5 April 2018
MOSCOW, APRIL 3, 2018 — According to Ipsos’ latest survey on TV news consumption, RT’s weekly TV audience has grown by more than a third over the course of two years. RT’s total TV audience is now 100 million weekly viewers in 47 of the 100+ countries where RT broadcasts are available.*
Ipsos, a leading market research firm, found that in the same 38 countries that were surveyed in 2015, RT’s weekly audience has grown by 36 percent, from 70 million to 95 million viewers. The survey, conducted in late 2017, captured data from 9 additional countries, when compared to the 2015 survey, bringing RT’s total TV viewership to 100 million weekly viewers in 47 of the 100+ countries where RT broadcasts are available.
In the US, RT’s weekly TV viewership grew by more than 30%, from 8 million to 11 million viewers. In Europe, 43 million people watch RT weekly, in 15 European countries.
“Many thanks to our most devoted viewers: the US Department of Justice, the UK Government, and, in fact, the entire Western establishment. It is because of their efforts that an increasing number of people are eager to hear RT’s alternative voice,” said RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan.
Latin America showed the greatest growth in viewers of all regions surveyed: there, the weekly TV audience of RT nearly tripled in two years to 17 million viewers (18 with addition of new study markets). Of these countries, RT exhibited the strongest growth in Mexico, with weekly viewership increasing more than 4.5 times over two years.
11 million people watch RT weekly across 15 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, with its largest weekly audience in Iraq with 2.2 million weekly viewers.
Respondents across several regions cited a desire for ‘a different perspective on global events’ among their top-three reasons for their increase in watching RT in the last two years.
“Ipsos has once again brought its expertise in the area of international audience measurement to conduct the largest study of RT’s TV viewership yet. The sizeable growth demonstrated by RT over the last two years speaks to the international appeal of its programming,” said Elie Aoun, CEO Ipsos Connect MENA.
Notes to Editors
* The study was conducted in 47 countries, with representative samples of the total population from telephone or online interviews, between October and November 2017, by Ipsos, a leading global audience research company. The study was carried out in Russia, Poland, Greece, Ireland, UK, Turkey, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, Austria, US, Canada, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Columbia, Chile, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Libya, Palestine, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Lebanon, Tunisia, KSA, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, India, New Zealand, Australia.
** Based on weekly viewership in comparison to CNN, BBC News, Euronews, Sky News, Al Jazeera, NHK, CGTN, DW News and France 24.
For more information, please contact: Athanas Jamo, Senior Research Manager – Ipsos Connect. Phone: +971 56 414 88 33; athanas.jamo@ipsos.com
About RT
RT is a global TV news network that broadcasts 24/7 in English, Arabic, Spanish, and French from its studios in Moscow, Washington, DC, London, and Paris. It is the most watched TV news network on YouTube with more than 5 billion views. RT is the winner of the Monte Carlo TV Festival Award for best 24-hr broadcast, and the only Russian TV channel to be a five-time Emmy finalist for news programming.
About Ipsos
Ipsos is an independent market research company controlled and managed by research professionals. Founded in France in 1975, Ipsos has grown into a worldwide research group with a strong presence in all key markets. Ipsos ranks third in the global research industry. With offices in 86 countries, Ipsos delivers insightful expertise across six research specializations: advertising, customer loyalty, marketing, media, public affairs research, and survey management. Ipsos has been listed on the Paris Stock Exchange since 1999 and generated global revenues of €1, 712, 4 million (2 274 M$) in 2013.
4 April 2018
Giving journalists, editors, and designers efficient workflows for managing graphics and video throughout the production pipeline.
Every media company needs to manage their production pipeline from multiple departments and locations. Using tools from Vizrt and Adobe®, media companies have easy access to content that can be designed, edited and updated quickly, saving production time and ensuring that when the final story goes to air or online, it is updated the with latest information. Visit Vizrt at NAB 2018 stand SL2416 to see these tools in action.
Storytelling in the edit bay
Editors need easy access to all their media company’s content quickly so they can focus on creating stories. Adobe Premiere® Pro CC editors can find media fast via Vizrt’s media asset management system using the Viz One panel and drop assets directly onto the timeline. The panel offers significantly faster turnaround time by integrating Adobe Media Encoder CC and storing media in Viz One during the render process. The tools, when combined with the meta-graphics workflow, enable an efficient solution for editing with Adobe Premiere Pro CC and play-out with the Viz Engine.
The Viz One panel allows users to manage Adobe Premiere Pro CC projects. Editors can archive their project media and project files into Viz One, where projects can be easily browsed and previewed via the Viz One web interface or inside Adobe Premiere Pro CC using the Viz One panel. Editors can easily move between workstations, retrieve archived projects and assets and bring offline projects online.
