15 September 2007
The AIB is pleased to announce that its 2007 Media Excellence Awards are now open for entries from around the world.
The international panel of judges is now assembled, representing programme producers, journalists, editors and presenters, including some of the winners of the 2006 AIB Awards.
Now is your opportunity to align your brand with this celebration of excellence in international media.
We’re making available a limited number of sponsorships that will enable companies to be associated with the most innovative content on the international airwaves – and, increasingly, on new distribution platforms – and the best presentation, the best channels and the best technological concepts.
You have the opportunity to sponsor the entire 2007 AIB Media Excellence Awards, or an individual Award category. Alternatively, make a splash at the Awards ceremony and diner pensant in central London in 20 November 2007 through sponsorship of the champagne reception or the entire evening.
For more information, download the sponsorship brochure using the link below, and contact
Ollie Kirkman to discuss the opportunities the 2007 AIB Media Excellence Awards offers your company. You will find all the contact details
you need in the sponsorship brochure…download it
here.
13 September 2007
The latest edition of the AIB’s quarterly magazine, The Channel is available exclusively on line.
To view the magazine, click
here (a new browser window will open).
You can read the magazine in your browser, or download it to view later, or
print it.
Future
editions will continue to be available in print, as they have for the last ten
years. We’d like to invite you to subscribe to the magazine today to take
advantage of a special offer: we’ll
send you the next six editions for the price of four – a
50% saving!
Click
here to subscribe to the AIB’s renowned magazine, The Channel.
The subscription price covers the AIB’s post and packing cost.
You
can also place an advance order for the new edition of the AIB Directory
of Global Broadcasting. To be published in August, this latest edition
of the AIB’s annual guide to broadcasting worldwide has more than 50% more
information than the 2006 edition. Key contacts from the chief engineer at
Phoenix Satellite Television in Hong Kong to the Director of Dubai TV are
included. We’ve completely overhauled the Directory to make it more useful, with
new contextual information about key broadcasting markets worldwide.
The new edition of the AIB Directory of Global Broadcasting is
priced at GBP120 – order today. We also include postage in the price! Click
here to order.
30 August 2007
The Voice of America, which first went on the air more than 60 years ago
and is funded by the US government through the Broadcasting Board of
Governors, is banking on humour and entertainment to reach and inform its
worldwide web audience.
The Daily Download, a five-minute video webcast, was launched in June
for streaming on the VOA Web site (www.voanews.com). The Download
contains US and international news, feature material, and other video
clips from around the web. Host Doug Bernard (a past winner of AIB’s
International Radio Presenter of the Year) applies a different “take” on
the day’s news, using humour and a conversational style to relate to
viewers and internet surfers. The Download was accessed nearly 7,000
times in its first month on the VOA Web site and has received fan e-mail
from Turkey, China, Iran and Cameroon among other places. Downloads
increased by 10.7 percent in the second month.
Web-savvy fans seem to love this fresh approach to VOA’s website. One in
Africa wrote that, “I nearly laughed my socks off; ” another from
Beijing said that he “loved the Daily Download,” and yet a third signed
off an e-mail, “…Go DD!” A school teacher reported that he used the
webcast to inform his students about current events.
“Daily Download is another news service for our audience, it has a fresh
approach, and fast-paced format to appeal to our overseas online
audience,” said VOA Director Dan Austin. “The webcast is free and
available through the Internet whenever people want to hear a concise,
informative and entertaining version of the day’s news,” Austin added.
The webcast is produced by VOA’s Worldwide English Division and can be
streamed live or downloaded to media devices such as iPods. Daily
Download will be offered for mobile phone access in the near future.
30 August 2007
The AIB has opened booking for the Diner Pensant on 20 November at which the AIB’s Media Excellence Awards will be presented.
Taking place at the fabulous Clothworkers’ Hall in the city of London, the AIB >Diner Pensant will follow the same immensely successful formula as our 2006 event. As well as the glittering Awards presentation, the evening will offer access to inspiring minds – we’ll have two leading media leaders in conversation with the AIB and its guests during the Dinner. There will be much to take away from the event!
You can reserve your places at this important and exciting event now – we have tables of 10 and of course AIB Members benefit from a discount on the regular price.
Tickets cost GBP155 plus UK VAT, totalling £182.13, while members can book their places at just GBP90, plus UK VAT (total price £105.75).
Follow the link below to reserve your seat now.
27 August 2007
Iranian authorities have said Radio Farda correspondent Parnaz Azima, a dual US/Iranian citizen trapped in Iran since January, will have to stay in Iran indefinitely.
Azima’s lawyer, Mohammad Hossein Agassi, told Radio Farda in an exclusive interview by phone from Tehran on August 26 that: “officials who decide about the case…have emphasised that she should stay in Iran for now,” and indicated this will be “for an indefinite period of time, depending on international relations – that means ties between Iran and the U.S.”
