24 August 2018
BBC News Burmese has launched the Burmese edition of the BBC’s flagship digital technology programme, Click. The weekly programme is aired in Myanmar by the country’s largest TV network – the state broadcaster MRTV – and is available on demand on the BBC News Burmese website bbc.com/burmese and YouTube channel.
The weekly 10-minute edition of the BBC’s TV guide to the latest technology news is produced and presented by BBC News Burmese. Click brings latest reports on apps, gadgets and games, and on technological innovations from around the world.
BBC News Burmese Editor, Soe Win Than (Min Htet), says: “In addition to BBC radio content, MRTV will now broadcast our new TV programme which will inform viewers about the most important global and regional developments in the world of digital technologies, and about the technical know-how to help improve their daily lives. This is excellent news for the BBC’s presence in Myanmar and our collaboration with MRTV. I hope our audience will welcome this addition to their weekly evening TV schedule.”
MRTV rebroadcasts BBC News Burmese weekly radio programmes: the youth show, Mobigeno (Monday at 15.15 local time), the technology and digital innovations programme, CoolTech (Tuesday at 14.20), and the programme about innovative farming methods, San Thit Tehtwin Lai Myay Ta Kwin (Thursday at 08.45).
Director of MRTV, Moe Thuzar Aung, adds: “I am really glad that, thanks to our cooperation with the BBC’s Burmese service, our channel will bring the latest technology news around the world to our audiences.”
Click will be broadcast by MRTV at 18.15 local time on Fridays and will be repeated the following Mondays at 09.20. The programme will be available on demand on the website bbc.com/burmese and BBC News Burmese YouTube channel.
In addition to collaboration with MRTV, the BBC News Burmese Monday to Friday TV news programme is broadcast by Myanmar’s digital channel, Mizzima TV (20.45). The radio programmes, Global Newsbeat, Mobigeno and the English-learning series, The English We Speak, are aired by Myanmar’s FM network, Padamyar FM. Daily top headlines from the BBC News Burmese website are directly available to users of Yangon-based website, Frontier Myanmar. Selected stories appear on the Burmese-language index of Thailand-based news website, Khaosod.
Burmese-speaking audiences can access the BBC via Facebook (over 14m followers), as well as Twitter and YouTube.
BBC News Burmese is part of the BBC World Service.
(Source: BBC press release)
24 August 2018
Effective immediately, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent U.S. government agency that employs thousands of talented journalists, storytellers and media professionals, has been rebranded as the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
USAGM describes itself as a modern media organisation, operating far beyond the traditional broadcast mediums of television and radio to include digital and mobile platforms. In a statement, USAGM said that the term “broadcasting” does not accurately describe what it does. “The new name reflects our modernisation and forward momentum while honouring its enduring mission to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy,” the statement said.
“We recognise the overdue need to communicate the evolving, global scope of our work as well as our renewed, urgent focus on the agency’s global priorities, which reflect U.S. national security and public diplomacy interests. USAGM is an independent federal agency that provides accurate, professional and objective news and information around-the-globe in a time of shifting politics, challenging media landscapes and weaponized information. Our identity and name will now address these realities.
“The decision to change our name was a result of thorough research and extensive consultation with numerous internal and external stakeholders, including the BBG Board of Governors, agency staff and leadership at all levels, the five networks, Congress, the Administration, and interagency colleagues.”
As with the BBG, the U.S. Agency for Global Media encompasses five networks: the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Television and Radio Martí), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN). These networks collectively reach an unduplicated weekly audience of 278 million people in 100 countries and in 59 languages. Insulated by a firewall from political influence, these networks deliver truth and professional journalism to people living in some of the world’s most closed societies.
Concluding the statement, USAGM said: “Now more than ever, people around the world need access to the truth. The U.S. Agency for Global Media continues to tell the truth, and illuminate the world like no other news organisation in the world.”
23 August 2018
Ukraine long-delayed analogue TV switch off comes into effect
Following a Ukrainian cabinet decision from 13 June 2018, countrywide analogue switch off (ASO) will take place and analogue TV will be replaced by digital terrestrial television (DTT) on 31 August.
However, Ukraine’s National Council for TV and Radio Broadcasting (NRADA) made proposals, accepted by the government on 18 July, to continue analogue broadcasts “near the border [with Russia and occupied territories] where there are risks of information influence (…) for the public broadcaster and local broadcasters that do not have digital licences.”
High demand for DTT-compatible equipment expected
The council warned Ukrainian companies of a possible sharp increase in demand for DVB-T2 (MPEG-4) compatible tuners and TV sets.
It also appealed to small suppliers of digital equipment to consider the situation on the domestic market and to ensure the availability of tuners and televisions from different price categories in shops, in order to satisfy the demand for the equipment needed to receive DTT signals.