Adapting as the story evolves
News and sports stories are constantly evolving requiring constant changes from the journalist to stay up to date. Vizrt’s meta-graphics workflow enables graphics and video to be continually edited up until the moment the journalist goes on-air. This unique, non-burnt-in graphics workflow integrates with Adobe Premiere Pro CC, part of Adobe Creative Cloud®, allowing the journalist to define the graphics needed for a story in their newsroom system and stay updated as the news changes. The editor can still make changes in the Adobe Premiere Pro CC timeline. Graphics can be edited using the Viz Pilot Edge HTML-based template editor; from the field where the story is developing, or in the control room, giving the journalist total editorial flexibility.
Flexible story design
Designers using Vizrt’s powerful real-time 3D design application, Viz Artist, now have more flexibility thanks to integrations with Adobe Photoshop® CC and Adobe After Effects® CC. Viz Artist includes a multi-layer composition import tool for importing Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe After Effects CC compositions. The importer includes native support for nested compositions, auto-translation of shapes into Vizrt geometries, mask support, as well as support for paragraph text layers. Additionally, control text and control image plugins are automatically assigned, providing a faster transition from Adobe After Effects CC composition to a template ready for on-air use in Viz Artist.
About Vizrt:
Vizrt is a worldwide market leader in the areas of real-time 3D graphics, studio automation, sports analysis and asset management tools for the media and entertainment industry. This includes interactive and virtual solutions, animations, maps, weather, social media, video editing, compositing, and multiplatform VOD and live playout tools. Vizrt has customers in more than 100 countries worldwide including CNN, CBS, Fox, BBC, BSkyB, Sky Sports, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Al Jazeera, NDR, ITN, ZDF, VICE, The Washington Post, TF1, CCTV, NHK and the list keeps growing. Vizrt has nearly 600 employees and operates in 40 offices worldwide. Vizrt is a privately owned company by Nordic Capital Fund VIII. For further information please refer to www.vizrt.com
3 April 2018
Sign up for the free edition of Viz Artist first at NAB 2018. Designers and media houses will harness the power of free Viz Artist to expand their creative potential.
Vizrt’s powerful real-time design platform, Viz Artist, is now free for creatives around the world. Viz Artist unleashes the creativity of designers to model a new future for the global media landscape. Media houses, broadcasters, and digital publishers, gain access to a rapidly growing pool of talent that will bring their brand to new heights of powerful visual storytelling.
NAB 2018 attendees can be the first to sign up for the free edition of Viz Artist first at Vizrt’s stand SL2416. The free edition of Viz Artist will be available world-wide the middle of April 2018.
“We want to unlock the creative potential of live media production,” said Petter Ole Jakobsen, Vizrt CTO. “With the release of Viz Artist 3.10 with its new dongle-free license structure, and a robust online training program with Viz University, we are providing a very easy way for designers around the world to learn this powerful design tool.”
Freedom for designers
Viz Artist allows designers to expand their career with the #1 real-time design tool for the broadcast industry. The system includes a suite of tools and plugins for creating professional scenes and templated-graphics packages. Optional access to Viz University allows designers to learn the system online and at their own pace.
Freedom for media companies
The free edition of Viz Artist creates a large pool of talented professionals, allowing media companies to choose the designers that best fit their needs and style. Businesses now have a larger number of Viz Artist workstations internally, including on every Viz Engine, adding greater workflow flexibility and design team output on a daily basis.
Petter Ole Jakobsen added, “With more designers in the market, the ability to have new and unique designs for live productions greatly increases, allowing media companies to find new ways to engage their audiences. The branding and design options truly become limitless.”
Freedom for universities
Educational institutions can now prepare their students for a bright future in media design by teaching the system used by the world’s largest media brands. Working together with Viz University, full classrooms of Viz Artist students can learn everything from the basics of scene building, to advanced data-driven graphics, augmented reality, and virtual set design.
How to sign up
Visit Vizrt.com to sign up and download the free edition of Viz Artist. Viz Artist requires a PC running Windows. The free edition of Viz Artist is limited to watermarked DVI OUT and Clip render OUT.
“I’m really excited to see what designers come up with using Viz Artist. This truly opens up the media production world to a new level of creativity that has never been seen before,” concluded Petter Ole Jakobsen.
