31 October 2005
Radio Netherlands’ English language programme From Brooklyn to Banja Luka won a special commendation for Best Radio Documentary at the Prix Europa 2005. The documentary is about Jonathan (a Jewish boy from Brooklyn) and his tempestuous relationship with his wife Dragana (a Serbian girl from Bosnia). Their first meeting point was the Elandsgracht in Amsterdam. The radio programme tells the story of their love, their fights, their families and music. The documentary was produced by Dheera Sujan.
About Prix Europa
A festive Awards Ceremony in the middle of Berlin honouring this year’s best European Television, Radio and Internet productions brought Prix Europa 2005 to a close on 22 October. Around 700 guests came to the ceremony to celebrate the Winners of Prix Europa 2005. All in all, 276 television films, radio productions and online projects from 35 countries had been nominated to compete for one of the 14 Prix Europa trophies and the prize money of 6.000 Euros each. The winners 2005 are from eight countries, four productions from Germany, two from the United Kingdom, two from Norway, two from the Netherlands, one from Denmark, one from the Czech Republic, one from Spain, one from Poland. “Special Recommendations” were made for productions from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Finland, France, Sweden, Romania, Georgia and Hungary.
About Radio Netherlands
Radio Netherlands is the Dutch international broadcasting service for the Netherlands. Radio Netherlands provides news, information and culture in eight languages through radio, television and the Internet. Radio Netherlands reaches an average 50 million people each week.
31 October 2005
Beginning October 31, the Voice of America (VOA) will expand radio broadcasts to Western and Southern Africa in response to listener requests for increased programming to the region.
VOA’s Hausa Language Service will expand its popular breakfast program to a full hour. The new hour-long program, airing from 0430-0530 UTC (5:30-6:30 AM local) will offer listeners a comprehensive and timely broadcast of news about Nigeria, Ghana, Niger and Cameroon from a network of stringers in West Africa. The program will also offer more international news, special reports, political discussion and interviews, as well as features on health, agriculture, religion, youth, lifestyle, and traditional Hausa music.
Studio 7, VOA’s news program for Zimbabwe, is set to feature a new evening lineup in response to listener requests for increased broadcasts in the Shona and Ndebele languages. From Monday through Friday, Studio 7 will provide daily 30-minute reports in those languages and in English, expanding the broadcast from 60 to 90 minutes. Zimbabweans will hear Shona at 7:00 p.m. local time, followed by English at 7:30, then Ndebele at 8:00 p.m.
VOA Hausa, which currently airs 10.5 hours of programming a week, has nearly 20 million listeners in Africa who receive its programs on shortwave, medium wave (AM) and FM, and the Internet. VOAs popularity is reflected in a recent letter from a listener in Kaduna, Nigeria, who wrote: “I am writing this mail to commend you for telling the truth no matter how bitter it is regarding the happenings around the world. It is true that VOA is second to none in giving the recent news update and other programmes.” For more information on programs, frequencies and scheduling for VOA Hausa, please visit the web site at www.VOAHausa.com.
Studio 7 is funded through a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and is produced and managed by VOA’s Africa Division. Recent survey data show that Studio 7 has doubled its audience in the southern African country since late 2003. Audience response also confirms listener loyalty, reinforced by Studio 7 coverage of Harares May-July urban “cleanup” which left thousands homeless. “I would like to express my gratitude for the heroic work that you are doing for us all here back home,” wrote one listener. “You tell us the truth of what exactly is taking place in Zimbabwe,” said another. For more information please visit the web site at www.VOANews.com/english/africa/zimbabwe.
31 October 2005
ITN Archive, one of the worlds largest archives for moving footage, has announced a 10 per cent annual increase in the time spent viewing the British Pathé archive website it manages. Widely regarded as a national institution, the British Pathé collection was digitised with a grant from the National Lottery that ensured the preservation of this vital part of British visual heritage for future generations. Comprising more than 3,500 hours of iconic footage, the site has just celebrated its second birthday and has been viewed by over 4.5 million users since its launch.
In the 12 months to September 2005, there were around 550,000 user sessions, with the average visitor spending almost 11 minutes on the site and viewing around 27 pages amounting to 11 years of continuous viewing time!
Christopher OHearn, Commercial Director for ITN Archive said: In just the past few months, some of the biggest names on the Internet, such as Yahoo and Google, have launched video products. The established success of the British Pathé site shows that if you have good video content then it will be viewed, which is encouraging for the entire archive industry.
Most traffic to the site continues to be for the free viewing of British Pathé newsreel material. In the last two years, over 750,000 items have been viewed. Some of those viewers have gone on to purchase higher-resolution files, while other requests are from educational users who have free access under an arrangement with school broadband providers.
31 October 2005
Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber launched the new HDTV television standard in Europe today as part of the Medientage München media event in Munich. In a ceremony at noon, Dr. Stoiber pushed the Red Button for Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD. The ProSiebenSat.1 Group is the first TV corporation in Europe to use the new high-resolution broadband format, and its two channels will be broadcasting in HDTV alongside the standard format. Both HD stations will be available starting today via the ASTRA satellite system.
HDTV makes the television picture significantly better. The new digital TV technology is a step into the future of television. With Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD were helping the new high-resolution standard get established, said Guillaume de Posch, CEO of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group. Im delighted that the impetus for the entire European market has originated from Germany. It shows that the German TV market is not just one of the most competitive, but also one of the most innovative in the world.
The ProSiebenSat.1 Group plans to strengthen this initiative for the further evolution of TV with cooperative ventures with companies from the TV hardware industry. ProSieben has an arrangement with Sony, and Sat.1 has one with Sharp Electronics Germany/Austria. Both ventures are planning extensive, long-term multimedia marketing campaigns on HDTV to alert consumers to the immense improvement in quality that the high-resolution format offers.
The new HDTV (high-definition television) standard has twice the lines of resolution of conventional analog or digital TV, making picture quality so vivid that the image on the screen seems almost three-dimensional. Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD will be simulcast in the high definition mode. Parts of programs that were either not produced or not available in native HTDV format will be upconverted to at least DVD quality.
Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD will be distributed using the new DVB-S 2 modulation process via ASTRA 19.2° east and Transponder 102. Both stations will be showing HDTV content in 1080i/25 format (25 frames per second) using the improved MPEG4/AVC compression standard. Besides crystal-clear, enticingly sharp images in 16:9 format, viewers with the right equipment can also enjoy Dolby Digital sound. Audio encoding uses the AC3 standard. An American firm, Conexant, provided the first MPEG4 decoding for Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD at Medientage München.
To let viewers know which broadcasts are in true HDTV format, the ProSiebenSat.1 Group has developed an HDTV icon that will appear in programming magazines.
31 October 2005
The AIB will shortly be announcing details of a range of Regional Media Leaders Forums taking place in a number of locations worldwide during 2006.
Following on the success of its 2005 Forums, the 2006 series will provide a truly international forum for discussion of the issues facing the international electronic media industry in half-day or day-long interactive conferences.
Alongside top-level discussion and debate, the AIB Regional Media Leaders Forums provide first-rate networking opportunities, plus the opportunity to do business at the highest level.
More details on the AIB website during November, and in the December edition of The Channel, the AIB’s quarterly magazine that’s read by more than 8,000 people in 120 countries worldwide.
