21 January 2014
BBC World Service has further expanded its FM presence in Burma also known as Myanmar with the launch of its radio programming on Shwe FM network. From today, audiences of Shwe FM can tune in to the BBC Burmese English-learning programme, English at Work.
English at Work is a five-minute English-learning programme designed to teach phrases aimed to help succeed in business and avoid embarrassing mistakes with colleagues and clients. Produced by BBC Burmese in collaboration with BBC Learning English, this fun office-based drama will be broadcast by Shwe FM at 7.30pm local time on Tuesdays and repeated at 8am on Thursdays.
BBC Burmese Editor Tin Htar Swe says: “With the country opening up, many young people are keen to improve their language skills, and the demand to learn English is even greater than before. The BBC has a strong audience base in the country, and we are delighted to be able to deliver BBC Learning English lessons to our audience on Shwe FM and also thrilled to be expanding our reach through Shwe’s nationwide network.”
With stations across Myanmar, Shwe FM reaches 98% of the country. Nan Mauk Laun Saing, Chairlady of Shwe FM, adds: “Shwe FM always strives to serve the best for our listeners with variety of programmes. The partnership with the BBC will help us offer even better service to our listeners. Our mission is to inform and educate, and we are very happy that the country’s youth can now improve their English by tuning into BBC Learning English lessons on our network.”
BBC World Service is a mass broadcaster in Burma/Myanmar. BBC Burmese keeps its audiences informed about regional and international events via radio, online on bbcburmese.com and increasingly via Facebook and other social media.
21 January 2014
Deutsche Welle is continuing its restructuring process. The strategy focuses on changes to DW’s language offerings and TV magazines as well as the introduction of dialogue- and comment-based formats.
“In order to reach our goals for the coming four years, we have to create the right conditions in our departments now,” DW’s director general, Peter Limbourg, told staff in Berlin and Bonn on January 20. On January 17, the broadcaster’s leadership agreed on a series of reforms. “They will create the framework in which we can realize our concept of creative and modern journalism and position ourselves as a global information provider based in Germany,” Limbourg commented.
The proposals concentrate on content in English as well as in languages that have proven successful for DW. English is intended to become the journalistic “flagship” language, meaning the English department’s offerings will be expanded to make it internationally competitive. A core goal for DW is more successfully reaching its target audience of decision makers and political opinion leaders worldwide. Meanwhile, the German-language TV channel will be changed to feature more news content and clearer programming structures. “German remains an important language for DW,” said the director general. A German-language community will be built up on dw.de, and Deutsche Welle’s German courses will be expanded.
Limbourg announced that DW will redirect its finances internally so as to reach the areas that are being prioritized, a process that is set to begin step by step this year.
“We aren’t making a clear cut. Instead, we’ve developed a responsible and smart concept that will allow us to achieve our goals and maintain DW’s excellent regional and language competencies,” he said.
Regional priorities, priority languages
The plans are designed to strengthen DW’s English content within the international media landscape. The broadcaster’s regional focus will be on Afghanistan, China and Iran in Asia, as well as Africa, the Arab World, Russia, Latin America, Turkey and the crisis zones within Europe.
Based on these decisions, the linear TV and online content will be heavily expanded in English. DW’s TV news coverage is set to increase significantly, and the news will be broadcast more frequently. DW will reduce the number of shows it produces, while elevating the quality of the remaining formats. In all of its target areas, DW plans to continue offering regionalized content and to increase the number of relevant programming segments. Within the offerings for Asia and Africa, programming will emphasize certain topic areas – for example, there will be a business show for Asia. The necessary regional competence will be secured by retaining journalists from language departments that are being cut or reduced. DW’s social media activity in English will be intensified, and its English-language radio production limited to shows intended for African FM partner broadcasters.
DW will continue to offer original content on television and online in German. However, the expenditures in this area will be reduced, while cooperation with German national public broadcasters ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio will be increased. With its German-language offerings, DW offers a key service for all those who live abroad and speak German, including for German nationals and those with German roots.
