15 January 2010
RT is now broadcasting live from a new studio complex in Washington D.C. with a dedicated service for our U.S. audience. In prime-time, U.S. viewers will be able to watch news of interest to them, from an angle that differs from mainstream U.S. media..
RT will broadcast from its Washington D.C. studios on weekdays from 4:00 to10:00 p.m. ET (00:00 to 6:00 a.m. Moscow time). The new complex was built in just four months and includes two studios: one will be used for news, with the other for The Alyona Show, which broadcasts daily. Correspondents from New York and elsewhere in the U.S. will also contribute to our in-depth coverage.
RT is now broadcasting from different countries to target viewers in a specific region, like other leading news channels CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera English. This means U.S. viewers will receive news that is particularly relevant to them, with coverage also helping present Russias position on various international issues. The six-hour broadcast from the Washington complex will include some shows aired from Moscow for our general international audience.
According to a Nielsen Media Research study, RTs daily audience in Washington was 6.5 times greater than that of Al Jazeera English in 2009, while RTs monthly audience was five times greater than that of Deutsche Welle.
We show U.S. viewers news they cannot see elsewhere. Now that we have started broadcasting from Washington, there is no doubt our audience will increase dramatically, said Margarita Simonyan, RT Editor-in-Chief.
14 January 2010
Haitians, cut off from the world by a devastating earthquake, tuned in to special shortwave and satellite radio broadcasts from the Voice of America’s (VOA) Creole Service to learn the latest news and information.
Hours after Tuesday’s earthquake struck near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, VOA broadcast a 90-minute special program to the people of Haiti. The program included statements of support from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; updates from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Red Cross, the United Nations and Haitian geologists; and interviews from Haiti. Up-to-date information is also available around the clock on www.VOANews.com/creole.
VOA also set up a special call-in number 1-202-205-9942, mailbox 42 for people to leave messages that will be broadcast to Haiti. Facebook and Twitter accounts are also being created.
Today, the service broadcast 30 minutes of news, including an interview with Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph. Another show is scheduled for 12:30pm EST/17300 UTC.
“In times of crises, VOA is a lifeline of information,” said VOA Director Danforth Austin. “Because of our technologies, we are able to reach people in their own languages when disasters strike. Our hearts go out to the people of Haiti, and we’ll continue to give them the latest, accurate news.”
Ronald Cesar, chief of VOA’s Creole Service, said it was difficult for people to get telephone lines out of Haiti. In addition, damage was severe to one of the VOA’s FM affiliates, Radio Guinen. I talked with the manager and he said his tower was down, Cesar said.
VOA is the leading international broadcaster in Haiti, with a weekly audience reach of 50%.
7 January 2010
Baraem TV, the Pan Arabic pre-school channel won the CINE Golden Eagle Award for its educational animation series “Nan and Lili”. The Council on International Nontheatrical Events (CINE) in the United States awarded Nan & Lili in the category of Professional Non-Fiction educational programs for the remarkable content and production quality of this series.
The CINE Golden Eagle Award is a prestigious milestone for Baraem TV for the long history that this consortium has in recognizing worlds pioneers in the field of innovative TV and cinema like Steven Spielberg, Georges Lucas, and Nan & Lili’s Executive Producer Canadian Firdaus Kharas.
Director of Programming at Al Jazeera Children’s Channel and Baraem TV, Malika Alouane said: “This award gives the programming and content team at our channels a rewarding feeling and a sense of pride, as it demonstrates the genuine and innovative content production strategy that we all strive to implement at best”.
The CINE Golden Eagle Award comes to highlight an exceptional international reach of the high standards and top-shelf content that we present on Baraem screen for our little viewers, Alouane added.
Earlier in November, Nan & Lili has won INTERCOM’s Certificate of Merit” in the educational children audience category 2009, at the Chicago International Film Festival 2009. The CINE Golden Eagle Award is the second major international recognition of Baraem’s content in less than 3 months.
Nan & Lili”, a 2D / 3D animation series, revolves around two main lovely, funny child-like characters Nan and Lili who like to play and have a good time with their friends. Each episode introduces the young audience to a new educational topic that teaches them new things every day. The program nourishes imagination, creative skills and sense of determination, accomplishment, good manners, sharing, self-esteem, respect and perseverance.
7 January 2010
RT news TV channel has begun broadcasting 24 hours a day in Spanish. On Monday, December 28 the first news bulletins went out.
The TV programme considers the difference in time in broadcasting zones and all news bulletins are run at morning or evening prime-time in New-York, Miami, Los-Angeles, Mexico, Buenos-Aires and Madrid. Every day RT reports on sports news, life in the Russian regions and conducts important interviews.
