17 October 2003
Rupert Murdoch, aged 72, has been running international media group The News Corporation for 50 years (starting out as single-newspaper company News Ltd). At the groups annual meeting in Adelaide he forecast another year of record profits,
News Corp (which includes Fox News, Fox Sports, Sky and Star TV) saw its operating income increase by 36% in the past year, and Mr Murdoch predicts average earnings growth of 20 per cent in the coming years. He expects pay-television Sky Italia, in which News Corp holds 80%, to break even in 18 months and then achieve very steep growth.
Asked whether his son James would be appointed CEO at the UKs BSkyB, in which News Corp has a 35.4% stake, and of which Rupert Murdoch is chairman, Mr Murdoch said he was confident the best candidate will be appointed.
Although advertising bookings for all media in the United States for the next 12 months are just sensational, News Corps US television stations are actually contributing very little.
Does Rupert Murdoch have any plans for retirement? I will be carried out, he quipped.
15 October 2003
Demonstrating the ever-increasing opportunities that the Internet provides, Europe’s largest Internet provider T-Online has secured deals for top Hollywood and German films that will allow it to show movies over the Internet.
T-Online, a division of Deutsche Telekom, gains access to the library and new movies of Hollywoods Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and to German blockbusters from Constantin Film. “This landmark agreement speaks to the promising future of video-on-demand worldwide,” Jim Griffiths, President of MGM Worldwide Television Distribution, said in a statement.
T-Online’s rival Tiscali has been offering weekly movie webcasts for the past year. But T-Online’s broadband project T-Online Vision on TV, to be launched by the end of the year, will connect a regular TV set through a set-top box to the Internet so that the movies can be watched on a regular screen.
International broadcasters must ensure that they find equal facilities for their products
15 October 2003
In a move that will eventually impact on international broadcasting, Microsoft and Vodafone are joining forces to extend Web services standards to mobile devices. This should make it easier for providers of web broadcasting to penetrate the huge and lucrative mobile network services market.
The initiative is targeted primarily at developers. Microsoft-Vodafone aim to increase the number of developers, to widen their markets, and to make development easier. This is an opportunity for broadcasters to find ways of extending their platforms to encompass mobile phone services worldwide.
15 October 2003
BBC Arabic has formally opened the Centre with a landmark radio series Girls’ Education in the Arab World and a revamped web site.
The Cairo Production Centre, which started operations on 1 March 2003, is central to the BBC Arabic service, reporting news from the region and producing and co-presenting six hours of live daily news and current affairs programmes. The team of 30 journalists, including presenters, producers, online journalists and technical staff, cover current affairs across the Middle East, North Africa and Egypt.
The web site bbcarabic.com is now 30 per cent wider on screen, enabling the additional space to be organised more efficiently. For the first time, the front page includes a science directory and a larger space for special reports as well as other new services and functions. Visitors can listen to BBC Arabic radio programmes, and send their comments directly to live programmes and offer ideas for debate and interactive interviews.
15 October 2003
The US XM Satellite Radio now has 929,648 subscribers. The company closed the third quarter of 2003 with an addition of 237,395 new subscribers, its best-ever performance. The third quarter represented the largest quarterly increase in net subscriber growth.
“This strong performance said Hugh Panero, XM President and CEO, positions the company for its 2003 goal of 1.2 million subscribers and the primary goal of reaching cash flow breakeven by the end of 2004.” XM’s third quarter subscriber growth in 2003 represents a nearly quadruple increase over the number of subscribers the company added in the third quarter of 2002.
XM Radio includes channels for international broadcasters CNN, BBC World Service, CNBC, ABC, Discovery and MTV
14 October 2003
The AIB Asia Pacific regional office is at:
23 Alfred Road
Forest Lodge 2037
Sydney
Australia
T +61 2 9518 6692
