AIB News Feed

Ukrainian authorities deny entry into the country to RT journalist Paula Slier.

29 June 2018

The Association for International Broadcasting has expressed its disappointment at the decision of the Ukrainian authorities to deny entry into the country to RT journalist Paula Slier.

Slier, a veteran South African journalist, founded and runs her own international news agency, Newshound Media, and has been RT Middle East bureau chief since 2005. Slier flew to Kiev from Vienna to take part in an OSCE expert conference, “Strengthening media freedom and pluralism in Ukraine during times of conflict in and around the country”.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s State Border Service said that Slier was refused admission after a five-year ban on her entry to Ukraine, as a person who poses a threat to the country, was introduced in 2016.

The same day Ukraine Border Service personnel denied entry to Yevgeny Primakov, a journalist for Russia’s Rossiya 24 TV channel and aide to the head of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.

“The AIB is disappointed that Paula Slier should have been refused permission to enter Ukraine to cover a media freedom conference,” said Simon Spanswick, AIB chief executive. “There is a certain irony that a correspondent who has worked across Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan bringing stories to viewers around the world should have been denied entry to report on an important OSCE event. This Association asks the Ukrainian authorities to reconsider their decision.”

OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Désir, recalling the organisation’s April 2014 communiqué on the “denial of entry of journalists from one OSCE participating State to another” tweeted: “I regret that journalists working for Russian media – Evgeny Primakov & Paula Slier – were reportedly denied entry to Ukraine. I reiterate that all OSCE participating states should facilitate free travel for journalists across the region.”

Euronews and CGTN exchange content

28 June 2018

Euronews and China Global Television Network, both official media partners of the 2018 EU-China Tourism Year (ECTY), have concluded a MOU to exchange and broadcast content that will highlight some of the most interesting destinations in Europe and China.

The EU-China Tourism Year initiative was set in motion in July 2016 by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker and the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Keqiang.

Lyon/Beijing- 28 June 2018 – Under their agreement, the partners will produce for each other a special 25-minute monthly programme to showcase some of the best cities, coastlines, mountains and culture in Europe and China. Each media will benefit from the network of its partner and will showcase destinations including off-the-beaten track places, along with advice to improve the travel and tourism experience.

– China Global Television Network (CGTN), headquartered in Beijing, is China’s international media organisation launched on December 31, 2016.

CGTN is a multi-language, multi-platform media group that includes six TV channels (English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian and Documentary), three production centres, a video news agency and a digital media division. CGTN currently broadcasts in over 170 countries, and its multi-language new media platforms have over 150 million active followers. Euronews is partnering with the 24-hour English-language news channel, which airs in Europe, Africa, North America and Asia.

– Euronews, based in Lyon (France), celebrates its 25^th year anniversary in 2018. Euronews offers a European perspective on world events in 12 languages. A well-established brand in Europe, Euronews is available worldwide in more than 400 million households in 160 countries and is the leading international news media in the European Union.

Elzbieta Bienkowska, European Commissioner
for Internal market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

“The EU-China Tourism Year is a unique opportunity to increase visitors’ flows and investments on both sides.”

Michael Peters,
CEO Euronews Group

“Euronews is delighted to have been selected to be an official media partner to the 2018 EU-China Tourism Year. I am proud to cooperate with CGTN; our joint initiative contributes to the aim of the ECTY for a unique cross cultural exchange that allows Europeans to explore the magnificence of China and Chinese to discover the richness of our continent.”

Li Bin,
Deputy Director, CGTN English Channel

“We are excited to be working with Euronews. This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the beautiful landscapes and unique cultures of both Europe and China to a global audience. As CGTN continues to work with international media organisations, we look forward to strengthening our partnership with Euronews.”

Euronews produces “Go Europe”

“Go Europe” focuses on tourism and the hidden beauty of the European continent.

The first episode was broadcast on CGTN on May 27 and 28. “Go Europe ” travels from France to the principality of Monaco, taking in a light festival, beautiful landscapes, gastronomy, culture, dance and music.

CGTN produces “Travelogue”

”Travelogue” is CGTN’s flagship English-language travel show. Sixteen years in the running, ”Travelogue” episodes take you to thousands of unrivalled destinations across China.

The first episode broadcast on Euronews, “The Lost Civilization of Sanxingdui”, a discovery that rocked the archaeological world, was aired on May 26 and 27.

Media contacts:

Euronews	CGTN
Lydie Bonvallet	Angela Fu
t +33 (0)4 28 67 05 35	t +86 10 8506 2453
lydie.bonvallet@euronews.com	angela.fu@cgtn.com
www.euronews.com	www.cgtn.com

follow Euronews and Africanews teams on Twitter: @euronews_group

for breaking news follow: @euronews @africanews

WBU Position on C-Band June 2018

28 June 2018

Background The World Broadcasting Unions International Media Connectivity Group (WBU-IMCG) Intentional Interference to Satellite Services Working Group (IISS) has drafted the following proposal for a WBU position on C-Band. In producing the proposed position below, the group referenced and updated the 2015 WBU-ISOG[1] position on C-Band. Examples of the impact on broadcasters of interference to their C-Band downlinks were invaluable in industry defense of C-Band spectrum at ITU WRC-15.