It was announced in May 2006 that the NRADA had allocated four DTT multiplex licences and that the first services would be launched by the end of that year. Initially, ASO was planned for 2014 or 2015, but the deadline kept slipping over the years.
Broadcasting council calls for more DAB+ receivers
The NRADA also called on retailers to ensure the supply of DAB+ radio receivers as nine stations started DAB+ broadcasts to Kiev and surrounding areas on 15 June.
On 31 July, the Association of Digital Broadcasters was set up and held its first meeting.
It aims at promoting the wide adoption of digital radio across the country to implement a marketing strategy, negotiate with retailers and encourage broadcasters to join the association.
As of 31 July NRADA had granted 13 DAB+ broadcasting licences.
Picture Kiev TV Tower. At 385m high, it is the tallest freestanding lattice steel construction in the world.
21 August 2018
When professionals meet, good things often happen. The founding partners of SatADSL, all from the telecommunications industry, prove this every day. One day, they decided to unite their expertise and talent to create SatADSL. And today, their enthusiasm and professionalism are rewarded by the company’s growing success. Introduction to the founding partners of SatADSL, a team of unusual personalities…
Thierry Eltges, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SatADSL
Thierry holds an engineer’s degree. He begins his career in the 1980s at the Belgian Ministry of Science Policy and continues to work over the next decade for the European Space Agency (ESA) at the European Space Technology Center in Noordwijk, Holland. In the years 2000, Thierry starts his own company for consulting services ‒ Sea & Space Exploration, still active today. His customers include ESA and industrial companies such as Newtec or satellite telecommunications operators such as SES. For 10 years, Sea & Space Exploration specializes in market research for launching new products. Following a study for ESA in 2011, he decides to start SatADSL with the current management of SatADSL.
Fulvio Sansone, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of SatADSL
Fulvio graduated in electrical engineering from the University of Naples. He also holds an MBA and has over 20 years experience in satellite communications, intelligent transport systems, positioning and location-based services. He has worked for companies like Oracle Corporation as International Business Development Director and External R&D Director, European Satellite Operators Association (ESOA) as Secretary-General, ERTICO as Development Manager Satellite Positioning, and the Belgian mobile and satellite communications company SAIT-Radio Holland as Business Development Manager and Business Unit Manager. He joins Sea & Space Exploration in 2009.
Michel Dothey, the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of SatADSL
Michel holds a civil engineering’s degree from the Free University of Brussels. He has over 35 years experience in telecommunications companies, including SAIT-Radio Holland, where he started as a project manager and became head of the R&D department. There he meets Fulvio and later Thierry, in charge of supervising the ASE program of SAIT Radio-Holland. Michel goes on to work as a telecommunications consultant for, among others, the Belgian public-service broadcasting organization (RTBF). Before joining SatADSL in 2012, he also worked for a food company as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
Caroline De Vos, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and PR Manager of SatADSL
Caroline holds a Master in Physics from the Free University of Brussels, a Master in Space Science from the University of Liège and a Space Executive MBA from the International Space University. She starts working as a systems engineer for ESA, where she first meets Thierry. She continues as Project Manager and Marketing & Communication Manager at Space Checker, an innovative company offering vehicle tracking and monitoring services for critical satellite data (speed, pressure, load temperature, etc.). Caroline then joins Space Application Services, an ESA sub-contractor, to manage the strategic definition projects for crewed missions to Mars. She is also an astronaut candidate and works for several months at ESA’s European Astronaut Training Centre in Cologne. In 2006, Caroline joins Sea & Space Exploration and contributes to several telecommunications market studies, including the one initiating the SatADSL adventure.
23 July 2018
Funding boost for New Zealand public broadcasting
Public broadcasting allocated additional 15m NZ dollars in 2018 budget
New Zealand Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister Claire Curran announced the allocation of an extra NZD 15m (USD 10.2m, GBP 7.8m, EUR 8.7m) for public broadcasting on 11 July.
This additional funding is to be spread between RNZ (Radio New Zealand), the NZ On Air funding agency and a new fund targeting “under-served audiences”. This increase results from a recommendation from a Ministerial Public Media Advisory Group which found that NZ public media were funded at a lower level compared with those in developed countries of a similar size (Norway, Finland, Denmark, Ireland) as well as in Australia and Canada.
Welcome boost
This extra funding represents a 11.4% boost on the 2017 NZD 131.116m budget for public broadcasting. It will be allocated as follows:
- NZD 4.5m for RNZ, “so that it can extend its multimedia services to reach more people in different ways – “RNZ + Stage 1’.”
