27 January 2005
The Arab Advisors Group conducted a comprehensive survey of the media and telecom usage habits of the population of Greater Cairo between November 2004 and Jan 2005.
On the TV front, despite the relatively wide adoption of Sat TV, terrestrial TV is still ahead with 91% of households in Cairo tuning in to Egypts terrestrial TV channels. Of the Sat TV viewers, 68.3% tune in to news channels. Al Jazeera news channels are the most widely watched (88.4% of households with Sat TV watched it), followed by Al Arabiya (35.1%), Nile News (8.9%), CNN (6.6%), Al Hurra (4.6%), Al Ekhbaryia (3.9%), BBC (3.1%), ANN, Euronews and Manar (each with 0.4%).
The survey also probed the channels watched in the categories of: Music Channels, Entertainment Channels, Sport Channels and Religion Channels. On the GSM front, the survey revealed that some 71% of households in Cairo have a GSM line.
Arab Advisors Groups survey involved face to face interviews with 562 people from different households in the Greater Cairo area selected randomly from different areas in the city in a manner proportionate to the population size of the different areas. Respondents were over 18 years old.
To obtain a copy of the survey questions contact: www.menareport.com
25 January 2005
Deutsche Welle is supporting the reconstruction of radio stations in the tsunami-stricken province of Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. This was announced on 20 January in Bonn by Erik Bettermann, the Director-General of Germanys international broadcaster.
Bettermann said that Deutsche Welle has been working in partnership with a number of broadcasters, primarily small FM stations, in northern Sumatra for over 40 years. Most of the stations eight in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh and in the city of Meulaboh were entirely destroyed by the tsunami and the quake. In the regions most affected by the catastrophe on the western coast of Sumatra, the devastation has left the survivors with no access to information about aid measures and the general situation in their homeland.
Radio 68 H is one of DWs partner stations in Indonesia. This internationally funded news broadcaster distributes its programmes via satellite to over 400 private radio stations throughout Indonesia. Every day, Radio 68 H broadcasts one hour of the DW-RADIO / Indonesian Service and is planning to rebuild a number of radio stations in Aceh.
Director-General Bettermann announced that DW will provide funds for the construction of up to nine new radio transmitters. In addition, with the help of sponsors, Germanys international broadcaster is planning to purchase 1,000 radios and distribute them in the reception camps of the province. In view of the destruction of the media infrastructure, this measure is aimed to help get information to the people about developments in the region.
A staff member from the Indonesian Service of DW-RADIO has journeyed to the northernmost province of the island of Sumatra to coordinate the aid measures, reported Bettermann.
Expansion of the broadcasting time of DW-RADIOs Indonesian Service would be desirable under these circumstances. Deutsche Welle is capable of satisfying the enormous interest of the population in reliable information on local events. As soon as additional funds are made available for this, we will temporarily expand the Service, said DWs Director-General.
The current programmes of the Indonesian Service of DW-RADIO report exhaustively about the situation in the crisis region. DW-RADIO / Indonesian broadcasts 50 minutes of programming twice a day via shortwave and satellite (ASIASAT 2) and is also present on the Internet (www.dw-world.de/indonesia). The province of Aceh, which continues to be assailed by civil war, will remain a focal point of reporting. Deutsche Welle hopes to continue its close cooperation with its partner stations there and hence also make an important contribution to media and freedom of information in the region. Three weeks after the catastrophe, according to international observers, the situation in northern Sumatra is again intensifying. Aid workers are apprehensive about the initial clashes between Indonesian military leadership and rebel groups in the catastrophe region in spite of the ceasefire agreed in late December.
25 January 2005
The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, expressed his concern about recent cases in Poland in which journalists have been sentenced to prison terms for criminal libel. In a letter to the Polish Minister of Justice Marek Sadowski, he said that the current provisions may constitute legal precedents curtailing freedom of the media in Poland in the future. “The trend in most of the democratic world is to offer less protection to public figures than to private individuals,” Miklos Haraszti wrote. “However, the recently applied Polish speech laws do not even offer equal protection to private individuals and public figures. The latter enjoy an elevated level of protection from criticism. These laws should be repealed.”
The case of Jerzy Urban, editor of the magazine Nie, is an example of how Polish speech laws work. On January 14, a Warsaw prosecutor requested that Mr. Urban be sentenced to a 10-month suspended prison term and fined the equivalent of 5,000 Euros for insulting a foreign head of state in an “offensive” editorial. A court in Warsaw is due to give its verdict. This case follows the sentencing of two Polish journalists to prison terms in May and July last year for slandering a public official. These were the first cases of applying criminal libel in democratic Poland.
