SPORT, ALONG WITH STRENGTHENING THE VIDEO OFFERING, IS A STRATEGIC EDITORIAL PRIORITY FOR AFP. WITH THE 2016 SUMMER OLYMPICS APPROACHING AND THE RYDER CUP TO BE HELD IN FRANCE IN 2018, AFP AND THE FRENCH GOLF FEDERATION HAVE FORMED A PARTNERSHIP TO OFFER MORE CONTENT.
Under the agreement, AFP will provide the Federation with text, photo and data for its website. The Federation will in return provide videos of top French golfers playing on the elite European tour.
The partnership will allow the French Golf Federation to achieve one of its main objectives of raising the media profile of the game and its top players. It will continue until the Ryder Cup, which in 2018 will be held in France for the first time — on the Albatros course at the Golf National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. For more than a century, the Ryder Cup has pitted the best players from Europe and the United States against one another every two years.
Sport is one of the Agency’s strategic priorities. The sports service has almost 150 journalists worldwide working in six languages: French, English, Spanish, Arabic Portuguese and German (via its subsidiary SID). It covers golf and all of world football, the Olympic sports, motor sport (Formula One, rallies and MotoGP), rugby, NBA and cricket. It also provides complete multimedia coverage of major events such as the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup and the Euro Football Championship.
Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I), the world’s leading provider of satellite services, today announced that it has entered into a commercial agreement with OneWeb, the venture planning to build, deploy and operate a low earth orbit (“LEO”) Ku-band satellite constellation. Under the agreement, Intelsat will partner with OneWeb to use OneWeb’s LEO platform, once established, to complement Intelsat’s geostationary orbit (“GEO”) satellite services, resulting in the first and only fully global, pole-to-pole high throughput satellite system.
Complementing their commercial agreement, Intelsat announced that it will make a minority share investment of $25 million in OneWeb. The companies will also collaborate to develop hybrid LEO/GEO end-user access terminals, furthering Intelsat’s vision to lower the cost and accessibility of satellite-based broadband and unlock new markets for satellite broadband.
“As the world’s first and largest provider of commercial satellite services, Intelsat believes that the opportunity for space-based communications is at a new inflection point, especially as broadband connectivity has become an essential input to economic growth for individuals, businesses and communities,” said Intelsat CEO, Stephen Spengler. “In this context, we are accessing new technologies and leveraging sector innovations to the benefit of our customers and our network.
“Through this partnership with OneWeb, we will further differentiate our own GEO infrastructure, including our next generation Intelsat EpicNG® high performance satellites that will begin to launch in the first quarter of 2016,” Spengler continued. “By complementing our GEO services with LEO services, we will be able to provide connectivity over the Earth’s poles and in urban canyons, coverage that is important for certain mobility applications, including automotive services. In collaborating on Ku-band access hardware, we will develop technologies with additional scale that will simplify access, reduce costs and open new addressable markets.”
“Intelsat’s endorsement of our technology and solution is key to driving our venture to the next phase of development. Our mission is to enable affordable Internet access for everyone,” said Greg Wyler, CEO and Founder of OneWeb. “While the primary goal is to bridge the digital divide for rural areas, we recognize the potential for a seamless Ku-band infrastructure to support other applications as well. The OneWeb and Intelsat alliance allows each company to leverage the strength of the other. We believe that access to Intelsat’s global service and technology footprint, and collaboration on solutions which combine the benefits of LEO and GEO, will advance our mission.”
Pursuant to the commercial agreement with Intelsat, OneWeb will develop its platform to provide seamless network interoperability with Intelsat’s global EpicNG GEO infrastructure and service offerings. This will enable OneWeb to coordinate the provision of services over the equatorial regions, where GEO services have spectral priority, overcoming a major operational hurdle to LEO platforms.
The agreement will also include a firm service commitment from Intelsat for OneWeb services upon commencement of operations, which is currently estimated for 2019. Intelsat’s service commitment is in exchange for exclusivity granted to Intelsat for distributing OneWeb’s services within the aeronautical and maritime sector verticals, and for certain U.S. government and oil and gas customer applications. The agreement also includes granting to Intelsat certain exclusive distribution rights for connected car and rail customer applications.