WBU C-Band Position

WBU members welcome technological change and the benefits it brings to both audiences and broadcasters. At the same time, many tried and tested technologies continue to deliver reliable and efficient services for WBU members. Satellite services have long provided valuable broadcasting services and remain an essential part of often complex broadcast supply chains serving our audiences, both nationally and internationally, for public service and commercial broadcasters.

C-Band FSS downlink frequencies between 3,400-4,200 MHz, have been and are extensively used throughout the world by WBU members for Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) applications and will continue to be used for the foreseeable future, in particular above 3,600 MHz. Since FSS downlink sites receive extremely weak signals from satellites in geosynchronous orbit, they are particularly fragile and susceptible to interference. WBU members have experienced serious interference to services where this spectrum has been opened up to other users and, because few countries require these receive-only downlink sites to be licensed or registered, little recourse is available. The WBU encourages our members to register their downlink sites.

WBU members have been and will continue to be highly dependent upon the use of satellite services using C-Band spectrum to 100 of thousands of FSS downlink sites for contribution and distribution. C-Band allows the operation of reliable, efficient and cost effective global and regional contribution/distribution systems and is also ideally suited to delivering media services into rapidly developing regions of the world. The potential allocation of C-band FSS spectrum to Mobile Services will create chaos to the economics of broadcasting by satellite, potentially interrupting services to audiences around the world. Furthermore, C-Band is critical for satellite services in tropical regions as it suffers less from the attenuation effects of heavy rainfall than higher frequency bands.

WBU members therefore call on satellite service providers and government regulators to protect the availability of the upper part of the C-Band spectrum, where the band has been allocated to satellite services and is currently used to provide many broadcasting services, enabling broadcasters around the world to continue to provide vital broadcasting services to billions of people across the world.

1 WBU-IMCG was previously known as the WBU International Satellite Operations Group (WBU-ISOG).

BBC’S Global audience rises to 376m

22 June 2018

Date: 22.06.2018 Last updated: 22.06.2018 at 11.00

Category: World Service

The BBC is reaching a record weekly audience of 376m people, new figures published today reveal.

The figures – the Global Audience Measure (GAM) – show how many adults the BBC reached weekly with its news and entertainment content in the year 2017/18.

The BBC World Service, which has just undertaken its biggest expansion since the 1940s, has seen its audience increase by 10m, to 279m.
The total global news audience has risen by a million, to 347m.

The GAM shows the way people access their news is continuing to change around the world. With the increased availability of cheap smartphones around the world, audiences are continuing to switch to digital platforms for news. Overall, online news website audiences have grown by four million, with social media audiences up by nine million.

The English language international website, BBC.com, continues to perform well even in competitive markets like the USA, adding two million weekly users this year.

More people listen directly to World Service English via the internet than by any other method – a total of 27m. And World Service English podcasts now reach one million people every week.

However, shortwave radio listening continues its steep decline, with shortwave audiences virtually disappearing in Pakistan, and down substantially in Nigeria.

Jamie Angus, Director of the BBC World Service Group, says: “This has been an exciting year for the BBC World Service, with the launch of 12 new services, new programming, and the opening of new and expanded bureaux across the world, so it is great to see international audiences continuing to turn to the BBC for independent and impartial news.

The figures highlight not only the successes of our global news operation, but the challenges that lie ahead for us. We still need to grow the share of women engaging with our news services globally, and we need to ensure we have the right services to continue to attract young audiences.

At a time when Britain is forging a new relationship with nations around the world, the BBC’s global news services are more important than ever.”

The figures also show:

More than a quarter of the BBC World Service’s audience is aged between 15-24 years old.
In Afghanistan, more than 60% of the adult population consumes BBC News; in Nigeria the figure is just under 40%
The top ten markets for the BBC’s international news services are Nigeria (41m), USA (33m), India (30m), Bangladesh (16m), Egypt (16m), Iran (13m), Afghanistan (12m), Tanzania (10m), Pakistan (9m) and Indonesia (8m).
More people are consuming more than one BBC service, or using more than one platform to access BBC News; 24m people consume the World Service in English as well as other languages.

Notes to Editors
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.

The total figure includes audiences for all BBC News services outside the UK and branded entertainment content on TV, BBC websites and social media pages for BBC Studios.