About Vizrt:
Vizrt is a worldwide market leader in the areas of real-time 3D graphics, studio automation, sports analysis and asset management tools for the media and entertainment industry. This includes interactive and virtual solutions, animations, maps, weather, social media, video editing, compositing, and multiplatform VOD and live playout tools. Vizrt has customers in more than 100 countries worldwide including CNN, CBS, Fox, BBC, BSkyB, Sky Sports, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Al Jazeera, NDR, ITN, ZDF, VICE, The Washington Post, TF1, CCTV, NHK and the list keeps growing. Vizrt has nearly 600 employees and operates in 40 offices worldwide. Vizrt is a privately owned company by Nordic Capital Fund VIII. For further information please refer to www.vizrt.com
3 April 2018
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-international-broadcasting-budget-cuts-mean-end-most-morand-fachot/
According to the latest Budget Request for the BBG, the US civilian international media agency, Radio Sawa, the BBG’s Arabic-language service will end its AM & FM broadcasts to all countries except Iraq
According to the latest President’s Budget Request (for Fiscal Year 2019), released on 12 February 2018, the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) budget, which oversees all US civilian international media, will be cut by some $24m compared to the FY 2018 budget proposal, which itself was down more than $108.8m on the BBG’s FY 2017 (actual appropriation).
Cuts mean end to Radio Sawa non-Iraq broadcasts
The latest cuts for FY 2019 will translate, among other things, into an end to all non-Iraq broadcasts of Radio Sawa, the BBG’s Arabic radio service. Radio Sawa is part of the BBG’s Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), together with the 24/7 Alhurra pan-Arab news and information TV channel.
The “Summary of Increases and Decreases” for FY 2019 gives the following details for the $9.5m cuts:
Decreases: $12.5m – as follows:
– Pan-Arab Radio (i.e. Radio Sawa) Transmission Reduction: $7.7m
– Eliminate Sawa Pan-Arab Radio: $4.8m
Increases: $3m (Reposition Sawa Pan-Arab as Digital)
Reasons for cuts go beyond Radio Sawa
The document gives the following reasons for the cuts relevant to this (and other) service(s):
The Office of Technology, Services and Innovation (TSI) “continues to move the BBG from traditional broadcasting technologies, such as cross-border radio transmissions shortwave (SW) and medium wave (MW) serving regions where these platforms are no longer popular, to other delivery systems that are rapidly growing in effectiveness and are less expensive to operate (e.g., FM radio, DTH satellite, internet streaming, mobile, and social media. (…) As part of this move, TSI will continue support for the FM radio network in the critical target country of Iraq, but terminate distribution of and support for terrestrial radio in the rest of the Arabic-speaking Middle East.”
Radio Sawa “uses leased FM transmitters in Arab countries plus medium wave relays, and these are expensive,” retired VOA audience research analyst Kim Andrew Elliott told Radio World
Eight streams
Radio Sawa was launched in 2002. It is broadcast on MW and FM on eight sub-regional streams, including: Iraq (FM and AM); Levant (including Jordan and the West Bank – FM); the Gulf (FM and AM); Egypt (AM); Morocco (FM); Sudan, Libya, Djibouti and Yemen (FM and AM); Lebanon and Syria (FM); and Mauritania (FM). Radio Sawa is also streamed on its news and information website and through a dedicated audio streaming mobile app.
The BBG’s director of global communications and public affairs, Nasserie Carew, told Radio World that Radio Sawa’s current weekly reach was 11.7 million and Iraq was its largest stream, with 40% of its total audience (4.7 million).
Significant reach
The latest available data (FY 2015) for MBN, giving a breakdown between Alhurra and Radio Sawa (FY 2015), measured weekly audience (i.e. number of people listening to or viewing programming or online materials in the past week) show that it was 17.6m for Alhurra and 10.9m for Radio Sawa, the overall audience figure was 25.7m. For FY 2017 the actual figure was also 25.7m.
Given this latest available breakdown between the two services, it is totally unrealistic to expect that the MBN’s target measured weekly audience for FY 2019 (27.5m) can be even remotely approached with the end of Radio Sawa’s terrestrial broadcasts.
As BBC Monitoring assistant editor and media specialist Chris Greenway told Radio World: “clearly not everyone in the Arab world is willing or able to receive radio broadcasts via non-traditional means. In-car listening is an obvious example.”
Both Elliott and Greenway question whether listening online, via mobile devices or satellite services digital platforms will attract the same audience
Will other international broadcasters to the region benefit?
Two other international radio services likely to benefit most from cuts to Radio Sawa are BBC Arabic and Monte Carlo Doualiya (MCD), the Arabic-language service of France Médias Monde, the group in charge of French international broadcasting.
BBC Arabic, the largest and the first of the BBC’s non-English language services, which celebrated its 80th anniversary last January, is available 24/7 on radio, TV, online and mobile devices, it has a total weekly reach of 43 million for all these services. It will likely benefit from Radio Sawa’s cuts across the Arab world. However, reports of restructuring and planned staff cuts to the service in London emerged earlier this year. These plans include news operations being transferred to Cairo and Amman. Given the recent spat between Cairo and the BBC, with Egypt calling for Egyptian officials to boycott the BBC following a report on human rights, these plans may very well be reassessed.