Industry consultant NSR forecasts over $7 billion of incremental revenue industry-wide through 2024 from demand for satellite-based broadband connectivity services for aircraft, ships, connected devices, cars and remote villages. These applications are currently, or planned to be, served by Intelsat’s global fleet of approximately 50 C-band and Ku-band GEO satellites.
By combining GEO and LEO capabilities, Intelsat will be able to address specific requirements within the above applications. For example, the combination will allow Intelsat to extend its broadband mobility offerings to the polar cap regions, important to some aeronautical and maritime routes. In addition, Intelsat will be able to complement highly efficient GEO broadcast capabilities with the high elevation angle solutions of LEO services for situations where GEO signals might be blocked, such as in mobility applications in cityscapes. This would result in unmatched ubiquity for enabling software downloads to vehicles for the automotive industry. Development of mass market end-user hardware will further Intelsat’s strategy to deliver high performance, cost effective and simple access for customers, growing satellite’s share in the global telecommunications infrastructure.
When fully deployed, OneWeb’s initial constellation of more than 600 LEO satellites will be the largest satellite constellation in orbit, providing approximately 10 terabits per second of low-latency, high-speed broadband to consumers around the globe.
WASHINGTON — RFE/RL’s Persian language service was lauded in New York this week as Radio Farda journalist Roya Karimi Majd’s special report “Tradition of the Blade” won a gold award, and Kambiz Hosseini’s weekly show “Five in the Afternoon” took home a silver award at the 2015 New York Festivals International Radio Program Awards.
“Tradition of the Blade” a program about female genital mutilation in Iran that Karimi Majd called “one of the hardest and most painful reports that I have produced in more than 20 years of working on women’s issues,” was recognized in the Information/Documentary Magazine Format category. Hosseini’s program, which is a joint production with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and airs on Radio Farda’s satellite stream, was entered in the Entertainment/Best Regularly Scheduled Comedy Program category.
Although broadcast on Radio Farda, these stories are officially banned in Iran.
RFE/RL Editor-in-Chief Nenad Pejic congratulated Karimi Majd and Hosseini on their award.
“They have produced excellent content that has earned the admiration of their audiences in Iran and their peers in the radio community,” said Pejic. “Roya’s report sensitively and powerfully exposes a taboo subject, while Kambiz’s work uses satire to help Iranians make sense of their often senseless circumstances.”
Radio Farda journalism has been recognized at previous New York Festivals, which honor excellence in radio programming and promotions from stations, networks, and producers around the globe. Last year, Radio Farda journalist Mahtab Vahidi Rad was a finalist in the category Best Special Report, while in 2013 journalist Vahid Pourostad won a silver award for his radio documentary, Solitary Confinement, and satirist Farshid Manafi, who won two awards at the New York Festivals in 2011, was a finalist in 2013 for his signature satire program, Pas Farda.
The 2015 New York Festivals radio awards program recognized programming from 32 countries. The honors were presented at a gala dinner in the city on June 22.
RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, produced in and broadcast from Prague, is a leading source of uncensored information in Iran. In May 2015, Radio Farda’s website was visited more than 20 million times, nearly 40 million pages were viewed, and its streaming audio feed was used more than 20 million times. Despite the government’s ban on listening, the need for a proxy, and deliberately slow Internet speeds to deter users, half of all traffic originates from within Iran.
As Deutsche Welle launched its new English-language TV news channel in June 2015, Director General Peter Limbourg talked with the AIB’s CEO Simon Spanswick about the challenges involved in international broadcasting, the competition in global media and more.
Deutsche Welle opened its Global Media Forum on 22 June with a focus on foreign policy in the digital age, in Bonn. The conference also marked the official launch of DW’s new English TV channel.
In his opening address at Bonn’s World Conference Center on Monday, DW director general Peter Limbourg highlighted both the opportunities and challenges ushered in by the digital revolution. While it enables an unprecedented level of information and interaction, it also presents new problems. The state of the media, particularly for quality journalism, is dire in many places around the world, said Limbourg. Economic pressures and a lack of knowledge of how to practice good journalism are partly to blame for this development. “But frequently, the reasons behind journalistic impoverishment are political,” said Limbourg. In many parts of the world, both freedom of expression and press freedom are increasingly being threatened by those in power who want to control what kind of information is being disseminated, he added.
