16 June 2005
The Radio Netherlands television report Drug Trafficking has won the CNN World Report Award in the category Best Personal Profile. The item was broadcast worldwide in CNN’s World Report in July of last year. The Prize was awarded to Pieter Landman (Head TV) during the CNN’s 25th anniversary celebrations of at the news channel’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. The other nominees were Venezuela’s Venevision TV and Switzerland’s ILO TV.
The item was made by reporter Annette Posthumus and tells the story of Dutch cab driver Pedro Ruijzing (46) who was arrested in Thailand on drug trafficking charges ten years ago. He was pardoned by the Thai government on the occasion of Queen Beatrix’s visit to the country in 2004. He now educates schoolchildren about the dangers of smuggling drugs.
Radio Netherlands Television (RNTV) has been the Dutch contributor to CNN’s World Report since 1990. More than one hundred countries make regular contributions to World Report which is broadcast worldwide by CNN on a daily basis.
16 June 2005
Harris Corporation has announced the promotion of Cheng Fan to the new position of director, international channel development for the Broadcast Communications Division (BCD).
“This position is an important part of Harris Broadcast’s initiative to increase international business growth through a world-class distribution channel,” said Debra Huttenburg, vice president/general manager of BCD’s Radio Broadcast Systems business unit and head of international sales. “Cheng has the experience and the expertise Harris needs to broaden its worldwide presence in broadcast applications and software solutions. Among other things, he will spearhead programs that increase assistance to Harris’ regional sales organizations and support growth plans for every BCD product line.”
16 June 2005
Autocue has announced that it has sold its business in the UK and US, including QTV, to Root Capital, a London-based venture capital firm specialising in the technology sector.
Simon Philips, partner of Root Capital and Autocue’s new chairman, says about their investment: “We are delighted to be investing in Autocue’s future and are excited about the prospects for the business. The leading-edge technology, combined with a strong brand and customer base all provide an excellent platform for growth.”
Autocue’s strategy going forward will be to provide leading products and excellent service to its customers, and to grow through increased geographic coverage around the world.
Autocue has been serving the broadcast industry since the mid-1950s when Autocue in London and QTV in New York produced and patented the very first prompters. The two companies merged in 1984 and, with the introduction of the QSeries family of software, Autocue became the only company to offer the television industry a single solution for all transmission, newsroom, scripting and prompting requirements and unlike its competitors is the only company to work directly with its customers to optimise newsroom workflow. In the United States, QTV is part of the Autocue group and forms the US division of Autocue’s prompting services. Autocue is known worldwide for its service and dependability, serving such prestigious clients as Bloomberg, the BBC and MTV Europe. Autocue’s prompting solutions are compatible with all newsroom systems on the market and are used all over the world by broadcasters, production professionals, government facilities and corporate producers requiring excellence in prompting and newsroom automation solutions. For further information, please visit
16 June 2005
RadioScape, the world leader in Software Defined Digital Radio solutions, has launched the RadioScape RS500 module that can receive DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) as well as DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast), FM with RDS, LW, MW and SW to form the basis of the worlds first affordable, integrated, multi-standard, digital radio receivers. The RS500 is based on RadioScapes innovative radiOS architecture, enabling re-use of existing applications and features previously developed for the RS300L DAB/FM module. Many of the innovative features available on the RS300L have been directly implemented on this module, accelerating time to market for a fully featured receiver design. The RS500, for example, immediately supports capabilities such as the highly popular Pause, Rewind and Record to MMC card features as well as the ability to display and use Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) data.
Because we create our modules using radiOS — our own advanced Software Defined radio architecture, explained Andrew Moloney, Marketing Manager for Receivers at RadioScape, it has been possible for us to add DRM in an affordable and user friendly form to our existing range of receiver capabilities. The RS500 is size and pin compatible with our very successful RS300L enabling radio manufacturers to migrate existing designs to the RS500, rapidly bringing to market ranges of receivers, which include DRM-capable designs, in time to catch the pre Christmas 2005 sales.
The RS500 is based on the Texas Instruments TMS320DRM350 digital signal processor-based (DSP) baseband, the first integrated digital baseband that supports both DRM and DAB standards, for which RadioScape designed the DRM baseband stack. The radiOS architecture, which is only available on RadioScape modules, extends the DSPs basic capabilities, and seamlessly manages uploads of the appropriate RadioScape software stack and/or applications to change functionality to suit the requirements of the moment. This significantly improves the user experience, masking transitions between different broadcast standards by automatically listing all services alphabetically regardless of transmission type so that users select by content and avoiding the need for manual band switching.
Modules will be sampling in August of 2005, with volume production following shortly thereafter. RadioScape forecasts that multi-standard, multi-band receivers based on the RS500 could have end user prices below $250 — almost a quarter the price of existing DRM receivers in the market.