Focus on dialogue in regional target languages
Within its online offerings for regional target languages, DW will switch to a personalized blog format featuring dialogue and comment functions that will also be optimized for mobile devices. “We’re after successful journalism that takes a stance, and we’re seeking a direct interaction with our target audiences,” said Director General Peter Limbourg. The current thematic breadth of DW’s online content in these editorial departments, which currently produce comprehensive news and background material, will be left behind in favor of strong commentary pieces from a German perspective.
“In many countries, wide-ranging information is available about Germany, but what’s lacking is context and commentary. That’s what people there expect from Germany’s international broadcaster. We will provide our target users with pointed commentaries on relevant global, regional or bilateral events and developments, communicating German positions on issues and entering into dialogue with them,” the director general said. He added that DW will remain anchored in the respective target areas as a journalistic brand and that its offerings can be flexibly expanded – for instance, when a regional crisis demands it. The regional expertise in the existing foreign language editorial departments is set to remain intact and will be channeled into offerings in English.
Concentrating European expertise
The journalists covering European affairs in individual departments will be grouped into a single European editorial department. It will create regionalized content for European crisis regions, and, at DW’s headquarters in Bonn, it will also produce an emotional and visually expressive TV magazine dealing with European politics. This magazine will serve as a template for adaptation into all of DW’s European languages.
In its global target regions, DW will adapt its activities region by region and change its offerings accordingly.
Departments not set for restructuring
Numerous language departments at DW will remain essentially untouched by the structural changes. However, further work will be undertaken to increase the quality of their offerings and the number of users within the target audience. For example, social media activities will be further developed, and more videos and mobile content will be offered. This goes for editorial departments in the following languages: Dari, Pashto, Farsi, Chinese, Kiswahili, Hausa, Amharic, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese for Brazil, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Greek and Polish – the budgets of which will remain largely unchanged.
Structural reductions
Several language departments face structural changes: Online offerings in Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Romanian and Serbian will be switched to a personalized, dialogue-based blog format with comments. The European TV magazines in these languages will be maintained, but radio broadcasts in Albanian and Croatian will end.
In the future, DW will address its target groups in India and Pakistan primarily in English. Manthan, a science magazine format for TV in Hindi, will continue, but the Hindi website will be shut down. Radio offerings in Urdu will focus on the educational Learning by Ear program, and Urdu-language evening radio broadcasts will be preserved for the time being. Both the radio broadcasts via shortwave and the website in Urdu will shut down.
The Indonesian science magazine for TV, Inovator, will initially continue, and checks will be undertaken to see whether parts of the new English TV channel can be subtitled in Indonesian. The Indonesian website will also be reduced to a personalized, dialogue-based blog format with comments. The same goes for the French for Africa website. Production of radio broadcasts in French will be switched back to FM formats for selected partner broadcasters in Africa.
Discontinued offerings
Deutsche Welle will end its offerings in Bengali and Portuguese for Africa. However, the regional expertise available in these departments will not go to waste. Some staff members from the Bengali department will be employed to strengthen English-language TV and online offerings for Asia. Similarly, members of the Portuguese for Africa department will join the team producing English-language content for Africa. Their language skills will also be of use in the new Europe department and potentially in the Portuguese for Brazil team.
Changes to TV magazines
The management at DW also put all of the TV shows that DW produces and broadcasts up for scrutiny. The major criteria were the extent to which the TV magazines enhance DW’s profile and what their potential scope is. As a result, the decision was made to end the shows PopXport, Agenda, World Stories, Germany Today, Insight Germany, People and Politics, Kino and Talking Germany in the future. This applies to the editions of these shows in all four languages in which DW broadcasts linear TV, namely German, English, Spanish and Arabic. The topics covered in those programs will be explored in other content. The business magazine Made in Germany and the talk show Quadriga will be fundamentally reworked and restructured.
The programs Euromaxx, Tomorrow Today, Global 3000, In Focus, In Good Shape, Drive it!, Shababtalk, On the Pulse, Discover Germany, Shift, Kick Off! and Kick Off! Countdown, Europe in Concert, European Journal, Arts.21, Business Brief, The New Arab Debates, Claves, Treasures of the World, Close up and Faith Matters will continue to be produced in all their current language versions.
Deutsche Welle will strive to bolster its TV offerings by introducing interactive formats and a talk show that will further enhance the broadcaster’s reputation. Consideration will be given to which ideas developed by DW staff members could be put into practice for the TV station.
