2 October 2009
euronews, the international multilingual news channel, has announced its first distribution agreement in South Korea. Qrix, a South Korean based multiple system operator, has launched on September 23, 2009, the channel on its IPTV platform that reaches 140 000 subscribers. This new agreement strengthens euronews distribution in Asia. euronews reaches today nearly four million households in Asia and the Pacific Rim region.
On Qrixs IPTV platform, euronews is available in eight languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian, 24 hours a day, on channel 182. Qrixs coverage includes the capital city of Seoul, the local district, Jongno-Gu and Joong-Gu.
1 October 2009
The directors of five leading international broadcasters, including the Voice of America (VOA), released the following statement today at the conclusion of their annual meeting in Berlin, Germany:
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, freedom of speech is still far from being a reality in many countries of the world and journalists have to face ever more sophisticated restrictions preventing them from reporting freely. While, for some of us, multimedia usage has become an almost indispensable part of everyday life, we should not forget that access to free information is still limited to just one third of the world’s population. The global economic downturn has also worsened the situation for many media outlets, especially smaller independent broadcasters.
In light of this, the five largest international broadcasters [VOA, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle (DW), Radio France International (RFI) and Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW)] call on governments worldwide to end restrictions on the media. The directors general of the group call on heads of state to implement Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” The international broadcasters point out that countries’ democratic credentials can be measured to the extent by which they permit freedom of information, and that this, in turn, is essential for a dialogue of cultures and free exchange of ideas to take place.
During the past year, restrictions on media, and in particular on international broadcasters, have peaked during national election campaigns. Tactics have included deliberate interference with transmissions, blocking and denial of service on the Internet, and harassment and imprisonment of journalists, notably in Afghanistan, Burma, and Iran.
Nevertheless, many courageous people in societies around the world are fighting for their right to express themselves and to be heard. Erik Bettermann, director of Deutsche Welle and current chair of the international broadcasters’ group, said, “We are impressed by the ingenuity and energy shown by audiences worldwide in using new digital media to facilitate cross-border communication. Their eyewitness accounts of events (many of which their own governments would prefer to go unreported), often accompanied by audio and visual material, have marked the beginning of a new era in communications, one from which we, as international broadcasters, can also benefit, supplementing our own coverage with authentic accounts supplied by citizens in the world’s conflict zones keen to see the story told.”
Some countries have extended restrictive regulations beyond broadcasting to the Internet and emerging new media, further limiting access to information. Authoritarian nations without the technical wherewithal to block or eliminate new media dissemination are resorting to traditional methods of repression and intimidation expensive lawsuits, long prison terms, confiscation of property to restrict the flow of news, both local and international.
Prior to the Berlin meeting, Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom advocate, issued a press release expressing concern about reports “that Internet Service Providers in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have installed a new filtering software called Landun (Blue Shield or Blue Dam in English) that is more powerful than its problematic predecessor Green Dam.” As a result, the report said, “Access to independent news websites is liable to become more difficult and more risky.”
Today, journalism must still be regarded as one of the world’s riskiest livelihoods. “Over the past year, hundreds of journalists worldwide – including some from our organizations – have been harassed, arrested, exiled, kidnapped or killed,” the group pointed out.
“This only strengthens our resolve to jointly increase our efforts to set up a global civil society, where the free flow of information and the dialogue of cultures can take place unimpeded,” Bettermann said.
1 October 2009
Al Jazeera Children’s Channel (JCC) has launched its new grid for 2009 2010. JCC is the first Pan-Arab ‘edutainment’ channel addressing an audience of 7 to 15 year olds.
The new bouquet will showcase the latest of JCC’s home grown content, and a rich variety of co-produced programs specially designed for the children and families in the Arab world and Europe.
With a diverse vivid content, JCC’s new line-up is best described as interactive; one hour daily and two full hours in the weekend of live transmission make it clear that a wider window is now available for the viewers to interact with their favorite channel.
This new schedule continues to fulfill the aims of the Channels clear programming policy, reflecting an educative and entertaining content that will ensure progressive interaction with children.
Malika Alouane, Director of Channels Programming at JCC said: Our strategy remains to keep leveraging tools to best communicate and connect with our audience through the silver screen and internet. By doing so, we serve a mission to contribute to building human capacity through the use of innovative technology, and influence children’s development in their formative years.”
“Since the first day in the age of JCC, we persisted on partnering with bodies and consortiums to approach our audience with both an innovative and appropriate content. Also, our research team ceases every opportunity to monitor our viewers’ thoughts and feedback to translate our findings into new and well tailored ideas”, concluded Alouane.
The new grid also features a rich assortment of “fresh” content in different formats varying between televised magazines, reality adventure, debate, games, news, and others…
Viewers located outside the geographic range of JCC’s coverage, in North and South America and some parts of Asia and Africa, can benefit from JCC’s state of the art website which enables outstanding interaction. The upgraded website features new multimedia tools like VoD (Video on Demand) and other interactive features linked to its live programs, like “Allo Marhaba” and “Aala Al Hawa”.
Worth mentioning is also the fact that up to 60% of the content viewed on JCC is own production; this high percentage whether of home grown or co-produced with world’s best entities in the field, is considered one of the highest in the childrens television industry worldwide.
