2 September 2010
Chinas State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) announced that it would consolidate radio and television networks under a single national cable television network company, Peoples Daily Online reports.
It said the new company would come up by the end of the year and would further expand into new businesses like mobile TV and online videos.
Tao Shiming, Director of the SARFT Society Administration Bureau said: “The nation’s radio and television networks need to be consolidated under one roof as currently they are individually run and have not developed into large-scale entities.”
Presently there are 1,000 radio and television networks in China. The absence of a nationwide and unified network comes in the way of their plan to compete with others for the opportunities that arise from the convergence of technologies, said industry experts.
Mr Tao said the consolidation exercise was likely to start at the provincial level by the end of this year and culminate in nationwide consolidation later.
Zeng HuiMing, Deputy Secretary-General of the cable TV committee of the China Radio and Television Association, said: “All networks in the nation are likely to be integrated in three years.”
China last month launched a pilot project in 12 cities to test the convergence of the three networks. The trials are expected to last until 2012 and will focus on connecting the broadcasting and telecom networks. (Source: ABU)
17 August 2010
The Association for International Broadcasting has already started planning for the 2010 “AIBs”, the International Media Excellence Awards, and is delighted to announce that Vanessa Mock of Radio Netherlands Worldwide will be the presenter at the gala awards ceremony to be held in London on Tuesday 9 November.
Vanessa works in Brussels, covering EU-affairs, focusing on day-to-day developments in Brussels and European politics, ranging from agricultural reforms to EU enlargement, immigration to EU-Russia relations . She also covers Nato, especially the Afghanistan mission and tensions between EU and Nato. Previously she worked for the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation and the Financial Times. Vanessa speaks English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian.
The AIB is already receiving enquiries about entries and sponsorship for the 2010 awards which will be formally announced on April 12th. The latest details can be found in the Awards section of the AIB website
12 August 2010
Pharos announces a major extension of training support at its UK headquarters in Reading. Managed by technology specialist Elaine Jarvis, the expanded resource is geared to providing hands-on training at Pharos offices or at customer sites.
Elaine joined Pharos recently from Viasat Broadcasting. She commenced her broadcast career in 1979 as an on-air assistant at BCTV in Vancouver, progressing in 1983 to senior video tape engineer at TV-AM in London, to IndiEdit as an editor in 1988 and to Viasat in 1994 as a transmission controller.
“Pharos produces a highly coordinated range of broadcast content management control solutions centred on Mediator which allows practically every element of television and radio channel operation to be handled efficiently,” Elaine comments. “I first became familiar with Mediator while working at Viasat. We began using the system in June 2006 and I later ran a three-month training course for the transmission department. Mediator is controlled from networked desktop computers displaying Web-style pages. These give operators the exact information they require to perform each aspect of their duties quickly and confidently. Mediator is very easy to drive whether approached from a task-specific perspective or in total. Once incoming content has been ingested into the system, everything is handled on-screen. A huge improvement on the old days of moving tapes and disks physically to and from a library, and hoping your content arrived in a playable form.”
Also supporting the Pharos training resource is Andy Benning who recently rejoined the company from Miranda. Andy’s focus will be on providing an information bridge between the Pharos development team and colleagues in sales and other departments, ensuring that all Pharos staff have a good understanding of the company’s capabilities.
Founded in 1997, Pharos has pioneered collaborative desktop workflow and integrated third-party infrastructure management. Pharos solutions today handle millions of media assets across hundreds of television channels and an increasing number of new media distribution networks. Pharos is an open company embracing open standards. Pharos software architecture, integration and support services enable disparate broadcast and IT processes to be unified across the enterprise. The unique Mediator content management platform, with its integrated Playtime playout and Pilot control options, provides efficient tools to deliver multi-format content globally.
12 August 2010
RRsat Global Communications Network Ltd. a rapidly growing provider of comprehensive content management and global distribution services to the television and radio broadcasting industries, has launched a new platform on the Galaxy 19 (G-19) satellite that enables the distribution of television and radio channels devoted to religious programming. The new platform, together with RRsat’s three other platforms already operating on this satellite, will broadcast more than 50 religious and ethnic TV and radio channels, reaching millions of homes across the United States, and represents a major step in RRsat’s program to distribute content within the Americas originating in the Americas.
The Galaxy 19 satellite, located at 97degreesW, is one of the largest ethnic video platforms in the U.S. offering programmers and content distributors access to millions of homes in the U.S. cable community. RRsat has signed agreements with thirteen TV and radio channels to be broadcast on its new Galaxy 19 platform directly from RRsat’s Hawley Teleport in Pennsylvania. Channels already launched include the Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN), which also use RRsat’s services for global distribution, the three Hope channels: Hope Channel, Esperanza TV, and Hope Church channel; and Loma Linda Broadcasting Networks Inc., which broadcasts on Galaxy 19 in English, Arabic and Chinese and uses RRsat’s distribution services to North America, Asia, Africa and Australia.
3ABN, LLBN and the Adventist Television Network channels are all major Christian television and radio networks in the United States offering a full range of religious content and programming. Their presence on this platform is representative of the increase in content being distributed by RRsat’s Hawley Teleport in which both the source and the destination is North America.
“Interest in religious programming and content is on the rise in the United States,” commented Lior Rival, Vice President, Sales and Marketing of RRsat. “By positioning ourselves as a provider of global distribution for all types of religious content, we believe we can further penetrate this important market and become a leading distribution solution for this programming. Moreover, this launch represents another significant step in our penetration of the America-to-America market.”
12 August 2010
The free app, boasting more LIVE sports content than any other sports app in Europe, has been downloaded 2,518,432 times (and counting!) since its launch last year.
The app leverages Eurosport.com’s ditorial expertise and online excellence, featuring real-time text commentary, live results, breaking sports news, stats, standings and fixtures.
It is the only sports application available in 9 different language versions,* plus an international version available in any country in the world, and has been a resounding success, topping download lists in France, Germany, Italy and the UK.
Laurent-Eric Le Lay, Eurosport Chairman and CEO, said: “Eurosport innovates to provide quality content across all media devices, and mobile is the perfect way to enjoy, share and experience sports news and events. Any first birthday is always a very special time and, together with the 2.5 million downloads, it is proof that we are delivering the global sports fans what he wants, when he wants it and where he wants it.”
Arnaud Maillard, Eurosport’s New Media Director, added: “This is a life-cycle, and though today we celebrate the free app’s first birthday we will continue to innovate and grow our diverse online and mobile offering for the iPhone and iPad.”
Not forgetting the iPad … Since its launch in May of this year, the Europsort.com for iPad sports app, has been downloaded over 118,000 times in two months, making it the most popular iPad sports app across Europe.
All of Eurosport’s apps for iPhone and iPad are available for download on iTunes and the App Store.