The channel has already taken exclusive interviews from Ecuadors president Rafael Correa, Mexicos Energy Minister Georgina Kessel Martinez, flamenco celebrity Mercedes Ruiz, Cubas jazz pianist Roberto Fonseca, human rights activist Eva Golinger and other well-known people.
The channel broadcasts from Moscow via satellites IS9, Hispasat 1D and the satellite television system Digital+. Millions of viewers across Europe, North and South America have access to its open signal. While decorating the studio light panels were used for the first time on Russian TV. They can change the design of studios and a newsroom in a few seconds. Besides, the Spanish Channel will use all the resources of already operating English and Arabic channels. In November of 2009 a correspondent bureau was opened in Miami, a correspondent bureau in Buenos-Aires is scheduled to be open in the near future.
At present about 200 employees work in Spanish RT, including 35 foreign journalists from Argentina, Spain, Chili, Ecuador, Mexico, the USA and Bolivia. Among them there are well-known correspondents and presenters who worked for the largest European and Latin-American Channels such as TVE in Spain, TVN and Canal 13 in Chili, TV Azteca in Mexico and also CNN Espanol and Telemundo.
The official Internet site of the Spanish RT TV channel is located on actualidad.rt.com Its a fully-fledged multimedia resource. The site users can not only watch the latest international news on video and read them, and gain substantial information about Russia. The button en vivo provides access to RT live broadcast with as high quality as on air.
Earlier, in May of 2007 the Arabic Channel Rusia Al-Yaum began broadcasting and in December 2005 the English RT TV Channel went on air. Recently the Eurocommission named English RT in its report, saying that this channel has a true international impact along with BBC World è CNN International*. While in 2008 Rusia Al-Yaum and Al-Jazeera **were recognized to be most objective in their covering the war in Gaza.
We have no doubt that the Spanish Channel will reach its viewers and will be as much in demand from the Spanish speaking audience as our English and Arabic projects. We make absolutely different news from the international mainstream. Therefore, for example, in Washington we surpassed Al-Jazeera English *** by six and a half fold in viewers and Deutche Welle by five fold despite their high budgets. Viewers want to watch different stories, which no one else tells them about. Im sure that Latin America will take to us, and if we join the US cabel network, then Spanish speaking residents will benifit.” said RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
*According to research by the European Audiovisual Observatory at the European Commission.
** According to telephone poll of the Iraqi TV channel Ap-Rai, 40 thousand people will be questioned.
***On the research: the research was carried out in Washington and its suburbs by Nielsen Media Research. 4574 respondents had been questioned by phone from May to July in 2009 among subscribers of the biggest operators of commercial TV (Comcast, RCN, Cox, DirecTV, Dish Networks), who know about RT and have access to it along with other channels. Men and women older than 18 years old participated in the poll.
6 January 2010
Statement released by the BBG:
The Broadcasting Board of Governors condemns the latest efforts of the Iranian Government and its associates to interfere and censor the free flow of objective news and information to the Iranian people. By monitoring satellite signals, BBG’s technical experts have determined that on December 27, the Government of Iran engaged in the intentional jamming of satellite transmissions of the Voice of America’s (VOA) Persian News Network and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Radio Farda.
These efforts continue a pattern by the Iranian Government to block the broadcasting of objective and balanced news and information to the Iranian people, efforts which the Government of Iran has amplified since the June 12 Iranian elections. As Iranian citizens once again demonstrate against the current government, Iran has stepped up its measures to ensure that the Iranian people are deprived of the international reaction, as well as of accurate news about the protests taking place in various cities in Iran.
The latest actions of the Iranian government in jamming commercial satellites appear calculated to intimidate the commercial satellite providers that are targets of the jamming into complicity with the actions of the Government of Iran and deprive the Iranian people access to free press and information.
“Private industry is an essential partner in freedom of the press. We urge our satellite partners to stand united in the face of these authoritarian acts or risk even greater human rights losses,” BBG Governor D. Jeffrey Hirschberg said after the Iranian Government’s latest efforts to jam U.S. International Broadcasting signals.
“This type of intentional, harmful interference is not only a violation of the rules of the International Telecommunications Union to which the Government of Iran has subscribed, but is also a flagrant violation of the internationally recognized right of the people of Iran to receive news and information without government censorship.”
Calls to the Iranian Mission to the UN for comment have not been returned.
The BBG condemns censorship in any form and vigorously affirms the right of all peoples of the world to receive news and information freely and without restriction. The BBG also strongly urges satellite owners and service providers not to allow themselves to become unwitting instruments of censorship of the free press under the guise of avoiding harmful interference. The people of Iran, like the peoples of all countries, have the right to know about their country and the world.
