 million people – or 25% of all paid cable networks’ subscribers – and 2.3 million hotel rooms worldwide, RT covers the major political, economic and cultural issues of the time, with supporting analysis, documentaries, sport news and cultural programs, for viewers wanting to question more.
The best news reports, stories and programmes can be found on RT’s YouTube channel, where the number of views has already exceeded 750 million, making RT the first TV news channel to break this record in YouTube’s history and also making the network the largest provider of news video footage on this world’s most popular video platform. According to official ratings by the UK’s Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, RT is now the third most popular TV news channel in Great Britain after BBC News and Sky News, and scores higher viewership than other foreign news channels measured by BARB, including Al Jazeera English, Fox News and Euronews. Nielsen has found RT’s audience in key U.S. cities to be bigger than that of other major international news channels including Euronews, France 24, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera English, NHK World and CCTV News. RT is the only Russian TV channel to be nominated twice for the International Emmy Award in the News category – in 2010 and 2012.
4 October 2012
Eurosport.com* attracted its highest ever number of fans globally during the peak of the 2012 summer of sport.
New record visitor numbers were also set for Europe collectively, and previous national figures were beaten in four individual European markets.
The impact of the London 2012 Olympic Games saw the Eurosport.com online network attract 33.2 million unique visitors** worldwide in August 2012 and a new European benchmark for the network of 23.4m, breaking the 20 million unique visitors per month target for the first time, and reinforced Eurosport.com’s position as n°1 online sports destination in Europe**.
The Olympic effect also gave the four co-branded* Eurosport sites, in Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK, their best ever monthly performance in August of 14.8m unique visitors, a year on year rise of 47%.
*Eurosport.com comprises 15 websites worldwide in 11 languages, including Yahoo! co-branded sites in Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK and Onet co-branded site in Poland. Eurosport.com has also partnerships with du, the integrated telecom services provider of the United Arab Emirates, to cover the Arabic world and with qq.com for the Chinese market. ** Source: comScore
3 October 2012
Event: TROPFEST Arabia 2012 film festival
Date: October 26, 2012
Time: Doors open from 6:00 pm
Location: Abu Dhabi Corniche
Website: www.TROPFESTarabia.com
About: twofour54 Abu Dhabi is proud to present TROPFEST Arabia 2012 – a great night of entertainment where you can watch never seen before films, shot by the Arab world’s hot new talent. Join thousands of film fans on Abu Dhabi’s Corniche, see stars on the red carpet and watch the winner announced live on the night. The event will also feature a live musical performance.
2 October 2012
As Asia continues to make headlines, Channel NewsAsia launches another season of its high profile programme, Bridging Asia – the Singapore Debates, where experts and thinkers from diverse fields come together to exchange perspectives on some of the
most pressing issues confronting the region.
This season, Bridging Asia goes “live” to give voice to five topics demanding our attention
today. Some eminent experts include Professor Mark Thompson of the City University of Hong Kong, Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim of Transparency International Malaysia, Mr Xu Sitao of the Economist Group in China and Mr Andrew Bruce of the International Organisation for Migration. (See Annex 1 for details). Each episode will feature two teams comprising two speakers a side. The debate will be moderated by Mr Gaurav Keerthi, former president of the Debate Association Singapore.
The motions for the five debates, starting 2 October, are as follows:
1) Can Asia beat corruption?
2) Will Myanmar be a democracy in a decade?
3) Does Asian migration bring more benefits than drawbacks?
4) China or India – who will be ahead in 2030?
5) Should happiness be the national target?
The moderator and speakers will be joined by three expert adjudicators, and 50 studio audience members made up of esteemed members of society, specialist groups, and interest groups. The adjudicators will “critique” the panellists based on the strength of their arguments and also add pizzazz to the proceedings with their questions. The judges are established personalities in Singapore – Mr Chelva R. Raja SC, Mr Adrian Tan and Ms Eleanor Wong. (See Annex 2 for details).
Bridging Asia is a highly interactive programme for the studio audience and those watching from home. Studio participants can engage the panellists in a Q&A segment and help decide who wins the votes at the end of each session, while non-studio viewers can also ask questions and vote for their teams via the Bridging Asia microsite, and their smartphones.
Executive Producer of the series, Ms Huang Weixian, says, “Since the last inaugural season of Bridging Asia, remarkable moments have emerged like Aung San Suu Kyi winning a parliamentary seat in Myanmar, the Middle East continuing to be on tenterhooks and China moving closer to a historic leadership change. It’s more timely than ever to debate where Asia stands amidst these rapid changes. The interactive nature of the programme and the Judges’ views of the debate will introduce some interesting elements in the exchange of perspectives.”
Bridging Asia – The Singapore Debates (Season II) will be shown on Channel NewsAsia from 2 October at the following times:
Episode 1: Can Asia beat corruption?
Tue, 2 Oct 2012, 8-9pm (SG/HK time)
Episode 2: Will Myanmar be a democracy in a decade?
Tue, 9 Oct 2012, 8-9pm
Episode 3: Does Asian migration bring more benefits than drawbacks?
Tue, 16 Oct 2012, 8-9pm
Episode 4: China or India – who will be ahead in 2030?
Tue, 23 Oct 2012, 8-9pm
Episode 5: Should happiness be the national target?
Tue, 30 Oct 2012, 8-9pm
