5 September 2011
Andy Braddel has been appointed as director of Global Media Services, the video newsgathering facilities arm of The Associated Press. The GMS appointment was announced by Senior Vice President Daisy Veerasingham, who heads APs video business. Braddel reports to Veerasingham.
Braddel has worked with the AP since 1994. He has spent much of his career in the former Soviet Union, progressing from regional editor to head of Broadcast Services, Russia and the CIS. Before joining the AP, Braddel worked for ABC News and Channel 4 News in Moscow and Washington, D.C. He was part of the ITN team which won an Emmy in 1993 for reports exposing Serb-run detention camps in Bosnia.
“For the past year Braddel has been managing the GMS operation in the U.S. He takes over GMS at a crucial time: revenues are up this year largely due to the department’s excellent performance on major news events, such as the royal wedding, the Japan earthquake and tsunami, upheavals in the Middle East, and the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal, Veerasingham said.
GMS provides editorial and logistical support to broadcasters and news platforms covering global or regional news stories on location. It has highly-specialised team of 155 producers, reporters, facilitators and technicians around the globe and has fixed facilities in AP bureaus in London, Washington, New York, Paris, Moscow, Cairo, Baghdad, Jerusalem and Kabul.
The challenge over the next year will be to keep growing the business at a time when broadcasters are under increasing pressure to make cuts in both foreign news coverage and delivery, Veerarsingham said.
AP is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar upgrade of its newsgathering infrastructure in order to provide high-definition images to the broadcast and digital industries. At the same time, AP will also significantly increase the depth and breadth of video content available from around the world. The upgrade is the single biggest investment in the APs London-based video business since 1998, when the AP bought its competitor, Worldwide Television News.
Braddel will take up his new post in September and will split his time between London and New York.
22 August 2011
twofour54 ibtikar, twofour54s financing and support pillar, has today announced new venture capital investment deals with two of the regions leading Arabic online games companies, Tahadi Games and Jawaker.
With global information technology research experts Gartner predicting significant growth for the gaming industry in the coming years, these strategic investments represent another important milestone for the regions indigenous digital gaming industry. The new agreements will help boost the development of a gaming cluster in Abu Dhabi, strengthening twofour54s position as the regions leading centre for game development in the Arab world.
Commenting on the new investment deals, Wayne Borg, Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer at twofour54, said: Gaming represents a huge area of growth and these investments, with two of the regions most promising companies, clearly shows twofour54s commitment to supporting the development of an Arabic gaming industry.
The worldwide revenue of the industry is enormous with consumer spending expected to surpass $74bn by the end of the year, and online spend expected to double from USD11.8bn this year to some $28bn by 2015 (Gartner 2011). However until recently the gaming landscape in the Middle East was significantly under-developed, despite appetite from local consumers for games that they can culturally identify with, and good levels of local developer and entrepreneurial talent. Our new agreements, which combine Tahadi and Jawakers online gaming expertise with twofour54 ibtikars investment and strategic support, will help to strengthen the regional gaming industry in addition to Abu Dhabis position as the Middle Easts leading Arabic gaming hub.
Established in 2008 by the founders and previous owners of Maktoob.com, the regions biggest Arabic language portal, which was recently purchased by Yahoo, Tahadi aims to be the regions leading online games publisher for client and browser based massive multiplayer online (MMO) games that target the Middle East.
Mr. Steve Tsao, CEO of Tahadi, said: This investment partnership with twofour54 ibtikar will allow us to focus on our core strengths, whilst utilising their regional and international network and international industry experience to license, develop and publish tailored and relevant content that appeals and resonates with Arab gamers. With the support of twofour54 ibtikar our aim is to publish up to ten localised games over the next five years.
Jawaker is a multiplayer card gaming website developed especially for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Launched in April of 2009, the website does not require the user to download or install software and is regarded as the leading online card gaming community in the Middle East with over 500,000 registered users, 95% of whom use the site in Arabic. Jawaker serves over 17 million page views per month, and currently has approximately 100,000 visitors per month.
Mohamad Haj Hasan, Co-founder of Jawaker, said: twofour54 ibtikars investment in Jawaker will enable the company to capitalise on the rapidly expanding popularity of online gaming regionally. With the regions extremely high percentage of young people combined with increased broadband penetration, we will look to work with twofour54 ibtikar to expand our current offering and develop and publish a wide range of Arabic card games for the regions burgeoning online audience.
