ABC Radio Australia’s Marshall Islands launch completes historic Pacific expansion

17 June 2025

ABC Radio Australia’s Marshall Islands launch completes historic Pacific expansion

ABC Radio Australia’s ambitious two-year FM expansion project in the Pacific has concluded with the recent launch in the Marshall Islands of a new FM transmitter. Residents of Majuro atoll are the latest listeners to join the network, which has doubled and now extends to 25 locations across the region.

The expansion project was funded by the Australian Federal Government’s Indo Pacific Broadcasting Strategy and began in 2023, when ABC Radio Australia established an FM service in Gizo, Solomon Islands. Since then, the ABC has partnered with broadcasters and transmission providers across the region, to develop and launch services in Federated States of Micronesia (Pohnpei), Palau (Koror), Nauru, Kiribati (Tarawa), Tuvalu (Funafuti), Cook Islands (Rarotonga), Auki in the Solomon Islands and three additional Papua New Guinea locations, in East New Britain (Kokopo), Manus Island (Lorengau) and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (Buka).

Alongside its investment in broadcast and delivery infrastructure, ABC Radio Australia has also tripled its Pacific content offering, launching new news, music, sport and cultural programming to better entertain and inform its growing audiences.

ABC Radio Australia celebrated the milestone by co-hosting an event with the Australian Ambassador to the Marshall Islands, Paul Wilson, at his residence in Majuro. The event was attended by representatives of the Marshall Islands Government.

ABC International Head Claire M. Gorman said: “The completion of the ABC Radio Australia FM transmission expansion project has been a landmark success – allowing the network to significantly grow its reach and listenership across the Pacific. In the 85 years since ABC Radio Australia first broadcast across the region, the network has undergone significant changes with this latest expansion in transmission sites. This represents the next chapter for ABC Radio Australia, providing new audiences with our slate of trusted news and Pacific-focused radio programming.”

ABC Radio Australia Manager Justine Kelly said: “Across the past two years, our ABC Radio Australia teams have been working incredibly hard to deliver this remarkable project. We are proud to be available across even more locations throughout the Pacific as our talented team of presenters and comprehensive suite of shows, share the incredible stories and voices from across the region. We deliver the latest in breaking news, sports coverage, new music and conversations about culture, the environment, health, faith and science.”

WAYS TO LISTEN: Audiences in Majuro can now tune into ABC Radio Australia on 106.7FM. There are multiple ways to listen to ABC Radio Australia across the Pacific – live via internet streaming, through 24-hour FM stations in your area, or by catching up with full episodes on ABC Pacific online.

For all media enquiries, contact: Annalise Ramponi, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, ABC International Ramponi.annalise@abc.net.au

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.

About ABC International Services For 85 years, the ABC has been broadcasting internationally. ABC Australia television has a monthly viewership across the Asia-Pacific of at least 10.5 million* and is available internationally via more than 100 rebroadcast partners. ABC Radio Australia’s FM radio service has a monthly urban listenership of at least 355,500** in the Pacific and Timor-Leste. ABC Pacific, the digital home for bespoke and curated content for Pacific audiences, has approximately 487,500*** followers on ABC Pacific Facebook.

ABC Asia, the digital home for bespoke and curated content for audiences across Asia, has over 5.7 million***followers on ABC Asia Facebook.

*Viewership in Asia measured by Ipsos Affluent Asia data, estimations and extrapolations (May 24), in the Pacific viewership measured by Tebbutt data, estimations and extrapolations (Nov 23). Total audience number is approximate and has not been de-duped. **Based on ABC-commissioned Tebbutt ‘Media Usage in the Pacific Survey’ (Nov 2023) noting listenership figure is estimated based on urban populations of six Pacific countries with the Timor-Leste audience figure extrapolated.

**Figures taken from Khoros Analytics (Sept 24).

e& Egypt and MBC Group Shahid streaming partnership

16 June 2025

e& Egypt and MBC Group Shahid streaming partnership

e& Egypt and Shahid, the flagship streaming platform of MBC Group, have announced an exclusive strategic partnership to deliver Shahid’s content library to e& Egypt customers across the country. This collaboration marks a significant step forward in enriching Egypt’s digital entertainment landscape and strengthening both brands’ presence in the market.