MCD broadcasts to the Middle East, Mauritania, Djibouti, and South Sudan on MW, and via 27 FM transmitters in 13 countries, and also via satellite and partner radio stations. It claims a weekly audience of 7.3 million listeners (measured in 18 countries only out of the 22 it reaches). It also attracts more than 2 million visits a month to its digital platforms (2017 average) and has 3.8 million followers on Facebook and Twitter.
Other international broadcasters with Arabic-language services, such as Deutsche Welle, may also benefit from cuts to Radio Sawa services.
Leading international broadcasting organisations like the BBG (and Radio Sawa, its Arabic radio network), the BBC World Service (and its BBC Arabic service), France Médias Monde (and its Arabic-language radio Monte Carlo Doualiya – MCD), or Germany’s Deutsche Welle, are all Members of the Association for International Broadcasting (AIB). The AIB is the only global alliance of media companies that deliver, or support the delivery of, cross-border and multi-platform international broadcasting. The AIB provides information and news about its Members and the international broadcasting world, as well as a wide range of useful resources. The AIB also set up Member-only working Groups, in particular for Audience Research and for Cyber Security, with more planned in the future.
30 March 2018
Agence France-Presse is launching AFPTV Live Select, a new service providing comprehensive, original live coverage by selecting one of four available live video feeds at any time. With afptvlive.com, a new platform dedicated to live coverage, users can control reception of feeds delivered through a secure IP solution that meets the highest standards in the market.
“With AFPTV Live Select and the launch of afptvlive.com, AFP’s video offering is once again standing out from the crowd with its rich content, diversity of angles and quality of the user experience”, says AFP Chairman and CEO Emmanuel Hoog. “The biggest global networks, both news and generalists, already enjoy real-time access to our schedule and can view all feeds broadcast by AFP to choose the one that best suits their editorial line.”
From Lima to Johannesburg, from Pyongyang to Washington, AFP allows the world’s media to benefit from live pictures on every topic of interest to their audiences.
The new platform’s real-time agenda and planning features are also available to AFPTV Live Essential customers, which offers live satellite video coverage of key current events. “AFP responds to our need for at-a-glance information about their live offers with a clear and intuitive website which my team have found easy to navigate and interact with” says Simon Ward, Assignement Editor at BBC News.
Clients also benefit from a direct helpline within the AFP editorial team to answer any query about coverage.
AFP will introduce its new service at MIPTV in Cannes, from 9 to 12 April and through customised on-demand demos.
29 March 2018
Vizrt’s Media Asset Management (MAM) product Viz One can now leverage AWS services to improve video production workflows and IT return on investment.
Vizrt announced today that the Viz One MAM product suite will be available on Amazon Web Services (AWS), providing more flexibility and choice for organizations who can utilize the scalability and accessibility of cloud-based solutions. The availability of Viz One on the cloud allows organizations to improve video workflows by offering more cost-effective scaling and enhancing the speed of video production by allowing access from any connected device, even in remote locations. Media companies can now access their content from virtually anywhere with Vizrt’s Viz One either entirely on AWS, or as part of hybrid architectures. Hybrid architectures place resources both on the cloud and on-premises, allowing pre-existing infrastructures to be augmented with the most attractive cloud services. Users are also able to securely access content on Viz One from any location using the improved two-factor authentication both on the cloud or on-premises.
“The cloud loosens key technology restraints enabling customers to adopt new technology more rapidly than ever. Making Viz One available on AWS has been driven by customer demand for their own service innovation and their growing adoption of the cloud” said Petter Ole Jakobsen, Chief Technology Officer at Vizrt.
Viz One utilizes compute, storage and database services including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Glacier, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)/PostgreSQL, Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS), and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS).
Visit us at NAB 2018, stand SL2416 to see how Viz One and cloud services from AWS can improve video production workflows and provide greater IT return on investment.
About Vizrt:
Vizrt is a worldwide market leader in the areas of real-time 3D graphics, studio automation, sports analysis and asset management tools for the media and entertainment industry. This includes interactive and virtual solutions, animations, maps, weather, social media, video editing, compositing, and multiplatform VOD and live playout tools. Vizrt has customers in more than 100 countries worldwide including CNN, CBS, Fox, BBC, BSkyB, Sky Sports, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Al Jazeera, NDR, ITN, ZDF, VICE, The Washington Post, TF1, CCTV, NHK and the list keeps growing. Vizrt has nearly 600 employees and operates in 40 offices worldwide. Vizrt is a privately owned company by Nordic Capital Fund VIII. For further information please refer to www.vizrt.com
