3 September 2014
The annual general meeting of the Southern Africa Broadcasting Association [SABA] took place in Swaziland on 29 August, following the organisation’s second Digital Broadcasting Summit, hosted by Swazi TV. AIB CEO Simon Spanswick chaired the second day of the Summit.
Gender equality was one of the discussion points and SABA took the lead when it held elections for its board of directors and the appointment of the organisation’s new Secretary-General. Albertus Aochamub, D-G of Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, was appointed SABA President for a third term, while Ellen Nanuses – also from NBC – was appointed Secretary-General, succeeding long-serving Cecil Nguvauva.
The board elections resulted in four women being appointed:
- Ms Marlyn Garises – Chief Accounting Officer
- Ms Elisa Martin – Director of Programmes, Television Mozambique
- Ms Soondaree Devi Soborun – Deputy Director General, Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation
- Ms Thembi Hlope – Radio Programme Manager at Swaziland Broadcasting & Information Services
Appointments to the remaining positions were:
- Bontle Mogotlwane – Director, Broadcasting Services of Botswana
- Ambassador Dr Benson Tembo – Director General, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation
- Antoine Onezime – CEO, Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation
- Clement Mshana – Director General, Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation
“This is the first time that SABA’s membership has elected women to its board,” reports AIB CEO Simon Spanswick from the event just outside the Swazi capital of Mbabane. “It marks a major shift in thinking on the continent that is not known for gender equality. It’s an important, noteworthy step and the SABA membership is to be congratulated for putting gender equality at the very heart of the Association.”
3 September 2014
The Broadcasting Board of Governors strongly condemns the reported beheading of American journalist Steven Joel Sotloff by the extremist group Islamic State, and the threat to murder another hostage, David Cawthorne Haines.
“The kidnapping and murders of Steven Sotloff and James Foley were barbaric and abhorrent acts of violence against innocent Americans who were reporting from Syria,” said Jeff Shell, chairman of the BBG. “Killing journalists will not silence the truth about what is happening now at the hands of the Islamic State. Information warfare should not be fought with innocent lives.”
These videos were released two years after Alhurra TV reporter Bashar Fahmi went missing in Aleppo, Syria. There has been no word regarding his whereabouts or well-being since then. Shell renewed the BBG’s call for anyone with information regarding Fahmi to come forward. (Source: Press release)
2 September 2014
Starting on September 3rd, RT will be found on Freeview Channel 135, following the scheduled changes that will affect six news channels in total, including BBC News and Sky News. RT, a global television news channel, has been broadcasting in the United Kingdom since 2006 and on Freeview, Britain’s largest digital terrestrial television with a reach of more than 55 million viewers, since 2010.
With more than half a million weekly viewers RT leads other international news channels, including Euronews and Fox News, in UK’s BABR ratings. RT, which has just received its third International Emmy nomination for news, appeals to UK viewers with a “different take on news from mainstream media”, “informative news coverage”, and the range of stories that are of interest to the audience, according to a survey by Kantar Media.
RT is a global international news network that broadcasts 24/7 in English, Arabic and Spanish from its studios in Moscow and Washington, DC, and is available to 700 million viewers worldwide. RT is the first TV news channel in history to cross the billion views mark on YouTube. RT is the winner of the Monte Carlo TV Festival Awards for best 24-hr broadcast, and the only Russian TV channel to garner three nominations for the prestigious International Emmy Award for News. (Source: Press release)
1 September 2014
Peter Horrocks has been Director of the World Service since 2009 and has worked at the BBC for 33 years.
Under Peter’s leadership weekly audiences for the BBC’s global news services – BBC World Service, BBC World News and BBC.com – have reached a record 265m.
Peter has led the World Service through some of its most challenging times, responding to funding cuts by modernising the World Service for the digital age.
He successfully oversaw one of the biggest changes in the history of the World Service as it moved from Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) funding into the licence fee, leaving its historic headquarters of Bush House for the BBC’s New Broadcasting House.
