22 October 2003
Speculation persists that one-time small phone company Kingston Communications, which started as a telephone company in the UK city of Hull and grew in the great technology boom into 6 operating divisions, may soon be broken up.
The division which most international broadcasting people know about is satellite division Kingston inmedia, specialising in enterprise, broadcast and Internet solutions to business customers. The other divisions include business services, call centre operations and local UK operations such as broadband and directories.
CEO Steve Maine was suddenly sacked recently, and the CEO-designate Malcolm Fallen is in believed to be in favour of a breakup. Likely purchasers of the UK-based bits of the business include UK telecoms operator Thus, IT services and telecoms provider Energis and communications specialist Colt Communications. Perhaps Kingston inmedia, being so internationally-based, will be a target for a buyer already in the international broadcasting field.
22 October 2003
The Voice and Vision Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran [Islamic Republic Broadcasting, IRIB] has been elected as the deputy chairman of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union at the ABUs meeting in Istanbul. The meeting also awarded a special prize to IRIB for its good coverage of the developments in Iraq.
The communication and international affairs deputy director of IRIB, Mr Honardust, stressed the need for setting up a common market to promote Asian products and joint programme production among members of the union. The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, ABU, has 104 members including various radio and television broadcasting stations.
21 October 2003
Croatian Radio and Television (HRT) has started a 24-hour satellite TV programme for Croats living in Europe, North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. About 2.5m Croatian expatriates will be able to watch eight hours of domestically produced programming, which will be repeated twice daily.
The project was launched in cooperation with the Croatian government and the Croatian Emigration Institute. Addressing Croatian audiences worldwide, Prime Minister Ivica Racan said that the project was designed to inform Croats living abroad about events in their homeland.
21 October 2003
The seventh Pan Asia Cross Media Survey (PAX) has found that BBC World experienced an increase of 15 per cent in its audience within Asia, the fastest growth for any international news or business channel.
BBC World claims to be nearly 60 per cent ahead of CNBC in terms of reach among business decision-makers. The channel has enjoyed particularly large growth in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hong Kong and Taipei. Findings show that more than 24,000 ‘top management’ in Asia tune in to BBC World either every day or almost every day, according to an official statement from the BBC.
Among the ten largest international channels in Asia-Pacific, BBC World’s audience includes the highest proportion of frequent business travellers (34 per cent), business decision-makers (27 per cent) and business opinion formers (35 per cent).
21 October 2003
In line with plans announced a short while ago, a digital television channel featuring fashion, cosmetics and etiquette will start a nationwide trial operation on 11 November in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. Another seven pay channels based in Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, and in Liaoning and Shangdong provinces will start at the same time.
China plans to sign up 30 million digital TV subscribers by 2005 and stop providing analogue signals by 2015. It is also expected that high-definition TV programmes of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics will be transmitted to the world.
China now has 370m TV sets and more than 1.2 billion TV viewers. At present, most Chinese TV stations are only capable of transmitting a maximum of 50 TV channels simultaneously. Digital TV will be able to provide up to 500 channels.