The partnership reflects the shared vision of both companies to offer value-driven, digitally integrated entertainment solutions to a wide segment of Egyptian consumers. It also supports e& Egypt’s digital transformation journey and Shahid’s strategic presence in the Egyptian market.

Under this partnership, e& Egypt customers will enjoy all content on Shahid platform exclusively as part of their bundle with direct integration with various e& Egypt offerings such as Emerald, VDSL, Hekaya, Demagh Tanya, Akwa Coins, and e& Cash.

This collaboration reflects e& Egypt’s direction towards digital transformation, with a strong focus on providing real added value to customers through smart partnerships with leading regional and global brands. It also supports the company’s positioning as a fully integrated technology group offering telecom services alongside the best digital and entertainment provider in the region.

“Through this collaboration, we aim to empower our customers with access to premium Arabic content that aligns with their interests and aspirations, while offering exclusive benefits and a fully integrated entertainment experience,” Samer Mourad, Vice President of Consumer at e& Egypt, said.

He added: “At e& Egypt, we are committed to delivering innovative services that meet the demands of the digital era and reinforce our position as a leading provider of telecommunications and technology solutions in the Egyptian market.”

“We believe that offering real added value to customers through smart partnerships is the optimal way to strengthen our brand. We look forward to continuously developing our services and expanding our offerings to deliver an exceptional digital experience,” he emphasized.

“We’re excited about this strategic partnership which gives us a unique opportunity to reach e& Misr’s Egyptian customers with Shahid’s market-leading streaming entertainment. The Egyptian market remains a strategic area for us, and we look forward to expanding our presence through innovative integration in a wide range of complementary e& telecom and payment services”. Director of Partnerships at Shahid, Scott Weeman said.

It is worth noting that e& Egypt has been a pioneer in telecommunications and IT in Egypt since its establishment in 2006. The company has seen significant growth in the Egyptian market, providing a wide range of services to millions of customers. It remains committed to keeping pace with rapid technological advancements to meet the ever-growing needs of its customers.

Shahid is the first and leading SVOD and AVOD streaming platform in the Arab world by MBC GROUP, offering premium content to Arab families, including binge worthy exclusive Shahid Originals; Shahid Premieres; Arabic movies fresh off the box-office; live TV channels in true HD quality; as well as international offerings, sports, kids offering, Arabic Adaptations, Turkish titles, more than 40 FAST channels, as well as Shahid Shorts – an exclusive hub for trending reels and short videos.

[Source: MBC press release]

LLM “strip mining” content – what can media companies do?

12 June 2025

LLM “strip mining” content – what can media companies do?

As artificial intelligence companies accelerate the development of Large Language Models (LLMs), trusted content from broadcasters – like that of AIB members – is being used to train these systems, often without compensation or consent. This presents both a significant challenge and a major opportunity for international media companies.

That’s why the next AIB AI Group meeting on 30 June 2025 at 0900 London time will explore how AIB members can benefit from licensing their content to AI companies for LLM training purposes.

The meeting will feature a keynote presentation by Madhav Chinnappa, Advisor to AI licensing company Human Native. With extensive experience at BBC News and Google News, Madhav brings a unique perspective on how content creators can negotiate fair, ethical, and profitable licensing arrangements with AI developers.

This is a critical moment for collaboration across the AIB membership. By working together, AIB members can:

Develop strategies to protect and monetise content
Leverage collective bargaining power to negotiate more favourable licensing deals
Ensure that non-English content – increasingly in demand by AI companies – is properly valued and represented in AI training datasets

To support the discussion, we have prepared a briefing paper for AIB members: “Content Licensing to LLMs – A Winning Strategy Against Strip Mining?”
It provides essential background on:

How LLMs are trained and the role that media content plays
The current legal and ethical landscape
The emerging global market for content licensing
The unique value that AIB members can bring – especially those producing in languages other than English

AIB member companies from all over the world will be taking part. If your organisation is not involved with the AIB yet, talk to us about how membership can benefit you and your colleagues in the field of AI, as well as cyber security, media freedom, regulatory affairs, sustainability and far more besides.