1 October 2009
E-Motion, the Genoa-based production and post-production company, has purchased a Stereo3D-equipped Quantel Pablo 4K color correction system. The Pablo sits at the heart of its new stereoscopic 3D production and post production workflow based around RED Cameras, prime lenses and stereo rigs. The Pablo is also equipped with Quantels highly ergonomic Neo control panel. The deal was completed by Quantels Italian reseller, Mediacom Digital Evolution srl.
E-Motion is a well-established post facility with its core level business based around advertising, high level corporate communications and events. Together with company president Nello Brancaccio and director Corrado Silveri, we were already looking towards moving more into features production and post when earlier this year it became clear to us that the rapid growth of stereoscopic 3D offered us a superb opportunity to open up another new area of business for the company E-Motions experience with RED and its film industry knowledge and credibility positions perfectly to take advantage of this opportunity, said David Bush, one of E-Motions directors and a pioneer of the digital intermediate process for feature films in Europe.
Quantels Pablo has a great advantage over other systems because Quantel recognised the huge business potential offered by Stereo3D a long time before any other companies. As a result it has a really well developed system, and is clearly committed to extensive ongoing development in Stereo3D, Bush continued. That made the choice of Pablo as the centrepiece of our Stereo3D and DI operation very straightforward.
E-Motion has undertaken extensive testing of every aspect of Stereo3D production from shooting to finishing, and has invested in special Stereo3D rigs for its RED cameras and prime lenses. The Stereo3D finishing suite which houses the Pablo is equipped with projectiondesign cineo32 projectors and surround sound audio monitoring.
Stereo3D is complex to shoot, and the editing of it also needs to be treated very differently from conventional 2D work, Bush said. Thats why we are convinced about taking the full production suite on location so that we can do the finishing alongside the shooting, starting from day one of the production.
Pablo has all the editing, effects and compositing tools we need to be able to do this, and we have committed to teaching editors how to use the extremely simple editing interface so as to offer them the ability to edit in Stereo3D from day one, while simplifying and speeding up significantly the old off-line /on line process into one thats continuous from the very start of production, Bush explained.
With the large system memory and r3d files you can have the entire film in one system right from day one, and this contributes to a much shorter time to market for the film and is a more efficient way of film-making from every point of view, Bush continued. Distinguished Italian film-makers have always referred to the process of editing as larte della ri-scrittura or the art of continuously re-writing – something that becomes possible when a system such as Pablo is capable of keeping the original native essence or shot material and allows us to continue to apply different metadata or new decisions regarding editing, color grading etc. continuously, and view them.
Off-line is already disappearing in HD television, and the complex requirements of Stereo3D production stimulate this novel, all-in-one workflow for features too. All of this means that we can now take Stereo3D to the ultimate level.
30 September 2009
The Association for International Broadcasting (AIB)
has announced the judges for the 2009 "AIBs", its International Media Excellence Awards.
The awards are renowned for their independent assessment of quality, using external and peer review by respected professionals from the broadcasting and wider media industries. The AIBs are independent of commercial interest and attract entries from throughout the world, representing the best of international radio and TV.
The fourteen different categories cover the broad spectrum from single news events to long-term investigation and from traditional terrestrial broadcasting to innovative use of multi-platform formats.
This year well in excess of 200 entries have come from more than 30 different countries and a shortlist of entries has been compiled from which the judges will make their final selections.
The judges have a vast range of experience in different aspects of broadcasting and are drawn from all over the world. The full list is:
Amir Jahangir, CEO, SAMAA TV, Pakistan; Danforth Austin, Director, Voice of America and Acting Director, International Broadcasting Bureau, US;
Michael Joseph, CEO, Safaricom, Kenya; Billy Wright, Global Head Media & Games Partnerships, Nokia, UK;
Hanh Tran, Chief Executive, Radio Australia, Australia; Nahida Nakad, Deputy Director, Arabic Service, France 24, France;
Darby Sanchez, CEO, Globecast Asia, Singapore; Matteo Berlucchi, CEO, Livestation, UK;
Alla Salehian, Director, Global Media Services Associated Press Television, UK;
Torsti Tenhunen, CEO, Hasan & Partners Oy, Finland; Dirk Beusch, Senior Project Manager, Deutsche Welle TV, Germany; Dr Nabil Khatib, Executive Editor, Alarabiya News Channel, UAE;
Natasha Elkington, AlertNet Correspondent/Humanitarian Crisis Reporter & Online Editor, Thomson Reuters, London;
Russell Grute, Director of Marketing, Pharos, UK; Marcus Metzner, Head of Marketing & Communications, S4M, Germany;
William Bird, Director, Media Monitoring Africa, South Africa; Corne Bouman, Managing Director, ProSkope, The Netherlands;
Lem van Eupen, Head of Strategy, Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, The Netherlands;
Julian Clover, Editorial Director, Broadband TV News, UK; Samuel Attah-Mensah, General Manager, CitiFM, Ghana;
Simon Spanswick, CEO, AIB, UK.
Biographies of all the judges are available on request.
The AIBs will be presented at a gala evening held on Wednesday 4th November 2009 in the stunning surroundings of LSO St Lukes
in London. Full details of the 2009 International Media Excellence Awards can be
found here.
