5 June 2009
AP reports that Mexican media giant Televisa and the social networking website hi5 plan to provide TV programming free online in Latin America.
Registered hi5 users will be able see Televisa programming on a new hi5 page as soon as this summer, the San Francisco-based company said. Many of the sports, soaps and other shows are already available on Televisa’s website, but the partnership is intended to boost both companies’ audience, hi5 spokesman Mike Trigg said.
The page won’t be accessible in the U.S., though, where Televisa and its one-time partner Univision are battling over Internet distribution rights. Grupo Televisa SA is the world’s top producer of Spanish-language TV programming.
Internet use grew 16.6 per cent in Latin America last year, nearly triple 5.7 per cent growth seen in Canada and the U.S., according to comScore Inc., an Internet researcher. Televisa and hi5 already reach more than 33 million users in Spanish-speaking Latin America, or 63 per cent of the market, both companies said.
Hi5 was the world’s 12th most-visited website by page views last year, according to comScore, and Trigg said the site has more than five million unique users in Mexico. A spokesman for Televisa could not confirm financing details for the partnership, but hi5 supports itself largely by advertising.
5 June 2009
Fast-growing Chinese vendor Huawei has complained that unfounded national security concerns in India are jeopardising its future success there, according to a report in the Financial Times (FT). Huawei is currently bidding for some of a US$1.7 billion GSM network contract to be awarded by state-owned operator BSNL. However, recent Indian media reports have suggested that giving contracts to Huawei would constitute a national security risk because of the company’s alleged Chinese military background (the two countries have had a turbulent relationship). The FT report notes that Huawei is a privately-held company and claims to be mainly owned by its employees, with founder Ren Zhengfei owning less than two percent. The report adds that Ren is a former officer of the People’s Liberation Army, and this, combined with the fact that Huawei does not publish details of its shareholding structure, has fuelled speculation that the company has close links with the Chinese military. Huawei has previously rejected such claims. In the FT report, Huawei’s Vikas Dewan, India sales head, said: “As we are getting big enough to trouble our biggest competitors, there are allegations emerging similar to those we faced in the US.”
The FT report notes that India is an important market for Huawei, generating US$2 billion of the vendor’s US$18.3 billion global revenues last year. According to research firm Dell’Oro Group, Huawei enjoyed an extremely strong first quarter of 2009, roughly doubling its share of the global mobile network equipment market to 15 percent. This put it in third-place, behind western rivals Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks. (Source: GSMA Mobile Business Briefing)
4 June 2009
Reuters reports that Germany’s public broadcasters will significantly reduce the programming they put online. This move is a response to attacks from commercial channels and newspapers that the online offerings represent unfair competition.
Markus Schachter, director of public broadcaster ZDF, said the channel will reduce its online offerings by 70 percent and cut the length of time that catch-up programming is available for streaming. Reports on the official websites of ZDF and sister channel ARD will now be taken down after one week, and reports on sporting events, such as Germany’s Bundesliga soccer games, will be pulled after only one day online. Schachter also said ZDF would focus more on posting video to its site and greatly reduce its text-only offerings.
The German newspaper industry has been complaining for some time that ARD and ZDF’s free websites unfairly compete with the online versions of their publications.
4 June 2009
Advertising budgets for mobile channels are expected to buck the downward trend and exhibit strong growth over the next five years, according to a new report from Juniper Research.
The report found that constraints on budgets, imposed in the wake of the global economic downturn, had resulted in an increasing migration of adspend from above the line to below the line channels: the need for engagement with the consumer, and a quantifiable ROI, meant that mobile was increasingly being perceived as a key medium through which to pursue this strategy.
However, the Juniper mobile advertising report stressed that, while this was encouraging, the level of growth had to be put into context that mobile advertising still remained very much a nascent medium, and even by 2014 it would only account for up to 1.5% of total global adspend.
The report noted that, while a number of major brands had made relatively large investments in the mobile platform, advertisers have yet to be fully convinced that mobile has sufficient reach to warrant substantive adspend. As report author Dr Windsor Holden pointed out, “These investments still form only a small proportion of a brand’s total advertising budget: Regardless of mobile’s advantages its personal nature, the facility for highly targeted advertising advertisers will not commit more budget until they perceive that the audience for their advertisements has reached a critical mass.”
Other findings from the Juniper report include:
Mobile Internet will become the most popular mobile delivery channel for advertisers in 2009, and will attract the largest proportion of mobile adspend throughout the forecast period
Mobile Cost Per Clickthrough (CPC) and Cost Per Mille (CPM) rates have fallen sharply over the past year in large part due the negative impact of the economic downturn
Mobile advertising response rates remain substantially higher than those in other media
Juniper Research assesses the current and future status of mobile advertising based on interviews, case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile advertising industry.
1 June 2009
Journalist Roxana Saberi, jailed in Iran for over three months, told the Voice of America (VOA) in an exclusive Farsi interview that the people of Iran are “kind and hospitable” and she would definitely like to return someday.
Saberi, in her only Farsi-language interview conducted by VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN), also said international pressure was “very effective” in helping secure her release from prison, as were her parents. “Without the international support, I would still be in prison,” she said.
The 32-year-old North Dakotan was convicted of spying for the United States in a closed-door trial in Iran, but an appeals court later reduced her sentence to a two-year suspended term. U.S. officials denied the charges and repeatedly demanded Saberi’s release.
During her imprisonment, Saberi said she was subjected to “extreme psychological pressure,” including solitary confinement for part of the time. Under those circumstances, she said she confessed to being a spy, but later recanted. “I lied a lot in the confession,” she said.
As for her future, Saberi, who was released May 11, said she would like to introduce Iran to outsiders. “There are different people, different groups and this is the beauty of Iran,” said Saberi, whose father is Iranian-born.
After working in Iran for six years as a journalist, including providing stories to VOA, Saberi had hoped to write a book about the country, depicting its rich history and society. “I realized what a beautiful culture, what hospitable and kind people Iranians are.” She added: “I would definitely love to return to Iran someday.”
Saberi’s 20-minute interview, conducted by well-known PNN anchor Setareh Derakhshesh, aired on the network’s flagship news program, News and Views, seen in Iran at 9 p.m.
VOA’s PNN has the largest combined radio and television audience of all international broadcasters in Iran, with one in four adult Iranians tuning in to a VOA show at least once a week. VOA’s PNN broadcasts seven hours of television daily, repeated in a 24-hour format, and five hours of radio. Broadcasts are available on demand at www.VOAPNN.com.
1 June 2009
Quantel announced the general release of Marco V4 software, which adds useful new features and capabilities to its field editing companion for Quantels Enterprise sQ integrated news production systems. Marco V4 is already in use with broadcasters in Europe and Asia, who have welcomed its enhanced capabilities.
Marco has brought the same easy-to-use editing interface utilized on thousands of Quantel news editors to journalists and editors in the field. Designed to run on standard laptops, Marco allows journalists and editors to be just as productive on the road as they are at base. This has made it an enormous success with broadcasters around the world
Marco V4 adds useful new features and capabilities that make the whole job even faster and more creative:
Essence driver support for P2 and XDCAM
Mixed format, mixed resolution timeline
Version 4 UI with Multi Layer Timeline
One-shot video fix-it tools
Integration with store-and forward software
Marco is the ideal non-linear editing partner for todays non-linear camcorders, said Quantel Broadcast Marketing Manager, Trevor Francis. What makes Marco even more attractive to broadcasters is that it also enables journalists and editors to take all their skills out into the field and produce high quality edited packages without the need to learn a different editing interface.