AIB publishes safety advice for journalists covering US events

12 June 2025

AIB publishes safety advice for journalists covering US events

In view of the growing number of journalists who have been injured during coverage of the LA riots, the AIB Secretariat has been asked to produce a guide to keeping safe during protests.

Some of the information is relevant to non-journalists intending to travel to the USA, for meetings, conferences, exhibitions and so forth (and equally applies to anyone in a media organisation travelling to the USA for a vacation). One key message is: do not take your work phone but use a burner phone for the duration.

The document provides top-level guidance and is not intended to replace any information that a media organisation may have already produced, and certainly does not replace any hostile environment training. The AIB has produced this simply as a handy guide for anyone working in or travelling to the USA (and indeed other territories where journalists may be on the receiving end of tear gas, rubber bullets and so on).

Contact the AIB Secretariat to get a copy of the document and to discuss membership of the AIB and the range of services members receive.

ABC grows international audience

4 June 2025

ABC grows international audience

The reach of ABC content offshore has risen strongly in the first three months of 2025 with more than 11 million people outside Australia engaging and consuming ABC content across TV, radio, digital and social media.

Engagement across ABC International social sites jumped 111 per cent, led by ABC Pacific on Facebook, with around 570,000 people engaging with ABC International social content each month.

Pageviews for ABC International websites are up almost 50 per cent and total followers of ABC International accounts increased by about 3 per cent to 6.3 million.

ABC Radio Australia podcast downloads are also up in all countries except the US in quarter one of 2025 compared to last year.

According to the most recent available sources, ABC Australia TV attracts more than 10.5 million monthly viewers and ABC Radio Australia reaches more than 360,000 listeners.

The ABC Pacific Facebook page and Instagram accounts were particularly strong performers, with the key indicators of posts, impressions, video views and engagements increasing compared to the same quarter last year.

ABC International Head Claire M Gorman said: “We’re thrilled by the latest audience results across our digital platforms and linear broadcast networks.

“The ABC’s strong international audience growth demonstrates the impact of additional Government funding under the Indo-Pacific Broadcasting Strategy in developing improved distribution networks and producing high-quality, bespoke content that reflects the diversity of stories across the region.”

Threats to BBC News Persian journalists continuing

2 June 2025

Threats to BBC News Persian journalists continuing

The BBC has issued this statement:

There has been a sharp and deeply troubling escalation in the persecution of BBC News Persian journalists in the UK and their families in Iran over recent months. This campaign of intimidation, orchestrated by the Iranian authorities, has intensified in both scale and severity.

BBC News Persian journalists – alongside other Iranian journalists based in the UK and around the world – face serious extraterritorial threats from the Iranian authorities. These threats have consistently extended to their families in Iran, who have been subjected to a sustained campaign of intimidation. However, the BBC is now witnessing a surge of arbitrary interrogations, travel bans, passport confiscations, threats of asset seizures directed at the family members of BBC News Persian journalists – marking a significant and increasingly alarming escalation.

Tim Davie, BBC Director-General, says: “In addition to enduring personal security threats from Iranian state actors operating beyond Iran’s borders, BBC News Persian journalists are now witnessing a disturbing rise in the persecution of their family members inside Iran. These acts are clearly designed to exploit family ties as a means of coercion – pressuring our journalists to abandon their work or return to Iran under false pretences.

“We call on the Iranian authorities to immediately cease this campaign of intimidation and to stop targeting journalists with violence, threats, and psychological warfare. This persecution is a direct assault on press freedom and human rights. It must end now.”

The BBC is preparing to lodge a new complaint with the UN Human Rights Council Special Procedures mandate-holders, calling on Iran to cease its campaign of persecution of BBC journalists and their families.