Agassi said Iranian authorities have added a new charge against Azima, accusing her of acting against Iranian national security, in addition to the earlier charge of spreading anti-Iranian propaganda because of Azima’s employment with the US-funded Radio Farda. However, Agassi said the case is at an early stage and there is no indication it will go to court: “there is a decision that Mrs. Azima will remain in Iran without the charges being pursued.”
In a separate telephone interview Azima told Radio Farda she is finding it increasingly difficult to deal with the uncertainty and pressure: “It’s hard to put up with this when you don’t know for how long you will be living in a temporary situation…my grandchild will be born soon in the United States. I wanted to be there for the birth…medical treatment I was getting was interrupted when I suddenly came to Iran to take care of my ailing mother.” Azima said she felt she was under constant surveillance, and she feels that probably her phone calls are monitored and her friends are now afraid to visit.
Azima said she was told her situation could be resolved if she resigned from Radio Farda, but she refused to do so: “it is my individual right to decide where to work or not to work, or to resign or not to resign. This cannot be dictated, therefore I rejected the suggestion,” she said.
Azima’s Iranian passport was confiscated on her arrival in Tehran in January to visit her ailing mother.
The full text of RFE/RL’s interview with Radio Farda correspondent Parnaz Azima may be read on the RFE/RL website. To learn more about the Azima case, visit the “Soft Hostages in Iran” page on RFE/RL’s website.
Azima is a broadcaster with Radio Farda, the joint RFE/RL-Voice of America 24-hour, seven day a week Persian-language broadcast service to Iran. She joined RFE/RL in 1998 and is based at RFE/RL’s broadcast headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic.
17 August 2007
BBC World Service has been informed by the owners of the Moscow FM radio station Bolshoye Radio that BBC programming in Russian will no longer be broadcast on the station, as of this afternoon (Friday, August 17). This was the BBC Russian Services last FM distribution partner station in Russia. It follows two other FM partner stations ceasing to take BBC programmes over the last nine months.
The owners of Bolshoye Radio, financial group Finam, have told representatives of the BBC Russian Service that they are required to remove BBC programming at the request of Russian licensing authorities, or risk the station being taken off air.
The BBC understands that this will take effect in advance of its scheduled block of programmes this afternoon at 1700 Moscow time.
The BBC intends to appeal to Russia’s Federal Service for the Supervision of Mass Media, Communication and Protection of Cultural Heritage. It will ask for the decision to be reviewed and for the original concept of the station to be respected.
According to official warnings received by Finam from the regulatory body, the licence requires that all programming must be produced by Bolshoye Radio itself. However the BBC said that the detailed concept documents – the basis on which the licence was awarded in February 2006 – clearly state that only 60 per cent of the station’s total output will be original material produced by Bolshoye Radio. The BBC also stated that according to the same concept documents, the station would also have up to 18 per cent foreign produced content. This percentage of foreign content is reflected in the stations licence. The concept documents of the station include the BBC and Voice of Russia as content providers and as integral parts of the output – specifically in order to enable the station to reflect many and often contradictory views on current affairs.
Richard Sambrook, Director BBC Global News, said: We are extremely disappointed that listeners to Bolshoye Radio in Moscow will be unable to listen to our impartial and independent news and information programming in the high quality audibility of FM. The BBC has invested a great deal of energy and resources into developing high quality programming for the station. The BBC has similar broadcasting arrangements with partner stations around the world. Our services are available on FM in over 150 capital cities some 75 per cent of the global total.” He continued: The BBC entered into the relationship with Bolshoye Radio in good faith, and the licence was won in a competitive tender in February 2006. We cannot understand how the licence is now interpreted in a way that does not reflect the original and thorough concept documents. We are appealing to Russia’s Federal Service for the Supervision of Mass Media, Communication and Protection of Cultural Heritage. We will ask for the decision to be reviewed and for the original concept of the station to be respected.
The BBC and Voice of Russia have been on Bolshoye Radio since May this year. The station, which was sold in July to financial investment company Finam, was currently at a test signal stage ahead of an official launch planned for the autumn. Bolshoye Radios test signal included the broadcasts of BBC programming in Russian. The BBC was on air from 0700-1000 MT and 1700-2000 MT. The programmes included Utro na BBC, London View, BBSeva (hosted by Seva Novgorodsev) and a new interactive programme, Vam Slovo. A new current affairs programme is currently being piloted, for launch in September.
The BBC has had previous problems with FM broadcasting in Russia. At the end of 2006, Moscow station Radio Arsenal ceased taking BBC programming, and in early 2006 the St Petersburg station Radio Leningrad also stopped taking BBC programmes. Radio Leningrad informed the BBC that it had been required to stop broadcasting BBC programmes by local licensing authorities.
BBC Russian programmes continue to be audio streamed online at bbcrussian.com. They are broadcast on the following medium-wave frequencies: St Petersberg – 1260 MW, Moscow – 1260 MW and Ekaterinburg – 666 MW. They are also available direct to home through ‘New Day’ channel on NTV+ satellite, as well as Hotbird 2 satellite. The BBCs shortwave broadcasts in Russian remain unaffected. For a full list of ways to hear BBC Services please see bbcrussian.com.
