21 February 2008
Alain de Pouzilhac, CEO of France 24, has been named by French President Nikolas Sarkozy as the Chairman of the new France Monde organisation that will oversee all French international broadcasting.
The move by Sarkozy may indicate a change in heart by the French President who had called into question the future of France 24’s English- and Arabic-language services, saying in January that he did not see a need for France to spend taxpayers’ money broadcasting TV services in languages other than French.
The new France Monde grouping will bring together Radio France Internationale and France 24. Its CEO will be French journalist Christine Ockrent.
21 February 2008
RadioScape plc has announced that following a number of recent contract awards it has now delivered its 100th DAB Broadcast System for live service transmission.
The Company has additionally sold over 40 broadcast and test systems to DAB receiver manufacturers across Europe and Asia building radios for this expanding market.
2008 will be a year of increasing activity in the international radio market as more countries roll-out DAB and DAB+ services, commented John Hall, CEO, RadioScape. With new contracts in China, Indonesia and Belgium we now have DAB installations in 14 countries and we see demand continuing to increase on the back of further successful field trials in recent months.
RadioScapes announcement comes at a time when the UK commercial broadcast industry is debating the economic viability of DAB. Hall commented: Broadcasters realise they must take advantage of the opportunities afforded by digital if they are to make DAB economic. We are increasingly working in close cooperation with broadcasters to enable new types of digital content and services, leveraging our significant DAB receiver expertise to create end to end solutions. Most of these engagements are overseas at present, but we see real opportunity to assist UK broadcasters encourage more rapid consumer take-up.
In China, where RadioScape is already the primary supplier of DAB broadcast systems, the Company has recently expanded its installed base of DAB broadcast and monitoring systems, and is now enabling services in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Yunnan. Chinas media ministry, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), has already endorsed DAB as the industrial standard for digital audio broadcasting in China. DAB transmissions will be a major feature of the 2008 Olympics with 14 services being planned for live transmission during the Games.
In Indonesia, a Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) cooperation project, between South Koreas Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and DMB Nusantara, a Jakarta-based DMB service provider, recently selected RadioScapes DAB Broadcast System for its nationwide DMB infrastructure across Indonesia. This will enable access to mobile broadcasting services for up to 40 million Indonesians including radio, TV programs, movies and other entertainment content on mobile devices.
In Belgium, RadioScape has recently been awarded a contract by the state broadcaster, RTBF, to provide its latest fusion broadcast systems and field monitoring equipment to enable the roll-out of DAB services to the French speaking area of Belgium.
Many countries are also in the process of concluding DAB trials using RadioScapes broadcast and field monitoring systems: In Australia, RadioScapes field monitor and fusion broadcast systems have recently been used to undertake DAB+ network tests in Sydney. The tests were coordinated by Commercial Radio Australia, the national industry body representing Australia’s commercial radio broadcasters. The Australian Government requires the commercial DAB+ network rollout, for metropolitan areas, to be operational by 1st January 2009.
France also recently announced that all of its radio services will be digitised in the near future. As part of that process, RadioScapes portable field monitors were deployed in the trials in Nantes, while Digital Radio France deployed field monitors in its Paris trial.
Germany has invested in a significant number of RadioScapes latest range of field monitors to assist regional engineers in maintaining the national DAB transmitter network. Recently, both commercial and public broadcasters released statements of support for a re-launch of digital radio in Germany based on the Eureka 147 family of standards.
Quentin Howard, President WorldDMB, commented: Todays announcement by RadioScape is further evidence that the DAB family of standards continues to gain momentum around the world, becoming the system of choice for European and Asian broadcasters. No other system offers the variety and range of consumer devices, nor matches DABs low network costs, making it the worlds leading terrestrial digital radio and mobile multimedia solution.
20 February 2008
AIB Private Dinner, London, Tuesday 26 February 2008
7 February 2008
BBC Arabic TV is reported to have set its launch date as Tuesday 11 March 2008. The broadcaster will start its programmes from brand new central London studios in Egton House, alongside Broadcasting House, home of BBC radio and the world’s first purpose-built broadcasting centre.
You can read more about BBC Arabic TV in the latest edition of The Channel, the AIB’s magazine. To subscribe, follow the link below.
31 January 2008
In an extensive poll of Arab Academics in over 19 countries, Arab polling agency The Knowledge World Centre for Polls found that Al Jazeera was the most respected news agency in the Middle East, and over 98% of Political Science and Media professors in the region claimed to watch at least 3 hours of Al Jazeera per day.
Demonstrating its unrivalled popularity in the region, the poll found that Al Jazeera’s viewership was over three times that of its closest rival, and over twenty-eight times that of its third closest competitor.
Over 96% of the Arab academics surveyed found Al Jazeera a reliable source for news and over 73% expressed their confidence that the channel would quickly correct any mistakes that surfaced in news reports.
Speaking about the poll, the Director of the Knowledge World Centre for Polls said, “This is the largest poll of its kind ever undertaken in the Arab World. By working for almost one year and sampling almost half of all political science and media professors in the region, we believe that we have illuminated peoples’ understanding of broadcast news viewing patterns in this part of the world. As the results show, our study found that Al Jazeera is the most trusted and widely viewed channel in the Arab world.”
Al Jazeera’s Director General Wadah Khanfar said, “We are very pleased with the results of this poll. It is further recognition by academic professionals across the Middle East on the value of our mission of bringing ground-breaking independent news to the Arab world. This poll serves as a testament to the professionalism and hard work of Al Jazeera’s staff around the world.”
According to the Knowledge World Centre for Polls, based in Amman, Jordan, the poll was designed to measure the perceived objectivity and professionalism of Al Jazeera among the Arab world’s academic elite. Conducted over 11 months in 19 Arab countries, the Knowledge World Centre for Polls sampled over 600 PhD holders, almost 50% of all Political Science and Media professors in the Middle East, almost all of whom reported using Al Jazeera as a primary source of news.