Political Football – Intensifying FIFA 2018 piracy row

22 June 2018

On 4 June the AIB reported that the Qatari pay-tv operator beIN, which owned exclusive rights to the FIFA World Cup 2018, was the target of what the network said was a widespread Saudi-backed piracy operation carried out through the beoutQ TV platform, an operation aimed at harming its services, commercial interests and Qatar’s reputation..

All signs point to the fact that beoutQ was started soon after Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States (and Egypt) cut off diplomatic and economic relations with Qatar in June 2017.

In August 2017 beIN, together with leading sporting organisations and broadcasters, called for beoutQ to be shut down.

The situation has evolved and drawn in a number of other actors since the AIB first reported the story.

FIFA said on 15 June that it “is aware that a pirate channel named beoutQ has illegally distributed the opening matches of 2018 FIFA World Cup™ in the MENA region. FIFA takes infringements of its intellectual property very seriously and is exploring all options to stop the infringement of its rights, including in relation to action against legitimate organisations that are seen to support such illegal activities.”

Three days later beIN announced that it was making available 22 FIFA matches on free-to-air channels games across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in a move probably meant to undercut beoutQ.

UEFA, the European football governing body, waded in on 21 June, warning that illicit broadcasts of some of its top matches of the past season posed a significant threat to European football. UEFA clearly blamed beoutQ for the action and unequivocally indicated that the platform was Saudi-based.

[im]plausible deniability and legal tussle…

Ever since beIN asked for beoutQ to be shut down, the operator claimed that its backers were a Colombian and Cuban consortium and Middle Eastern investors. Saudi Arabia has denied any connection with beoutQ, which, however, was available via Saudi-controlled Arabsat.

Saudi Arabia is now going on the offensive. Turki Al Sheikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s sports authority, said on Twitter that “Necessary legal action will be taken in relation to BeIN wrongdoings against KSA [the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia], its sports & officials, and for exploiting sports to achieve political goals (…)”

… and beyond MENA

In recent days more operators, broadcasting outside the MENA region, complained that beoutQ was pirating their live exclusive sports rights.

NBCUniversal Telemundo, which holds the Spanish-language rights to the 2018 World Cup in the US, and UK-based Eleven Sports Network told Bloomberg that they would take the appropriate course of action to protect their rights.

However, it remains to be seen whether FIFA will take decisive steps against beoutQ [and its alleged Saudi backers] since Saudi and UAE investors (most supporting measures against Qatar) said they would back a $25bn plan to create global football tournaments for FIFA.

Besides, rather bland FIFA statements and photos taken at the opening match of the 2018 World Cup showing FIFA President Gianni Infantino sitting next to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, tend to suggest that FIFA is unlikely to act decisively against beoutQ (and its alleged Saudi official backers)…

For additional AIB background on this developing story click here

Al Jazeera Launches the 2nd Phase of its Campaign for Supporting Press Freedom

22 June 2018

With a series of videos in various languages, Al Jazeera seeks to shed light on the critical importance of press freedom around the world

June 22, 2018 (Doha, Qatar) – Al Jazeera Media Network is launching the second phase of its international Demand Press Freedom campaign to support a free press and denounce the harassment of journalists and media professionals across the world.

Phase Two of the campaign is being launched a year after the demand to silence and shut down Al Jazeera by the blockading countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, following the GCC crisis in 2017.

The Demand Press Freedom campaign (#DemandPressFreedom) incorporates video segments in different languages that shed light on the direct and visceral impact of a free press on people’s lives, and as a basic human right that is essential for the development and progress of societies.

The campaign will also go on to include events and international forums to highlight the conditions of journalists arrested in different countries, the assaults on media organizations, and the attempts to silence the press.

Acting Director General, Dr. Mostefa Souag, said: “Al Jazeera may be the one media organization which has suffered the most and has been targeted for its professional reporting. Our journalists have been threatened, imprisoned, tortured, and killed, our offices have been bombed, our signals have been blocked, our websites hacked, and our social media accounts taken down. We continue to support press freedom and highlight the sufferings of journalists and media professionals around the world.”

“Al Jazeera renews its calls for the safety and protection of journalists worldwide and calls on governments to adhere to international covenants, treaties and legal obligations.”

The first phase of the demand press freedom campaign saw exceptional engagements on social media platforms, as well as the support and engagement by celebrities, public figures, writers and presenters denouncing the targeting of Al Jazeera and the call for its shut down. In addition, Al Jazeera organized various International seminars and events to discuss and highlight the challenges faced by journalists and media professionals.

The Demand Press Freedom campaign 2017 was awarded a gold medal in the New York Festivals, received a Certificate of Recognition from AME Committee Awards; and was shortlisted for One Show awards. Despite the calls for its shut down, Al Jazeera’s achievements continued to see Al Jazeera English Channel awarded “Broadcaster of the Year” in the 2018 New York Festivals, and receiving a Peabody award for its documentary ‘The Cut’.

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