1 June 2009
AP Global Media Services (GMS), which provides television production and transmission facilities covering the biggest news stories around the world, will soon be opening a new purpose-built bureau in Kabul, Afghanistan. The bureau will complement APs existing newsgathering operations in the capital.
GMS, the outside broadcast production and transmission arm of The Associated Press, announced the bureau will be fully operational for the elections in Afghanistan this August. These controversial elections will be in the international spotlight not least because incumbent President Hamid Karzais term which officially ends on May 22nd – has been extended until a new leader is elected in August, causing additional tension in the country.
Whilst AP supplies breaking news stories and footage directly to clients, APs GMS division also supports broadcasters with services ranging from renting out studio space, crewing, equipment and satellite/fibre links to providing complete news packages. Clients include the BBC and Al Jazeera, as well as independent online and broadcast outlets. GMS also runs a specialist international news reporting and broadcast facilities service for television clients in the Middle East, which is staffed by Arabic-speaking reporters and producers.
APs new Kabul office will be a state-of-the-art media centre. It will house a team of engineers, camera crews, video editors, and a live camera backdrop with satellite connectivity that links in to APs global satellite network. AP will be able to deliver a one-stop solution to broadcasters. Local producers, fixers and drivers will provide the resource and local expertise to enable GMS to help clients deliver the latest breaking news content to their local audiences, wherever in the world they may be.
Kabul is the next logical step in the global expansion of GMS, as the focus of coverage moves away from Iraq, says Alla Salehian, Director of GMS, Associated Press. International broadcasters need to know that they have a reliable method of covering the news in Afghanistan. What we are setting out to do is offer a bespoke and highly professional service which will help broadcasters cover one of the most dangerous regions in the world.
AP already has bureaux in Iraq and Pakistan with additional broadcast services provided from New Delhi and Mumbai, India In Iraq, GMS provides a network of bureaux and services in Baghdad, Najaf, Irbil, Kirkuk, and Basra, enabling AP to supply clients with over 5,500 news reports from Iraq in 2008 alone. GMS extended its operation to Islamabad nearly two years ago and has helped broadcasters cover the major political stories originating from the country since then, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
With bureaux in Iraq, Pakistan and India, and now Afghanistan, we can be certain to offer broadcasters the best live shot positions, production facilities, and transmission paths with which to cover events as they develop across these news flashpoints, Salehian added.
1 June 2009
Wohler Technologies Inc. today announced that the “Dr. Phil” show has installed the company’s RM-2435-HD video monitors as part of an upgrade to the Stage 29 facilities on the Paramount Pictures Studios lot where the popular CBS show tapes. The HD upgrade includes a new control room, set modifications, and a state-of-the-art editing facility. The affordable new Wohler RM-2435-HD monitors are being used in the dub room for confidence monitoring of dubs and stage feeds.
The RM-2435-HD is designed for confidence monitoring of SD-SDI and HD-SDI video with embedded audio in the production environment. The monitoring system features four 3.5-inch screens capable of displaying SD or HD video in a high-resolution 640 x 480 format, with meters for eight channels of audio. Operators can add video overlays including safe area and safe title display markers, a center mark, time code, and under-monitor display name. The Wohler monitor automatically derives both time code and audio from the embedded SDI signal, displaying levels via on-screen bar graph meters for added convenience.
The slim and lightweight RM-2435-HD occupies a very compact 2 RU and its chassis measures only 2.25 inches in depth. Operators can select between viewing in a 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio and can monitor audio along with their video.
“Wohler’s affordable RM family of compact audio and video monitoring solutions offers the best value and feature set performance required to ensure a high standard of quality as popular television programs shift their production operations to HD,” said Jeff McNall, national sales manager/market development at Wohler. “The ‘Dr. Phil’ show has built a strong following based on its reliable delivery of engaging content, and the RM-2435-HD offers the show’s production team a convenient toolset for maintaining the best broadcast quality.”
A syndicated series, “Dr. Phil” is broadcast on more than 213 stations representing 99.9 percent of the national market. Since its debut in September 2002, the series has been ranked second among all daytime talk shows and consistently ranks among the top 10 of all syndicated strips.