- NZD 4m for NZ On Air, “to enable it to boost its reach to under-served audiences such as children, and for innovative on-line drama.”
- NZD 6m for a Joint Innovation Fund “to pilot a new type of sector-wide collaboration that would see RNZ commission content for its platforms from the commercial sector in a joint venture with NZ On Air.”
- NZD 0.5m for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH) to undertake research on capacity for media collaboration and the levels of funding for an effective public media
NZ On Air is an independent Crown entity funding agency, which finances media projects and content, including television programmes and activities, community broadcasting as well as local music and artists and other projects that support local content and are important to New Zealanders.
NZ On Air describes its funding model as “unique in the world. Its flexibility has allowed us to follow the audiences, ensuring that as audiences find their media in new ways and places, they can still find local content.”
RNZ was established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995 as a stand-alone, Crown-owned entity with major responsibilities being National Radio, Concert FM and Radio New Zealand International. RNZ is funded through NZ on Air (92%) the MCH and Parliament’s Office of the Clerk (8%) and receives no advertising revenue.
RNZ total expenditure in 2017 was NZD 38.981m.
The RNZ Charter, reviewed every five years, sets out RNZ operating principles
Wide and varied offer
RNZ offer has evolved and expanded since the 1995 Act. It includes now:
RNZ National, which broadcasts round-the-clock, its programme mix includes news and current affairs, documentaries and features, drama and music. At least 33% of the music it broadcasts is New Zealand in origin.
Talk-orientated programmes make up 60% of air time. Specialist features and documentaries produced exclusively for RNZ National focus on the interests of particular groups in the community.
Māori programming can be heard across the schedule.
RNZ Concert is RNZ’s fine music network. Music comprises 85% of air time. Much of this is classical, with additional specialist music programmes covering jazz, contemporary and world music.
Concert actively promotes New Zealand music and composition, providing an important showcase for the best of the country’s performing artists. “Its specialised production department commissions work from New Zealand musicians and composers, and initiates an extensive range of music programmes. The station delivers live broadcasts of concerts and recitals both of New Zealand artists and visiting international artists.”
Concert also features international programmes selected from public radio broadcasters overseas.
RNZ Pacific (formerly Radio New Zealand International or RNZI) provides a wide range of New Zealand programmes to listeners in the Pacific and beyond.
RNZ Pacific programmes are streamed online, and are available also in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Africa on World Radio Network (WRN – in ), on SW frequencies around the Pacific, and some Pacific stations rebroadcast also RNZI News Bulletins and other features.
In addition to its English-language programmes, RNZ Pacific broadcast daily short (4 – 10 minutes each) news bulletins in the following languages: Niuean, Cook Island Maori, Tongan, Samoan.
NZ Parliament broadcasts all sittings of Parliament.
The RNZ News service “provides vital elements throughout [its] 24-hour programming schedule, bringing impartial news and information to New Zealanders every day.”
Online Broadcasting
RNZ provides live-streaming of all its broadcasting services: RNZ National; RNZ Concert; RNZ Pacific, and the Parliamentary Network.
Most spoken word content is also available on-demand, with an online programme library which currently features more than 170,000 individual items.
Online broadcasting services are accessible through the RNZ website and smartphone applications.
What about television?
There is no public-funded television network in New Zealand.
TVNZ (Television New Zealand) is a Crown-owned fully commercially-funded commercial TV network.
It operates three channels, TVNZ 1, a general interest channel (news and current affairs, locally and internationally-produced drama, general entertainment and documentaries) TVNZ 2, which targets a younger audience with dramas, comedies and reality TV shows, and TVNZ Duke, airs comedies, dramas, documentaries, movies and sport.
Sources
NZ On Air Annual Report 2017; RNZ Annual Report 2016/2017; TVNZ Annual Report 2017
16 July 2018
BBC international services reach record audience
“Reflecting the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world”
The BBC has just published its Annual Report and Accounts 2017/18. The 270-page document gives a detailed account of the BBC’s international services, radio, television, online and social media as well as their reach and their total international weekly audience which now exceeds 345 million for all services.
The success of these services is certainly the result of a long tradition anchored when the Empire Service of the BBC, precursor of the BBC World Service, was established in 1932 by the first director general of the BBC (1927-1938) John Reith.
As Gavyn Davies, Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, explained in a 2003 speech, when, Reith launched the service “he had a remarkable insight. The BBC’s foreign services, he said, must not be used as a propaganda weapon to spread the views of the British government, but must be seen as an independent voice, seeking only to speak the truth to its listeners.”