BBC World News has undergone a creative renewal that is being appreciated by audiences around the world and bbc.com/news now regularly achieves one billion page views a month. BBC News is the most retweeted news source in the world.
Peter Horrocks said: “It has been a privilege to be Director of the BBC World Service, which is loved and trusted by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
“I am hugely proud of the dedication, the creativity and the reinvention shown by my team. The World Service now has its largest ever audience, an expanding number of languages, and is modernised and transformed for a digital age.
“Having overseen this recovery and taken the World Service into the new era of licence fee funding, it is time for me to move on to my next challenge. I will miss the BBC but am confident that the BBC’s global news services are in strong shape for the future.”
Director-General of the BBC, Tony Hall, said: “Peter’s remarkable career at the BBC has spanned more than three decades. Starting as a News trainee, he established himself as the youthful editor of Public Eye before going on to lead teams that produced some of the BBC’s most important news programmes, including Newsnight and Panorama. He also edited general election programmes before running several News departments, latterly the World Service Group.
“Those who have worked with him know of his energy, drive, his passion for journalism and his innovation but they have also come to appreciate his editorial integrity and his deeply rooted sense of BBC values. He leaves us as one of our most respected leaders. He is a force of nature and we will miss him.”
Director of BBC News and Current Affairs, James Harding, said: “Peter Horrocks has been a defining figure in the modern history of the BBC World Service and global news. He has demanded the highest standards of its journalism, he has driven innovation in the ways we tell stories and deliver the news, he has opened the BBC to new voices and fresh ideas and he has presided over the extraordinary growth of the BBC’s worldwide audience.
“His sharp intellect, open-mindedness and good judgment have shaped BBC News and Current Affairs for three decades. He has recruited and inspired hundreds of people here in the UK and around the world. And, like few others, he has set his stamp on both the programmes and the personality of the BBC.
“Since I joined the BBC last year, Peter has been a constant source of good advice, organisational wisdom and personal support. Of course, I respect Peter’s decision to move on, but, both personally and as an organisation, we will miss him.”
The BBC will advertise for Peter’s successor as Director, World Service Group.
29 August 2014
Eurosport enhances its status as of the n°1 women’s sports broadcaster in Europe with the launch of the first ever show entirely dedicated to women’s football in France.
The show, called “Femmes 2 Foot”, will air every Monday evening at 22h50 from September 22 on the pan-European broadcaster’s French local channel. The one-hour show will focus on the French Women’s Premier League (D1 Féminine), for which Eurosport France is the rights holder, with a mix of information, results and interviews. “Femmes 2 Foot” will also feature news about the Champions League, the French Cup and the French National team.
Each week a special guest from the world of women’s football will be present in the studio together with the three hosts Candice Prévost, Cécile Locatelli and Romain Balland. (Source: Eurosport press release)
29 August 2014
Starting on September 1, 2014, DW will be represented in West and Central Africa. Jan-Philipp Scholz (32) and Adrian Kriesch (27) will be reporting for Germany’s international broadcaster from Lagos, Nigeria.
German public service broadcasters ARD and ZDF have no correspondents in the region, so DW will be filling a gap with reporting by Scholz and Kriesch from and on West Africa.
Nigeria was chosen as a location for multiple reasons. On the one hand, it is the most populous country in Africa and located geographically in the middle of the continent. On the other hand, Nigeria reflects the ambivalent development of the entire continent – aside from the significant economic growth, Nigeria also struggles with a number of conflicts, such as with Boko Haram. ARD and ZDF have studios in Africa in Cairo, Rabat, Nairobi and Johannesburg.
Scholz and Kriesch have reported regularly from Africa for DW – especially on the situation in Nigeria. They work closely with a network of local correspondents from DW’s Africa department. One example of such cooperation was an interview conducted by Scholz and a correspondent from DW’s Hausa department with a schoolgirl who had been able to escape her kidnappers from the Islamist terror organization Boko Haram.
DW Africa
(Source: DW press release)
