6 February 2012
GlobeCast Americas CEO Lisa Coelho announced that Randolphe “Randy” Pike has been named Vice President of Broadcast Engineering. Reporting to Chief Technology Officer Bart Palmer, Pike will oversee all of GlobeCast’s day-to-day technical operations in the Americas, ensuring high quality of service and expert maintenance of systems and equipment for the company’s broadcast clients. Pike will be based in Culver City, California, and will be responsible for overseeing GlobeCast’s facilities there, as well as the company’s Sunrise, Florida, technical operations center.
Prior to joining GlobeCast, Pike was Vice President of Affiliate Engineering and Affiliate Relations for Fox Broadcasting Company, managing Fox’s satellite fleet, VOD encoding, linear product compression, and distribution systems. Prior to this, he was Director of Technology for the Starz Encore Group, where he oversaw satellite transmission, SVOD operations, and affiliate authorizations. He has also held positions at NDTC, TCI, TVN, General Instruments, and Oak Communications.
“Randy Pike’s wealth of network distribution experience makes him the ideal candidate to oversee GlobeCast’s increasingly complex broadcast services in the Americas,” said GlobeCast Americas CTO Bart Palmer.
“Broadcasters throughout the Americas are going to be surprised at the development of services and the high level of quality that GlobeCast will be providing them moving forward,” Pike said. “I’m glad to be a part of it!”
3 February 2012
RTs profit from YouTube has exceeded a million dollars, doubling in just six months.
The financial success stems from a massive increase in RTs popularity on YouTube. RT is the first TV news channel to surpass half a billion views on YouTube, with current total running at over 670 million.
RT is our trump card, one of the, if not the biggest news provider on YouTube worldwide, YouTubes director of video partnerships Patrick Walker told MIPCOM 2011.
RTs YouTube stats place it head and shoulders above the competition with total views three times that of ABC news, 11 times that of Reuters, 13 times SKY News and 29 times Fox News.
RTs Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan reflected on RTs YouTube progress 2011 has proven very successful for our channel. We beat world records we could hardly have dreamt of a couple of years ago, which reaffirms once again that audiences are demanding an alternative view on global events.
2 February 2012
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1 February 2012
This week, RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi marks 10 years of bringing news and information to the people of Afghanistan. During a special day of programming, the station — which reaches over 60% of Afghans weekly — asked listeners to call or write to share what Radio Azadi programming means to them.
The reaction was overwhelming as Radio Azadi received thousands of SMS and telephone messages, including from listeners in the country’s most remote villages and from all walks of life.
“We tried to play as many of the messages as we could,” says Radio Azadi Director Hashem Mohmand. “Listeners who didn’t have their tributes aired should know that we still heard their voices.”
“It was humbling to see such an outpouring of affection both for the radio as a whole and for individual presenters,” Mohmand adds. “It was very emotional day for many of us. We are truly honored to do what we do.”
Praise for Radio Azadi was not limited to Afghans. House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) each penned letters of congratulations to Radio Azadi, which were also shared with listeners. [see the letters]
Radio Azadi is the second incarnation of RFE/RL broadcasting to Afghanistan in the Dari and Pashto languages. “Radio Free Afghanistan” served audiences throughout the country from 1985 to 1993, during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
1 February 2012
Deutsche Welle (DW) is reinforcing its position in the international media landscape with a comprehensively revised television program, a new online presence at the new address www.dw.de and a new corporate design. At a press conference in Berlin on January 31, Deutsche Welle Director General Erik Bettermann referred to the set of changes as a milestone for representing Germany better around the world.
On February 6, 2012, DW will expand its Spanish television program for Latin America from two to 20 hours daily. The 24-hour schedule is completed with fours of German programming. According to Bettermann, this is all part of the reform process for Germanys international broadcaster. The core of this process is being able to better communicate with the target audience through new, focused, language-based channels, regionalized programming and a variety of multimedia content that can be used online.
After receiving an introduction to the expanded Spanish-language program at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 26, Mexican President Felipe Calderón said: It is great to have a partner like Deutsche Welle broadcasting for 20 hours in Spanish. It opens up new opportunities in Latin America. The program will be a bridge to Europe, and Germany in particular.
DW has tailored its TV lineups for other regions as well. The basis will be a new channel with 24 hours of English programming and will broadcast in North America, Africa, Asia and Australia. That will be expanded worldwide with regional channels focusing on other languages: In North and Latin America and Asia, the second channel will be made up of 20 hours of programming in German and four hours in English. In the Arab world, there will be a channel featuring 10 hours of Arabic programming and 14 hours of English; and in Europe, DW will broadcast 18 hours of English and six hours of German during primetime.
DW will also make use of more programming from the German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF for its new television lineups.
www.dw.de the new address for DW online
DW will also be launching its completely redesigned website on February 6. The multilingual, multimedia online portal will be available at www.dw.de. The new website encompasses everything that DW has to offer articles, audio, video and interactive content, said Bettermann. dw.de is a source of reliable information from Germany and high-quality journalistic content in 30 languages. A refreshing color concept and modern design give the site a friendly face.
Comprehensive corporate identity
A new corporate identity has been developed to unite the organization including the new television and online services. Bettermann said that more and more countries are looking for attention in the battle for opinions around the globe. With this in mind, the new corporate design is an essential investment for a successful presence in the international media industry. He went on to say that the numerous new platforms and distribution channels that are available require an overarching concept to ensure that an organization is quickly recognized and hard to forget.
Deutsche Welle has adapted to these conditions. In the future, the organization will be represented by a single logo that reflects all of its services around the world and in every language.