This is the breakthrough that DRM has been waiting for, said Peter Senger, DRM Chairman and Deutsche Welle COO. Until now there have only been a limited number of DRM receivers available. This new module from RadioScape will open up the market with easy to use, consumer priced, multi-standard receivers in the same way that the company helped open up the DAB market. The broadcasts are already in place with dozens of broadcasters currently transmitting around the world. WorldDAB and DRM have been co-operating for sometime, added Annika Nyberg, President of WorldDAB. There are synergies between DAB and DRM business models. These synergies will provide an added boost in many countries as multi-standard digital radios bought for DRM will also receive DAB providing broadcasters with large potential audiences.
16 June 2005
VT Communications (VTC), part of VT Group plc is providing a ground breaking AM broadcast pilot service using the Digital Radio MondialeTM (DRMTM) system. Several UK commercial broadcasters are participating, including Virgin Radio, Asian Sound Radio, Classic Gold Digital, Premier Christian Radio and CVC.
The commercial trial, which runs for two months, is the first of its kind targeting the UK. It allows commercial broadcasters to assess the benefits of the exciting new digital AM technology, including real time text and data based information services, in addition to demonstrating the superb quality of reception that is now available on the AM bands.
The programming is being broadcast from transmission facilities in Western Europe reaching the whole of the UK as well as North West Continental Europe, demonstrating the exceptional coverage offered by the AM (SW, MW & LW) DRM technology platform which enables broadcasters to reach mass audiences cost effectively from one single transmitter.
VT Communications owns and operates three DRM capable transmitters in the UK. Following successful service trials in 2004, these transmitters already carry programming for several international broadcasters into Europe.
VT Communications will be demonstrating these UK trials at the Digital Radio Show in London from 1-2 June 2005, providing conference delegates with the opportunity to listen to the broadcasts and expose them to the future of AM digital radio. DRM Chairman and Chief Operating Officer at Deutsche Welle, Peter Senger will address the conference in a session titled An Overview of Global DRM Implementations, at 10:30am on 1 June.
Bryan Coombes, General Manager for Broadcast at VT Communications commented: VT Communications is delighted at being able to offer our customers the opportunity to evaluate the benefits of DRM technology on their home territory. This really is an exciting taste of the future of radio, today.
Virgin Radio’s Development Director Jason Bryant said: “Virgin Radio is committed to making its programme services available on a wide variety of platforms. We believe that DRM is an exciting, and potentially wide appeal new platform and have been impressed with the technology on this trial”.
John Baish, Managing Director at Classic Gold Digital commented: Were all excited by the opportunities that DRM will create, and this trial has given us a lot of encouragement about the potential of the platform. This is a groundbreaking initiative, and VT Communications have worked with great professionalism on the trial.
Asian Sound Radio’s Shujat Ali, Managing Director commented: “We see DRM and other digital radio platforms as an excellent means for covering the ethnic and Asian community niche markets, enabling us to stay at the forefront of this key market area.”
16 June 2005
Reuters Television, the worldwide news service, has agreed to a multi-year contract renewal with Teletrax, the first and only global digital video monitoring and media asset management service. Teletrax is a subsidiary of Medialink Worldwide Incorporated, global leader in providing media services to corporations and organizations seeking to communicate their news to the public.
“Since Teletrax’s technology was originally tested and adopted by Reuters in 2002, it has enabled us to track actual usage of our news video by our subscribers with unprecedented accuracy and precision,” said Tony Donovan, managing director of Reuters Television. “We have already seen the real benefits that can result from our knowing which news stories are heavily or little used by broadcasters. Teletrax’s near real-time reporting capability has helped Reuters to deliver a better service with resultant benefits to us and to our subscribers. There is no question that we are keen to continue exploring new applications for the business intelligence Teletrax so uniquely delivers.”
“Soon after Teletrax’s debut three years ago, we were truly gratified to have our service bear the Reuters imprimatur, and now we are even more excited to announce the extension of this valued relationship,” stated Andy Nobbs, managing director of Teletrax. “With strong support from trusted partners like Reuters and our other blue-chip clients, Teletrax has further solidified its reputation as a world-class TV rights management service. We are confident that even more content owners such as major movie studios, TV networks, syndicators, sports programmers, advertisers, and news organizations will soon begin to harness the power of Teletrax as a business management tool for key transactions including contractual compliance, royalty payments, and talent residuals.”
Launched in 2002 as a service developed by a joint venture between Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands and Medialink, Teletrax’s patented technology embeds an imperceptible and indelible digital watermark into video whenever it is edited, transmitted, broadcast or duplicated. A global network of decoders or “detectors,” captures all occurrences of the embedded video being transmitted via satellite, cable or terrestrially and generates tracking reports for the content owners. Reports of individual broadcast airings are delivered online in near real-time to each client’s custom-designed portal or in data file transfers. Each client’s broadcast activity is updated dynamically, 24 hours a day, enabling clients to respond immediately to reported results such as changes in end-user preferences or detections of unauthorized use. Teletrax currently maintains a proprietary network of detectors that monitor the television broadcasts of 1,000 channels worldwide.