1 June 2009
Sustainable development. Just a few years ago, it was a term only known by experts. Now it’s on everyone’s lips. At a time when each person is looking for ways to help protect the environment, euronews wants to provide meaningful answers with its magazine programme terra viva.
Twice a month, terra viva will spotlight initiatives by individuals, non-profit and business organisations, who have adopted practical solutions to safeguard our planet. terra viva travels around Europe to meet them. The first edition tackles flooding problems, with two examples in Netherlands. The second edition is directed in Tuscany, where the residents aim at zero waste by 2020.
EDF, the European energy leader, sponsors terra viva broadcasted every Tuesday at 15:15 CET. Thanks to this sponsoring, EDF is associated to all trailers and every broadcasting of the magazine (opening and closing), every edition is broadcasted 23 times a week.
EDF benefits from worldwide broadcast network of news channel which is today available in 256 million households in 144 countries.
Olivier de Montchenu Chief Executive Officer of Euronews Sales declared: We are delighted to welcome EDF on euronews. With terra viva, our commercial and editorial teams have suggested to EDF a concept of programme which has met their expectation in communication. It shows once again that the quality of euronews programmes attract the bigger companies who recognize in euronews a real and fitted opportunity to accompany their communication strategy.
1 June 2009
More than 1000 delegates from 100 countries are expected to attend the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn which begins on 3 June. DW Director General Erik Bettermann will open the Global Media Forum.
Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum began in 2008 as a platform for intercultural exchange between global media makers and users and was conceived to address ways to cope with challenges and developments whose course is largely influenced by media worldwide.
The 2009 forum has set its focus on conflict prevention in the multimedia-age and examines the opportunities and challenges presented by new technologies and consumer habits.
Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum 2009 will bring together media users and producers, peace building and conflict prevention specialists, representatives from the fields of media technology and security, public relations, the military, the arms industry as well as members of government and political parties to network and discuss the challenges and solutions for the future.
AIB CEO Simon Spanswick will chair the main plenary session on Thursday morning. The session will examine the multimedia revolution and what it means for traditional media.
“I’m delighted to be involved in this year’s GMF,” says Spanswick. “This is an important and influential meeting that brings together opinion-formers and media leaders from all over the world for three intensive days of workshops, discussion, debate and networking. It’s vital – even in these economically challenging times – that dialogue between media organisations old and new continues. GMF ensures that it does.”
For the full programme go to:
www.dw-world.de/globalmediaforum
Digital press kit:
www.dw-world.de/presse
Weblog:
http://training.dw-world.de/gmf
Twitter: http://twitter.com/dw_gmf
Photos:
www.flickr.com/deutschewelle
Audio excerpts:
http://soundcloud.com/dwgmf
1 June 2009
As reported on the ABU web site, going digital is the best way for a small broadcaster to survive in a competitive media environment, an international conference in Macau heard today.
The advice came from the Director-General of Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation, Bijayecoomar Madhou, on the second day of the Asia Media Summit. I advise everyone to take the digital plunge, he said.
He also encouraged small broadcasters to join international broadcasting organisations for the benefits this would bring, including access to important sports rights.
The CEO of Media Niugini, Ken Clark, said there were no secrets to survival as a small broadcaster, other than knowing who you were and where you wanted to go, and taking care of the boring bits the management and accounting details.
He said protecting the copyright on a broadcasters material was also important. Copyright piracy was widespread and would get worse until the problem was addressed.
The Chairman and CEO of Sri Lankas Young Asia Television, Hilmy Ahamed, said survival depended on the ability to reach out to niche markets and find sources of revenue other than the traditional ones.
Dorji Wangchuk, Managing Partner of Bhutans Centennial Radio, said small broadcasters should concentrate on local content and languages, and try to keep up with peoples expectations of an open society.
29 May 2009
The AIB investigates and analyses specific topics of particular interest to its members. The resulting knowledge is made available in different ways : in member-only Market Intelligence reports, in the AIBeNews, in the Channel magazine, in member-only conference calls and sometimes, in private consultancy briefings. Summaries of AIB work and findings on current topics are presented in this section which enables you to see clearly the information available as well as future plans.
