22 February 2018
Findings of the latest Africascope 2017* survey show the impressive performance of Africanews with annual audience in French-speaking Africa constantly growing at +19% compared to 2016.
The survey conducted in eight countries**, also reveals that Africanews’ awareness is now 45% up 6 points from 2016. This growth is captured by a weekly audience of 3.2 million viewers.
To measure TV audiences and awareness ratings, Africanews relied on Kantar TNS’ expertise through its Africascope survey conducted in 8 French-speaking Africa countries and 9 capital cities representing more than 18 million individuals, aged 15 and above.
According to the survey, Africanews’ audience is young and more affluent than the average of the target population. The majority of its audience are men, who account for 64% of Africanews’ viewers in these eight countries.
Africascope also highlights the strong TV audience in all countries surveyed, with an average 90% of people aged 15 and over watching television daily, which amounts to 16.4 million viewers.
Outstanding rates for Africanews in Congo Brazzaville and Gabon
Barely two years after its launch, Africanews is widely acclaimed in Congo Brazzaville where awareness of the channel reaches 78%.
Since its launch, Gabon has been very receptive of the new Pan-African and multilingual news outlet and the awareness rate remains exceptional at 68%.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, Africanews also enjoys strong awareness levels of 50% and 46 % respectively.
Elsewhere in French-speaking Africa, the awareness of Africanews continues to see a steady growth. 40% of respondents have heard of the channel in Ivory Coast, 35% in Senegal, Burkina Faso, 33 % and 29% in Mali.
Michael Peters, CEO of Euronews and President of Africanews
“Since its launch, Africanews, as the first pan-African and multilingual media outlet, has been offering to its viewers, innovative and qualitative content produced by Africans and broadcast from our headquarters in Pointe-Noire, Congo.
This dedicated offer to a rising continent has resonated with local people who year after year renew their confidence for access to a relevant, credible and independent information.”
*Africascope 2017 (January-December) in 8 countries.
**Countries surveyed: Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou), Cameroon (Douala and Yaoundé), Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa), Gabon (Libreville), Ivory Coast (Abidjan), Mali (Bamako) and Senegal (Dakar).
7 February 2018
At the 2018 HPA Tech Retreat, Signiant Inc, a market leader in intelligent file transfer, will demonstrate new, innovative capabilities that expand the value of its products within the media industry.
Signiant has led the way in cloud-native design, offering a category-defining SaaS platform that provides fast, secure global access to high-value media assets stored in on-premises storage or cloud-based storage. New innovations on show at the 2018 HPA Tech Retreat greatly build on this platform and help media & entertainment companies of all sizes speed up their operations by leveraging Signiant’s patented file acceleration technology, as well as by automating and simplifying file transfer workflows.
Held from February 19-23, 2018 at the JW Marriott Desert Resort & Spa, Palm Desert, CA, the HPA Tech Retreat is an informal gathering of the leading technical and business innovators from all aspects of the media technology sector, to discuss how constantly evolving technology is creating exciting opportunities in the capture, creation and distribution of content.
In the Innovation Zone, Signiant will demonstrate technology enhancements to its SaaS platform that allow professional media assets to be viewed in an adaptive bitrate format without generating a proxy in advance of the play request. The demonstration leverages transfer acceleration technology and cloud-native design to ensure a highly responsive end user experience without additional customer-deployed hardware or software.
“This technology has the potential to help users make better and faster decisions when transferring media,” said Ian Hamilton, CTO, Signiant. “As file sizes continue to grow, it is increasingly helpful to be able to easily confirm that a file contains the desired content prior to transfer, thereby ensuring that valuable time and network resources are not wasted.”
Ian Hamilton will be on-site at the 2018 HPA Tech Retreat to provide a preview of these innovations, as well as to discuss the breadth of technology and capabilities across Signiant’s entire product line.
For more details and to register to attend the HPA Tech Retreat, visit:
http://www.hollywoodprofessionalassociation.com/
(Source: Signiant press release)
6 February 2018
Celebro Media today announces the launch of its new Washington DC live broadcast studio with stunning views of the White House. The multi million-dollar build will be the first US studio to be fully 4K/UHD functioning with pioneering IP technology and multi-camera capabilities.
In the run-up to the 2018 mid-term elections and all year round, news broadcasters will be able to hire the Celebro Media studio on an ad hoc basis with premium views of United States’ most influential building. It will also offer news broadcasters the flexibility to create a last-minute pop-up studio during breaking US Government, or national, stories.
“The White House will play an important part in many upcoming news stories in 2018. This investment is giving broadcasters the chance to hire a flexible production space with premium views in a purpose-built facility that no one else can offer,” comments Wesley Dodd, CEO of Celebro Media. “Celebro’s global reach now means that we can offer broadcasters the chance to link to other studios including our central London location to create more diverse content.”
Stephen Gaisford, Director of US Operations at Celebro Media said, “Using the right technology to future-proof our current studios and upcoming facilities enables us to easily be on-hand for breaking stories and host 24 hours news channels. This studio is just the start of Celebro’s rapid expansion in the US market and we look forward to housing some of the world’s biggest news channels.”
