28 February 2011
The Associated Press has announced the latest new ENPS signing in South Asia, further strengthening its position in the region.
Somoy TV will join the nearly 800 newsrooms across the globe already using APs Essential News Production System to create, manage and deliver their video news content. The Somoy deal will see the installation of ENPS to manage the broadcast content of the new and soon to launch 24-hour TV news channel based in Bangladesh.
The new signing brings ENPSs South Asian client list up to nearly 20 news broadcasters operating across the region. Somoy joins an impressive client list of leading broadcasters including Indias Doordarshan one of the largest terrestrial broadcasters in the world and Delhi-based Sahara TV.
South Asia is seeing a rapidly growing broadcast market with many new channels emerging every year, says Keisuke Kayaba, Middle East, Asia & Southern Africa Sales Manager for ENPS. Our customers in the region are ambitious and dynamic and technically very forward-looking. We aim to meet their ever-growing needs and exceed them by providing an ENPS solution which meets all of their technical requirements whilst at the same time providing ease of use for both journalists and system administrators.
A number of Somoys technical management team are formerly of Desh TV in Dhaka – an ENPS customer for two years – where they gained first-hand experience of ENPSs easy-to-use functionality and the flexibility ENPS gives them to choose their server, automation and graphics systems.
In the Somoy newsroom, ENPS will run alongside a Quantel Enterprise sQ server with Quantel sQ view, cut & edit fx editors and Apple FCP for craft editing. News automation will be provided by OmniBus Columbus, and the graphics system will be by VizRT, with prompting by Autoscript.
ENPS works alongside Shaf who have an impressive 10 year track record of selling, installing, training and supporting ENPS in more than 25 newsrooms in India. Shaf have recently started to widen their interests to cover territories outside India, and Somoy TV is the first ENPS project they have won in Bangladesh.
At BES in Delhi, ENPS will be showcasing the latest version of ENPS, which features full NRCS integration with both YouTube and Twitter, reflecting the increasing importance and influence of user generated content in the news landscape – particularly for 24 hour channels such as Somoy TV which feature a lot of rolling news coverage. Customers who enable these features can now see their chosen Twitter feeds come into ENPS in real time and view them as they would view their standard agency wires. Users can also tweet directly from ENPS. The YouTube integration allows users to search for video in YouTube directly from ENPS and drag links into ENPS scripts. They will also be showing the ENPS mobile suite on iPad and a smartphone version.
28 February 2011
The Iranian Cyber Army has taken credit for a cyber attack on the Voice of America, according to reports by Iranian state media outlets Press TV and Fars News Service. VOA suffered a web Domain Name System (DNS) attack, while VOAs Persian News Network (PNN) and RFE Radio Farda programs have faced increased satellite signal interference, and RFE faced a denial of service attack on its telephone systems in an effort to keep Iranians from contacting Radio Farda.
As popular protests unfold across the Middle East and audiences for U.S. international broadcasting surge, efforts to interfere with the networks have increased. Our broadcasters are at the forefront of reporting the most tumultuous events we have seen unfold since 1989, said Walter Isaacson, chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which oversees all U.S. international broadcasting including the Alhurra TV, VOA and RFE. It is a testament to their vital role that they are subject to the work of hackers and signal interference.
On Monday, February 21, an unknown party hacked the Voice of Americas primary domain name (VOANews.com), and other related domains, redirecting visitors to a website claiming to be run by a group called the Iranian Cyber Army. Yesterday, Irans Press TV reported a statement by Ali Saeedi Shahroodi, an official with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claiming, The hacking of a VOA homepage by the Iranian Cyber Army
shows the power and capability of the Corps (IRGC) in the cyber arena. Irans semi-official Fars News Agency also credited the Iranian Cyber Army, in a February 22 report, explaining that the attack was in response to VOAs reporting on events in Iran.
The attack did not affect internal systems or servers, nor was any data lost or compromised. The BBG is working with appropriate authorities to investigate further. There’s a saying that a hit dog hollers – that can be applied to whoever tried to cut off access to VOA News by attacking the domain provider on Monday. The fact that the sites were redirected to the Iranian Cyber Army certainly raises an eyebrow or two, said Dana Perino, a member of the BBG. Technology is chipping away at the stranglehold on free and fair information inside Iran. VOA and RFE are strongly committed to providing the news at it happens in a variety of ways so that every Iranian that can get access to the free media can benefit from our journalists’ reporting.
Last week RFEs Radio Farda faced a variation of a denial of service attack on its phone lines with a flood of automated calls aiming to clog its answering machines. Calls played just over one minute of a looped recording of speeches and sermons in Persian before hanging up.
Since February 13, there has been intermittent but frequent interference of VOA PNN and Radio Farda satellite signals with programming in Persian for audiences in Iran.
As of the morning of February 21, there has been a continuous service interruption on one satellite channel carrying VOAs PNN. PNN is carried on three other satellite paths as well as online, including its popular TV satire, Parazit. Millions of the shows fans use proxy servers to access the program through social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. Similarly, Radio Farda’s website has seen an approximate 50 percent increase in web traffic over the past two weeks.
