10 February 2011
Discuss intelligence issues with VOAs Security Briefing. Find out what international students think about life in the United States at The Student Union. Click on Jazz Beat and find out what music has inspired protesters in Egypt. Now you can do all this and more thanks to Voice of Americas new blog network.
All of VOAs English language blogs are now conveniently listed on one webpage, including The Sonny Side of Sports, African Music Treasures, Russia Watch, and Digital Frontiers, our dynamic online discussion of privacy, identity and freedom in the digital age.
In addition to a single page that brings together links to all of VOAs blog sites, you can see what others are saying about key issues, and what topics are generating the most interest. You can also interact with VOA journalists, see what story tags are being used the most, and find quick links to important resources.
Staying in touch with the latest U.S. and international developments is easy with VOA Breaking News, a survey of the top stories from each region with full access to news and analysis by VOA journalists around the world.
VOA Director Danforth W. Austin says, The new blog network has already generated significant audience gains because its easy to find original VOA content written for the web. Each blog is like a story beat, and all forms of media are pulled into one central place. Austin says, It also offers our audience an easy way to have a dialogue with our reporters on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
10 February 2011
RRsat Global Communications Network Ltd., a leading provider of comprehensive content management and global distribution services to the television and radio broadcasting industries announced that it has begun working with Ananey Communications to provide playout and distribution services for the localized MTV Israel channel. This service is in addition to the already existing playout and distribution services provided to Ananey Communications, which operates localized Comedy Central and Nickelodeon services in Israel under license on behalf of MTV Networks International.
RRsat is responsible for the playout of MTV Israel, uplink to the YES direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV platform with 1.5 million viewers and for the fiber delivery to the Israeli cable provider HOT with 900,000 viewers. The new channel will provide its target youth audience with international music and entertainment series such as Jersey Shore, The Hard Times of RJ Berger, Punkd and Pimp My Ride.
The playout services being provided by RRsat include archiving and backup, audio and video editing, re-encoding, dubbing, subtitle insertion, graphic overlay, QC. .
We are thrilled to be involved with granting Israelis access to the MTVs exciting content, said Lior Rival, Vice President, Sales and Marketing of RRsat. MTV Israel joins the more than 130 TV channels being played out from RRsat Playout Centers state-of-the-art automated, high capacity, 24/7 facility including Fashion TV, KidsCo, BollywoodHD, BABY TV, BABY First TV, and more.
7 February 2011
Prompted by the tense relations between Tehran and The Hague following the execution of Dutch-Iranian Zahra Bahrami, RNW is launching a new website aimed at Iran. The new site www.rnw.nl/farsi, – as the name suggests – be produced in Farsi, the language spoken in Iran and by the many Iranians who live outside the country.
The decision to start this new internet service has also been prompted by the continuing crises in Egypt and Tunisia, both of which are of great significance for many other countries in the region, including Iran. The current Islamic Republic there is itself the result of a popular uprising which took place in Iran in 1979. This new RNW website is also Radio Netherlands Worldwides first service in Farsi, the stations 11th broadcasting and website language.
RNW Editor-in-Chief Rik Rensen believes that there is a large market within Iran which would welcome an independent and balanced service from the Netherlands: The websites initial launch is for a period of one month, at the end of which well decide whether it should be continued.
With social media providing popular information-sharing platforms for many Iranians, too, much of the output of rnw.nl/farsi will also be re-published via these channels.
7 February 2011
As Belarus continues to crack down on local media outlets and independent journalists, BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson and RFE President Jeffrey Gedmin today affirmed their commitment to media freedom in Belarus and expressed concern for the safety of journalists throughout the country. Isaacson and Gedmin visited Lithuania as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation led by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT).
“What we’re seeing in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere is that people are seeking what those of us in free societies take for granted — the truth,” said Isaacson. “In Belarus, the U.S. is committed to providing people with accurate and reliable information in order for them to make up their own minds when it comes to determining their future.”
The delegation met with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, as well as with Belarusian students, civil society advocates, and political opposition leaders. During an exclusive pre-trip interview, Senator Lieberman told RFE, “We want to tell the Belarusian opposition that we’re with them. We stand with them in the cause of freedom.”
Gedmin added that RFE’s Belarusian radio station, Radio Svaboda, is “doing an extraordinary job under difficult circumstances in order to bring people the news and information that their government is trying to deny them.”
“We’re particularly concerned about our journalists’ safety,” said Gedmin. “Several of our reporters were injured covering the violent crackdown on post-election protests and journalists continue to be arrested and harassed in Minsk and around the country.”
Radio Svaboda provided live coverage to Belarus today of a town hall meeting the delegation attended with students from the European Humanities University (EHU), a school re-located from Minsk to Vilnius in 2005 after being shut down by Belarusian authorities.
Since the widely criticized December 2010 elections, a growing number of Belarusian media outlets have been shut down. As a result, Radio Svaboda’s audience has increased dramatically. In a single day shortly after the election, the station’s website received a 20-fold increase in page views over normal daily traffic. In January 2011, visitors to Radio Svaboda’s website viewed a total of 2.4 million pages of content, reflecting a five-fold increase over the same period in 2010.
Recently, graffiti has started showing up in Belarus with Radio Svaboda’s website address prominently visible. “I will not keep silent,” reads one wall of graffiti in Minsk. “The truth is on the Internet – svaboda.org.”
7 February 2011
India’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry yesterday set the deadline to shift from analogue to digital systems as 31 March 2015, The Times of India reported.
The proposal has been sent to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and will subsequently be put before the Union Cabinet for approval.
Digitisation, where the feed will be received through set-top boxes, is expected to be executed in phases and the four metropolitan areas of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai have to shift to digital addressability by 31 March 2012.
Phase II will include 35 cities with population of more than one million, such as Patna, Chandigarh, Pune and Bangalore by 31 March 2013. All urban areas are expected to digitise by 30 November 2014 and the remaining areas, by 31 March 2015.
“Digitisation will help industry grow at an accelerated speed. It is the key to (resolving) problems like distribution bottlenecks and under-declaration, leading to loss of subscription revenue that broadcasters face today,” said Zee News CEO Barun Das.
Broadcast regulator TRAI had recommended that phase I be digitised by March this year. The ministry had postponed this deadline by a year.
Industry insiders said digitisation would bring prices down, not just that of set-top boxes, but also carriage fees, by as much as half. (Source: ABU website)