Further steps
The cornerstones of the new strategy and the measures necessary to put it into place will be included in Deutsche Welle’s planning from 2014 to 2017. At the latest, their implementation will begin once the Broadcasting Board has formally approved the plans.
In the coming weeks, DW will clarify in more detail what the proposed measures will mean financially and in terms of personnel. In some areas, such as the English department, staff numbers will increase. It cannot yet be determined to what extent jobs will be lost, because it remains unclear how much of a grant the German federal government will provide to DW. The broadcaster’s management will do all it can to retain as many of its employees as possible.
30 December 2013
Regional broadcaster, Channel NewsAsia, has launched a Chinese SMS News Alert service. It provides breaking news and news headlines for the Chinese-speaking users in Singapore.
The service leverages the established network of news gathering journalists which produces the highly watched daily news programmes on MediaCorp Channel 8. Offered in collaboration with SingTel, first-time subscribers pay only 10 cents for a 30-day trial. After that, the monthly subscription is S$2.50. Subscribers would get up-to-the minute Singapore and world news in a compact, 70-character message. Some Asian entertainment news will be added into the mix on weekends and public holidays.
Channel NewsAsia’s Vice President for Channel Distribution, Woon Chuk Chan, says, “We see this service as an extension of the successful decade-old Channel NewsAsia News Alerts in English. News, in whatever language, is used as a resource by many working adults who are also interested to find out the daily news on a timely basis. We are well placed to provide the service, with readily available expertise in a strong Chinese newsroom supported by the Channel NewsAsia teams.”
Head of FunL!fe, Group Digital L!fe, SingTel, Cheong Hai Thoo, adds, “Anyone who wants breaking news and regular news updates in Chinese throughout the day can now get bite-sized snippets on their mobiles. Most of us get the news via various sources at different times. SMS breaking news fills the gap that exists when other sources are not readily or conveniently available. It’s also ideal for busy professionals who just want a quick update on the go.”
Users can call SingTel’s hotline at 1688 to find out more about the service, or log on to these websites for further details:
https://www.facebook.com/ch8news
http://xinmsn.com/chnews
19 December 2013
RRsat Global Communications Network Ltd., a leading provider of comprehensive digital content management and global content distribution services to the broadcasting industry, announced today that it was again chosen as TGVN’s broadcast partner to deliver live and delayed matches from the 2013 Winter Universiade to CBS Sports Network in the US. RRsat will deliver over 35 hours of live sports event coverage for TGVN, The Global Video Network.
The Universiade is an international sporting event that aims to promote sports-related values such as friendship, fraternity, fair play, perseverance, and cooperation among students from universities worldwide. The event, which is being held for the 26th time this year, will be staged in Trentino, Italy from December 11 through December 21, 2013 and is sponsored by FISU, the International University Sports Federation.
RRsat will provide comprehensive live and tape delay HD broadcasts of 18 events via a cost-effective combination of fiber transmission and satellite feeds.
“TGVN was exceptionally pleased with RRsat’s ability to flawlessly deliver multiple simultaneous 2013 Summer Universiade games from Kazan, Russia to ESPN in HD,” said Craig Jonas, COO of TGVN. “We look forward to collaborating with RRsat again to broadcast the 2013 Winter games from Italy. RRsat’s dedication and responsiveness to the unique requirements of the Universiade together with its cost-effective, high-quality solution create a winning combination for TGVN.”
“We are thrilled to be working once again with TGVN for the delivery of the Winter Universade games to CBS Sports Network,” said Ohad Har-Lev, President of RRsat America. “It is a pleasure to provide US viewers with a window onto the athletic accomplishments and sportsmanship of university students who gather to meet and compete with their counterparts from around the world.”
Live streaming of USA team matches from the 2013 Winter Universiade can be seen here: http://www.tgvn.tv/winter-world-university-game-usa-team/
(Source: RRsat press release)
17 December 2013
RRsat Europe Ltd., the European arm of RRsat Global Communications Network Ltd., a leading provider of digital content management and global distribution services, has recently restored the film ‘Victim’ for ITV Studios Global Entertainment. The cult classic 1961 British film stars Dirk Bogarde as a prominent lawyer who risks his career to hunt down a blackmailer. The film is notable for being the first British language film to use the word ‘homosexual’ (the first film itself to use the word being a German-language film in 1919).