The studio will be fitted with NewTek’s IP Series, a software-driven, modular video production system with virtually limitless access to video sources and video mixing options. It has been designed for the latest IP video-production techniques while also being fully backwards compatible. This makes the new studio and facilities suitable for all formats and transmission protocols. Being a fully customisable IP workflow solution, the IP Series makes the studio highly flexible and able to handle the most demanding production needs.
Rotolight’s new Anova PRO 2 LED lights will supply all lighting, and Riedel will supply all real-time signal distribution, communications and data transport solutions.
To find out more information about Celebro Media’s new Washington DC studio, please visit: http://celebrostudios.co.uk/
About Celebro Media
Celebro Media boasts global fully robotic live television studios in 4K and HD, plus outside broadcasting (OB) facilities in UK, US and Russia. It provides clients with high-quality flexible services that allow content and messages to reach the broadest possible audience and achieve targets.
Celebro Media’s highly experienced team also provides consultancy on IPTV, broadcast strategy, commercialisation, editorial and technical services, public relations and research, as well as access to transmission networks and a diverse catalogue of media content.
Major clients include BBC World Service, MTV, Discovery Channel, TRT World and Reuters. Celebro Media has also produced branded content for Coca-Cola, M&S and Reebok.
[Source: Celebro press release]
6 February 2018
Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) appoints Euronews Group as its content and brand syndication agent to represent Al Jazeera’s digital flagship brand AJ+ at a worldwide scale.
Euronews Group is now in charge of marketing and promoting AJ+ digital channels to third party clients and specifically to its well established worldwide network of content and syndication partners.
Since 2014, AJ+ is available on its own social networks and through its mobile app in English, Arabic, Spanish and soon in French. Euronews has proposed its expertise to AJMN to develop the online infotainment brand. Euronews will make AJ+ content available on new media partners’ digital products and will propose creating new programmes tailored to specific markets and partners.
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Michael Peters, CEO, Euronews |
“We are proud to have been chosen by AJMN to participate to AJ+ future development, which has gained worldwide recognition among young people at a very fast pace since its launch.
Our experience in marketing content licence agreements in coordination with a fantastic product such as AJ+ provides a solid platform for the success of this collaboration. This partnership is an exciting milestone for both our companies in terms of global commercial roll-out and paves the road for potential additional collaboration with AJMN in the future.”
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Dr. Yaser Bishr, Executive Director of Digital, Aljazeera Media Network |
“Al Jazeera has made great strides over the last few years to organically target younger segments of audience through its digital native AJ+. The growth has been organically fuelled through social media, but it is time to consider strategic partnerships for direct scaling of our message. We are very pleased to partner with Euronews to explore untapped distribution opportunities through their impressive & multicultural network within Europe and globally. This collaboration cannot come at a better time as we flourish AJ+ into a diverse audience centric digital network with the recent launch of its French and 4th language edition.”
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Abdulla Alnajjar, Executive Director, Global Brand and Communications |
“I am delighted by this strategic engagement with Euronews, which will further extend the reach of the AJ+ brand to new markets and diverse audiences across the globe. This marks the beginning of a strategic commercial relationship between our organisations and I look forward to continuing this fruitful collaboration into the future.”
[Source: Euronews press release]
1 February 2018
65 years ago, DW was founded to offer multilingual news to foreign audiences abroad and to promote democratic values. In our anniversary year, we are launching DW Freedom, an initiative encouraging freedom of speech.
“Freedom of speech and media freedom are the foundations of our daily work,” said DW Director General Peter Limbourg. “It is the right of journalists to do their job. Like it is the right of artists to express themselves. As it should be the right of everybody on this planet to speak their minds freely, without fear of harassment or arrest.”
Highlighting the topics of free speech
DW Freedom is an online and social media platform which highlights the topics of free speech and media freedom around the world. On the website dw.com/freedom, on Twitter (@dw_freedom), and Facebook (DW Freedom) users will find reports by and interviews with activists, academics, artists, cartoonists, hackers, and authors from all corners of the world. Digital privacy, secure communication and data protection, critical topics for journalists and free speech advocates, will also be discussed. User can engage in dialogue on social media and contact the DW editors directly.
Publishing and explaining content from all DW editorial teams and DW Akademie projects, DW Freedom strives to heighten DW’s coverage of complex issues surrounding free speech and media freedom. It sheds a light on – sometimes forgotten – crises, victims of human rights violations and initiatives striving to improve the current situation and fosters a greater debate on these issues.
DW Editor-in-chief Ines Pohl: ”Our journalists report on human rights in 30 languages. We believe that freedom is the ultimate human right, whether it concerns freedom of speech, of the media, of assembly or freedom of religion. So all of us at DW are supporting this important project whole-heartedly.”
In addition to providing news and information, Deutsche Welle also supports freedom of expression and media freedom through DW Akademie’s activities in 50 countries around the world.
DW Freedom of Speech Award
In 2015, Germany’s international broadcaster launched the DW Freedom of Speech Award to honor those engaged in a daily fight for free expression. The first winner was – still imprisoned – Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. In 2016 Sedat Ergin, former editor-in-chief of the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, received the award, and last year, DW recognized the US-American White House Correspondents’ Association.
From now on, DW Freedom will help promote the stories behind these free speech heroes.
(Source: DW press release)