Haraszti acknowledged the full independence of the courts deliberating in those cases. However, he expressed his disappointment with the lack of action in trying to change the inadequate libel and insult provisions of the Polish law. In most EU countries such laws have not been used for many years, even if they remain on the statute book. In this regard, Haraszti recalled that the European Court of Human Rights has on many occasions stated that elevated protection for public officials and applied prison sentences for journalistic opinions were contrary to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
“Our joint recommendation with the freedom of expression Rapporteurs of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, issued in November 2002, states: “Where libel is still a criminal offence, courts should refrain from imposing prison sentences, including suspended ones,” wrote the OSCE media freedom representative. Haraszti urged Polish authorities to put in force a moratorium on the use of the restrictive laws and to introduce laws to decriminalise libel and defamation.
24 January 2005
PanAmSat Corporation announced on 19 January that its subsidiary, PanAmSat Asia Pty. Ltd. had acquired certain of the business assets from the receivers of TARBS World TV Australia Pty. Ltd. The agreement includes the subscriber list, intellectual property and subscriber-installed equipment of TARBS, an Australian pay TV provider. Concurrently, PanAmSat announced that PanGlobal TV had opened for business as Australias new multi-ethnic Direct-To-Home (DTH) platform.
The assets we have obtained will help facilitate the growth of the PanGlobal TV platform by assisting our channel partners to reach the ethnic TV audience in Australia, said David Ball, vice president, Asia-Pacific. “PanGlobal TV is up and running offering Arabic, Serbian and Russian channels and is capable of reaching all of the homes formerly served by TARBS. Additional channels are planning to join the platform shortly.
PanGlobal TV is hosted on the PAS-8 Pacific Ocean Region satellite. MySAT, the Arabic Pay TV service, offers the following networks through PanGlobal TV: ART, LBC, Al Jazeera, ART Movies, Future TV, MBC and Noursat. Horizon World Plus TV Pty Ltd is distributing a bouquet of four Russian television channels on the PanGlobal TV platform in Australia. They are: RTVi, Teleklub/Detski Mir, Nashe Kino and RTR Planeta. TV Plus offers Serbian services Pink TV, BN and BK Sat.
PanGlobal TV is a joint marketing alliance between PanAmSat and GlobeCast Australia, which offers a range of transmission services to international broadcasters who wish to reach Australias diverse multi-cultural communities. The service transmits digital television channel signals from either GlobeCast Australias Sydney teleport or the PanAmSat Napa Valley, California teleport to the PAS-8 Ku-band Australia beam. The teleports offer digital encoding, signal processing and transport services in addition to the uplink service to the satellite. PanGlobal TV offers backhaul to either the Napa teleport or the Sydney teleport by satellite, fiber or hybrid satellite/fiber contribution. TARBS had antennas serving more than 50,000 Australian homes. These antennas are included in the assets that were acquired from the TARBS receiver. The relationship with the subscriber is directly between the programmer and the consumer.
21 January 2005
Harris Corporation announced on 20 January that it has been awarded a three-month, $22 million contract by the Iraqi Media Network (IMN). The contract scope includes training, programming support, systems integration and deployment work for IMN, the country’s public television and radio broadcasting organization. The network has operating locations in Baghdad and in more than 30 other locations throughout the country. Funding for the contract will be provided solely by the Iraqi government.
“We’re pleased to support Iraq’s public broadcasting network at such a crucial point in this country’s transition to democracy,” said Howard L. Lance, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Harris Corporation. “IMN will play an important role in reporting on the upcoming national elections, and Harris and its local partners will provide vital support services through this contract.”
Work on a previous IMN contract was successfully completed in early January. Originally awarded to Harris in January 2004 by the Defense Contracting Command, that contract scope included requirements for broadcast and printing equipment, broadcast studio and transmission systems design and integration, network operations, and employee training. “In spite of the obvious security challenges, the Harris team created a world-class broadcast environment and successfully upgraded the production capabilities of Al Sabah, the national newspaper,” Lance said. “As the capabilities of the media network have grown, so have the dedication and professionalism of the more than 1,000 IMN employees, who are all Iraqi citizens.”
The Harris team completed construction of a news studio and an entertainment studio in central Baghdad. The public television network, named Al Iraqiya, now has a 24-hour news desk and programming that features 80 percent Iraqi content including news, sports, business, and weather coverage. Public radio programming includes both “talk” and “music” formats. IMN has full capability to produce live entertainment and news commentary programs. New equipment and facilities for the Al Sabah newspaper helped to increase production capabilities from 60,000 to 350,000 copies per day. Harris Corporation was supported by two important teammates on the contract: the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI) and Al Fawares, a Kuwaiti company with Iraqi ownership.
Harris Corporation is an international communications technology company focused on providing assured communications products, systems and services for government and commercial customers. The company’s four operating divisions serve markets for government communications, tactical radio, broadcast, and microwave systems. Harris provides systems and service to customers in more than 150 countries.