ITV Studios Global Entertainment sourced the necessary elements and delivered them to RRsat Europe’s facility in West London, for preparation, cleaning, scanning and restoration (both audio and video). The specialist team at RRsat Europe set to work on the 35mm Original Negative and 35mm Finegrain, which due to the age of the film had some inherent problems, such as badly tram-lined sections and fluid damage.
The end result was Super 2K scans of both restored and unrestored elements preserved for future access. The team restored the film to such a good extent that on the re-release as a DCP, it was described on the BFI website as an “immaculate restoration”.
Rod Carter, Head of Operations for ITV Studios Global Entertainment commented: “This film is a significant piece of British film history. We were concerned therefore, with ensuring that it was restored to a level that meant it was preserved for future generations.
“We have worked with RRsat Europe for a number of years now, and they have delivered some excellent projects, such as the Prime Suspect restoration last year. So they have demonstrated the necessary technical expertise and service required to restore a culturally valuable project such as this.”
Matt Bowman, commercial director, RRsat Europe, added: “As with most older content such as Victim, there are a number of problems that arise with the elements due to their age. Using a number of techniques, the team painstakingly scanned, cleaned and assembled the new film to a point that suited this British classic.
“We’re incredibly proud to work on such classics to ensure that the legacy of British film makers is viewed in the manner in which it was intended.”
12 December 2013
Partnership with Effendi Norwawi to launch Malaysia’s first business news channel
Bloomberg Television today announced that it has entered into a landmark partnership with former Malaysian Minister and founder of ntv7 Dato Sri Mohd Effendi Norwawi’s Encorp Group Sdn Bhd. Bloomberg Television and Encorp Group will cooperate to create the first business news channel in Malaysia in 2014.
Bloomberg Television Malaysia will combine the unrivalled resources of Bloomberg with locally produced quality content to deepen and broaden coverage of Malaysia’s vibrant business scene.
“Malaysia’s business sector and capital markets have gone from strength-to-strength in recent years and have been fundamental in Malaysia’s economic transformation. It is one of the largest centers in the world for Islamic finance and an increasingly important hub in ASEAN for key strategic industries. This has driven global and local demand for comprehensive business news from Malaysia, providing an exciting opportunity for Bloomberg Television Malaysia to play a role in meeting that need,” said Parry Ravindranathan, Head of Bloomberg Television for Asia-Pacific.
Dato Sri Effendi added, “It is a real privilege and honor for us to partner with Bloomberg Television in Malaysia, given the prestige of the brand and all it stands for. My team and I will strive to set the bar for business news reporting in one of Asia’s best performing economies.”
Encorp Group Sdn Bhd will build Bloomberg TV Malaysia’s state-of-the-art studios in Encorp Strand and will develop anchors and reporters in Bloomberg Television’s unique and dynamic reporting style. Malaysian viewers can expect in-depth coverage of local business stories as well as up-to-the minute reporting on global financial markets that affect the local economy. Media industry veteran Michael Chan will head the new channel and a new Bloomberg TV Malaysia website will be launched for streaming of content online and to mobile devices.
Michael Chan, CEO of Bloomberg TV Malaysia said, “Bloomberg TV Malaysia will fill a gap in the marketplace for high-quality, market-moving business news, where updates on the country’s economic and business performance will be potentially seen by 340 million homes worldwide.”
“By partnering with Encorp Group, Bloomberg Television has chosen the best partner with unmatched broadcast experience and entrepreneurial spirit to deepen our ASEAN business coverage,” said Gary Groenheim, Commercial Director of Bloomberg Television, Asia-Pacific.
The Malaysia partnership continues Bloomberg Television’s momentum in Asia, following the launch of Bloomberg TV Indonesia and Mongolia in the past year and the company’s ongoing investment in news coverage and product development in Malaysia. According to economists’ forecast compiled by Bloomberg, Malaysia’s economy is projected to expand by 5 percent next year, up from an estimated 4.5 percent in 2013.