28 February 2011
The Association for International Broadcasting, the industry association for international TV, radio, mobile and online broadcasting, has expressed its concern at the continuing disruption to transmissions of a number of its members.
Deliberate, harmful Interference has been noted to the satellite transmissions of Alhurra, Al Jazeera and Deutsche Welle since unrest began in a number of North African and Middle Eastern countries. It is believed that much of the current jamming originates from the Tripoli area of Libya where the Gaddafi regime continues to control much broadcasting, intelligence and communications infrastructure.
“Deliberate, harmful interference – or jamming – has been something that international broadcasters have had to contend with for decades,” says Simon Spanswick, AIB CEO. “Today, the jamming signals are being used against satellite TV services from a range of broadcasters serving audiences in the North Africa and Middle East regions. This restricts access to free and unbiased news and information by people who are desperately in need of this. AIB condemns the interference and calls on any agency involved in jamming satellite signals to desist immediately.”
International broadcasters such as Alhurra and Al Jazeera have established additional satellite feeds to ensure continued access to news and current affairs programming across the region:
Alhurra, which has suffered interference to its Nilesat TV channel, has opened a new frequency on Nilesat 7o West on downlink frequency 11.296 MHz, horizontal polarisation, FEC 5/6 and symbol rate 27500.
Al Jazeera English can be seen on Nilesat 7o West on downlink frequency 12015, vertical polarisation, FEC 5/6, symbol rate 27500.
Al Jazeera Channel can be seen on Nilesat 7o West on downlink frequency 11555, vertical polarisation, FEC 3/4, symbol rate 27500.
Jamming has also affected broadcasts to Iran. Deutsche Welle and Voice of America have suffered extensive jamming of satellite programming during February as popular uprisings developed. It is presumed that Iranian authorities are seeking to prevent news of the revolts from international media reaching the country’s citizens.
“AIB will continue to monitor the situation and assist its members to counteract the attempts to block their programmes,” continues Spanswick. “The attempts to silence news broadcasters demonstrate very clearly the impact that international broadcasters have and the fear felt by dictators when uncensored news is available to their citizens.”
23 February 2011
The latest AIB industry briefing has been published. Delivered to the in-boxes of more than 25,000 media leaders globally, the regular industry briefings offer snapshots of developments across the world’s media industry.
23 February 2011
Poland’s TVN Agency is ready to provide services for the first anniversary of the crash of the presidential plane in Smolensk and the Beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1st, 2011.
Services include: live stand-up positions and multi-format tape playout facilities in Smolensk and Vatican City; services in Poland include: live stand-up positions, studios in Warsaw and regional TVN offices, multi-format tape playout facilities, fully equipped SNG trucks and OB-vans and a wide range of ENG equipment for rent, multi-language speaking ENG crews for hire, production support, editing facilities.
Using the Warsaw Teleport with a connectivity to the global fibre network operated by Genesis Networks/ Global Crossing, TVN Agency is able to offer tailor-made solutions for all kinds of transmissions required.
TVN Agency is a supplier of news and archive video content using the resources of TVN Groups television channels. In the TVN library clients can search for archive footage related to the tragedy in Smolensk as well as to the beatification of Pope John Paul II. Live coverage of particular events will also be available upon request.
21 February 2011
Results of a new poll of Egyptians in Cairo and Alexandria show that 25 percent of respondents tuned into Alhurra to follow the recent uprising in Egypt. The telephone survey was conducted during the networks 18 days of live comprehensive coverage of the historic events in Egypt.
The poll, commissioned by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, focused on how Egyptians in Cairo and Alexandria consumed media during the recent protests in Egypt. Results show that Egyptians turned heavily to satellite television to follow the events in their country during the demonstrations. Although the pan-Arab channel Al Arabiya was the most widely watched, surpassing Egyptian State TV, Alhurra TV reached a large audience during this period, with a quarter of all respondents saying they had used the station to follow the events. The results also showed there was substantial use of communications methods such as text messaging, social networking, or email; in spite of Egyptian authorities attempts to block these technologies.
The survey results confirm what we had been hearing throughout the last three weeks, that Alhurra was a prominent source of news and information for the Egyptian people, stated MBN President Brian Conniff. This is also a testament to Alhurras excellent journalists who covered this story, despite threats against them.
Throughout the coverage of the events in Egypt, Alhurra correspondents were in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria providing viewers with a firsthand account of the stories of the protesters and their unwavering desire for reform. Alhurra also brought the American perspective on the crisis; both the official Administration position as well as reaction from diverse voices throughout the public policy community. The networks comprehensive coverage culminated in being the first to report that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would resign and hand over power to the Egyptian Army.
The phone survey, conducted between Feb. 4-10, 2011, consisted of 500 randomly selected adults (age 15+) in the cities of Cairo and Alexandria. A complete copy of the survey can be found here.
Recent surveys by international research companies such as ACNielsen show that Alhurra has consistently averaged approximately 26 million weekly viewers for the last three years. Alhurra is operated by the non-profit corporation The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN). MBN is financed by the U.S. Government through a grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent federal agency. The BBG serves oversight and as a firewall to protect the professional independence and integrity of the broadcasters.