Tahadi and Jawaker have become established players in the Middle Easts rapidly developing online gaming industry – total user registrations are increasing at roughly 100% per annum for both companies. Investment from twofour54 ibtikar will not only see the companies have access to the capital required to grow, but it will also see them provided with the active support necessary to capture revenue and profit opportunities from within the twofour54 ecosystem and beyond. It is these factors that are vital for the development of a sustainable and indigenous digital games industry.
twofour54 ibtikar supports creative entrepreneurship through venture capital funding and operational support for start-up and early stage businesses and talented young Arabs across the Middle East and North Africa. twofour54 ibtikar investment activities focus on Arabic content creation businesses and creative individuals or entrepreneurs. ibtikar goes above and beyond equity investment to offer expertise and support, to facilitate the development of the media and entertainment industry across the Arab world.
22 August 2011
From September 09 to September 13 S4M presents its broadcast management and production systems at IBC 2011, the leading global tradeshow for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of broadcasting media. For the 12th time the Cologne based software experts showcase the latest software developments for the broadcasting industry.
S4Ms solutions around Broadcast Management, Media Asset Management and TV Production always focus on more effective and cost saving processes.
For example, the Central Sales Order (CSO) module enables broadcasters to centrally control cross-media-sales-campaigns. Existing and new sales systems for diverse platforms can be combined and clients are enabled to deal with joined advertising campaigns for TV, mobile devices, the Internet etc.
S4Ms spot optimization engine S4AdOpt now also is available as “Software as a Service”. The module enables broadcasters to reduce the over delivery of manual GRP-bookings dramatically. And using less airtime opens up the opportunity to generate additional revenue.
S4Ms studio production tool ClipJOCKEY will be available as version 2.0. The system provides broadcasters with an easy and affordable path to file-based workflows and a way to get more functionality from their video server investments. With version 2.0 S4M has added support for Harris Nexio video servers as well as new functionality for hot-swapping server ports and simplifying advanced Live On Tape or Rollback Recording.
And there is even more to see for example professional Media Asset Management with S4M’s Video Production Management System (VPMS) as well as all in one Broadcast Management with Dynamics Media and Production Planning with S4Production.
Find S4M at IBC 2011 in Amsterdam, booth 3.B26. (Source: S4M press release)
5 August 2011
Voice of America has launched a new mobile service that makes daily news summaries available to cell phone users in Guinea.
The new service is made possible by a partnership with AudioNow, a mobile radio distribution provider, and is hosted on the Cellcom network in Guinea.
Any phone user can access the VOA French language news bulletins by calling a single national number. Cellcom customers can dial a short special access code, which is available at reduced rates.
VOA Africa Division Director Gwen Dillard says the new service provides our listeners in Guinea with a simple and easy way to get news that is important to them, no matter where they are. VOAs strategy is to use the right platform in the right place, and in Africa people are increasingly using mobile phones, so putting our news on those devices makes sense.
Users in Guinea can dial 65100993 to hear the daily VOA news bulletins through AudioNows patent-pending single-stream technology. Cellcom subscribers in Guinea who pay a small weekly fee can access the VOA French service by calling the short code 503.
VOAs news, feature and music programs are broadcast throughout Africa on television, shortwave, medium wave and FM. The programs are also available on mobile, streamed on the internet and distributed direct to home by satellite and affiliate stations across the continent. VOA is also increasingly offering its radio and television programs via smart-phone apps and now on any mobile device on AudioNow.
1 August 2011
Non-rights holders covering the 2012 Olympics in London can now book space in the London Media Centre, operated by London tourism body London & Partners.
Located in Westminster, a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the London Media Centre will provide a comprehensive range of services to TV and radio broadcasters during the XXX Olympiad.
In addition to the Media Centre, London & Partners will be offering a range of additional services, such as HD B-roll material, beauty shot cameras and stand-up positions around London.
For more information about covering the London Olympics, contact AIB which is able to help in a variety of ways. Call us on +44 20 7993 2557.
You can also download the LMC rate card using the link below.