Dangers for journalists
“For journalists it’s becoming increasingly dangerous to investigate, report, and share their comments – in short: to speak the truth,” noted DW’s director general. But citizens in many countries are not only blocked from accessing information freely, they are also being confronted with disinformation and propaganda carried out by various actors, he added:
“International broadcasters controlled by non-democractic regimes are ramping up.” While their effort is reminiscent of the Cold War era, in today’s digital age, the possibilities for propaganda are much greater, said Limbourg. “Writers hired by government-affiliated ‘troll factories’ pollute the Internet. Religious fanatics upload their videos of inhuman brutality.” To counter that trend is one of the goals of this year’s Global Media Forum, explained Limbourg. With more than 2000 participants from some 130 countries attending, the three-day conference will serve as an important venue to share opinions and values.
Honouring freedom of speech
Even more than that: By honoring Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi with Deutsche Welle’s Freedom of Speech Award, the Global Media Forum is “sending out a clear signal to the world that we fully defend media freedom and security,” said Limbourg. “Badawi is synonymous with everyone being held in custody and suffering for expressing their opinions.”
And finally, DW’s new English-language TV channel as well as its overall restructuring has the clear aim “to provide more information, be more international and address people more regionally, we want to be heard – loud and clear – as the voice of freedom and peaceful cooperation,” noted Limbourg.
L-R: John Momoh and Kayode Akintemi of Channels TV with the AIB’s Tom Wragg and Simon Spanswick at the Global Media Forum
In her keynote address, Monika Grütters, Germany’s federal government commissioner for culture and the media, stated that she considered instituting the democratic rules we value in the analogue world into the digital world as the primary political objective for society today. Fortunately, added Grütters, journalists, publishers, entrepreneurs and others fight and defend freedom of speech and freedom of the press worldwide.
Countering disinformation
“That is exactly what Deutsche Welle has been doing for over 60 years now and is continuing to do amid numerous crises, for instance massive Russian disinformation, for instance in the Baltics,” said Grütters. “It’s good that we have DW.” “As an ambassador for our constitutional democracy Deutsche Welle, especially for many people living in crisis regions and authoritarian-governed countries, serves as a connection to the free world,” she said. “I am glad that today marks the start the English-language information program DW News, which will provide a lot of people worldwide with independent, objective news and information.” Commissioner Grütters and DW director general Limbourg then symbolically launched DW’s new English channel by jointly pushing a large red button.
Watch DW Director General Peter Limbourg in conversation with the AIB’s CEO Simon Spanswick:
Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I), the world’s leading provider of satellite services, today announced that Karen Schmidt, a veteran marketing executive with more than 25 years’ experience, has been named as the company’s Vice President of Marketing, effective immediately.
Ms. Schmidt will lead Intelsat’s product and marketing efforts for Intelsat’s portfolio of connectivity services for media, broadband, mobility and government customers. Functions reporting to Ms. Schmidt will include Product Management, Product Marketing and Marketing Communications. She will be based in McLean, VA and report to Kurt Riegelman, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing.
Ms. Schmidt was most recently the Vice President of Business Marketing at Comcast Business, a division of Comcast, and a key member of the team that grew the division from inception in 2007 to 2014 revenues of $4 billion. Prior to joining Comcast Business, Ms. Schmidt held executive product and marketing roles at Network Solutions, Concert Communications and MCI Communications.
“Karen’s extensive marketing and product leadership experience in the media and broadband sectors will be an invaluable asset to Intelsat,” said Kurt Riegelman, Intelsat’s Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing. “She has a proven track record of developing end-to-end strategies and driving cross-functional execution, successfully developing and deploying new services to key segments and channels. We are confident that Karen’s expertise will contribute to our goal to provide increased value to our customers through innovative global satellite solutions and services that deliver higher performance, improved economics and greater accessibility.” About Intelsat
Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I) is the world’s leading provider of satellite services, delivering high performance connectivity solutions for media, fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure, enterprise and government and military applications. Intelsat’s satellite, teleport and fiber infrastructure is unmatched in the industry, setting the standard for transmissions of video and broadband services. From the globalization of content and the proliferation of HD, to the expansion of cellular networks and mobile broadband access, with Intelsat, envision your future network, connect using our leading satellite technology and transform your opportunities.