The following are excerpts of the BBC 2017/2018 report that give details of the BBC’s international services activities and expansion in the past year. The report says that the BBC plays and essential role carrying the distinctive culture, voice and values of the UK to the world
BBC global reach, news offer more important than ever
“Once again, the past year has highlighted the fact that, in many parts of the world,” the report says, “the media is less free than it was ten years ago. There has been the continued growth of big state-sponsored news organisations and from news aggregated by digital platforms. Al Jazeera, China Central Television (CCTV) and RT (formerly Russia Today) can command vast resources and, while the services offered by these organisations can be of high quality production, they also reflect a particular world-view and the agenda of their backers. With the possibility of state services from less free countries influencing global debate and news provision, the value to democracy and liberty of the BBC’s global reach is higher than ever.”
One of the UK’s most important cultural exports
The former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan once described the BBC World Service as quite possibly “Britain’s greatest gift to the world in the 20th century.”
The report says that it “inspires and illuminates the lives of millions around the world, helping them make sense of the world they live in. (…) The BBC’s two commercially funded international news services, BBC World News and bbc.com, continue to provide consumers with news from one of the most trusted and reliable news providers in the world. Meanwhile, BBC Worldwide – now part of the newly merged BBC Studios – invests in, commercialises and showcases content from the BBC around the world, to build the reach and reputation of the BBC brand overseas, champion British creativity and at the same time deliver commercial returns to the BBC to invest in public service content.
Record international audience
“The BBC once again attracted record audiences internationally, with the latest figures, the Global Audience Measure, revealing a total weekly audience of 376 million [taking into account de-duplication, i.e. ensuring that a person who consumes multiple BBC services or platforms or on multiple devices, is not counted many times in the top-level totals.]
“This includes all international content. This year has been a remarkable one for the BBC World Service, as it saw us carry out our biggest expansion since the 1940s, thanks to a £85 million investment during the year from the UK Government. This expansion is enabling us to bring trusted news to more parts of the world, including those in which access to free and impartial information is severely limited,” the report says.
Now available in more than 40 languages, increased international impact
The BBC World Service is “now operating in more than 40 languages around the world, from Pidgin to Korean, with new Government investment to increase the international impact and reach of the BBC.” As part of the expansion the BBC has opened new and expanded bureaux “in locations such as Dhaka, Mumbai, Nairobi, Delhi, Seoul, Bangkok, Yangon, Tunis, Cairo, Beirut and Belgrade and employed more than 1,000 new staff across the world. (…) This not only enhances our coverage for audiences abroad but also gives our UK news audiences a more in-depth view of areas that have traditionally received less coverage.”
“Having more journalists on the ground also means that we’re able to cover more under-reported areas and improve our offer to UK audiences. The BBC World Service saw its audience grow from 269 million to 279 million.”
Safeguarding World Service for future generations
“We’re aiming our international news at a new generation of users, to safeguard the World Service for future generations,” the report says, adding “this means focusing on new formats and new audiences. It is clear, for instance, that shortwave radio listening has declined rapidly again this year, and research has shown that with the increased global availability of cheap smartphones, audiences continue to switch to digital platforms for news. BBC World Service continues to do well with younger audiences internationally – a quarter of our weekly global audience is aged between 15-24.
Online offer proving an international success
The BBC’s “global commercial news website, bbc.com, continued to bring both news and features to a huge international audience. The audience for bbc.com is growing within the USA, the world’s largest media market. We have restructured our business to merge BBC Advertising with BBC Global News Ltd, the commercial subsidiary which runs both BBC World News and bbc.com. This means that the new single integrated business can develop our news content commercially,” the report says.
Global Audience Measure 2017/2018 (2016/2017) – details
347m: BBC News (Total international weekly audience – 2016/2017: 345m)
160m: BBC WS radio (English & other languages – 2016/2017: 155m)
279m: BBC WS (includes TV, radio online and social media in English and other languages – 2016/2017: 269m)
42m: BBC WS online and social media (2016/2017: 17.39m)
111m: BBC WS television non-English languages (2016/2017: 110m)
95m: BBC World News TV channel (English language global news channel 2016/2017: 99m)
37m: bbc.com (International English language) and social media
376m: Global reach, Including BBC News and BBC Studios
Note: The Global Audience Measure is an annual update of how many people are consuming the BBC weekly for all services in all countries across all platforms (television, radio, website and social media). Key to this is de-duplication i.e. ensuring that a person who consumes multiple BBC services or platforms or on multiple devices, is not counted many times in the top-level totals. For example, BBC World Service television, radio and online audience is less than the sum of its parts to ensure we do not count people more than once when looking at the total World Service audience.
59 % of foreign audience agree the BBC helps them to gain a more in-depth understanding of the news. Source: BBC Brand Tracker 2017 (not UK).
BBC is ranked No.1 for: Trust Independence Reliability (Source: BBC Brand Tracker 2017 (not UK).
