5 May 2005
An offer of free radios was too good for members of The Kings Royal Hussars to turn down recently. With deployment to Iraq imminent, the unit were keen to be able to keep in touch with home via British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) radio.
WO2 John Donald and Sgt Paul Russell, accompanied by Cpl Geary and Trooper Ford, made the trip from their base at Tidworth to BFBS radios headquarters in South Bucks to collect the 35 freebie radios.
BFBS radio is part of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC) who manage the Operational Welfare Fund. The fund was set up to benefit Forces personnel who are often working in isolated and arduous conditions and whose recreational needs are sometimes not eligible for public funding, which is where the radios come in.
SSVC Managing Director, David Crwys-Williams said, The Fund gifts over a quarter of a million pounds every year to improve the lives of our Armed Forces on operational deployments around the world. We are delighted that through this donation there will be many who will benefit by keeping that vital link with home.
Details of how to apply for an SSVC OWF grant can be found at www.ssvc.com
5 May 2005
SES ASTRA has published the latest results of its Satellite Monitors. The ASTRA Satellite Monitors, undertaken by leading research institutes in Europe on a yearly basis, are considered an industry benchmark due to their high quality information and key data on the European DTH markets.
The latest polls confirm ASTRA’s sustained audience growth within its footprint in 34 countries. By the start of 2005, the number of homes served by audiovisual broadcast and broadband services via the ASTRA Satellite System at the orbital positions of 19.2º and 28.2º East reached 102.7 million. This represents an increase of 8.3 million households or 8.8 %
Within the 30 traditional countries yearly surveyed by SES, the number of ASTRA homes increased by 3.6 million, pushing total ASTRA coverage in satellite and cable to 98.0 million homes. Furthermore, SES ASTRA measured for the first time ASTRA reception in Bosnia (520,000), Serbia (840,000), Morocco (2.78 million) and Tunisia (580,000). The surveys reveal that ASTRA is delivering services to an additional 4.8 million homes in these countries.
The research furthermore confirms the status of ASTRA as the leading satellite system for direct-to-home reception (DTH) in Europe. By the beginning of 2005, more than 41 million households in Europe and North Africa received ASTRA services directly via satellite, up from 36.4 million in 2003¹. Another 61.3 million homes receive ASTRA content via cable.
The study illustrates the success of both ASTRA direct-to-home platforms at 19.2° East and at 28.2° East: the DTH audience receiving via ASTRA at 19.2° East increased by 4.6 million (+16%) to 33.7 million homes. The ASTRA satellites at 28.2° East reached 7.6 million homes (representing an increase of 0.4 million or +5% compared to last year) – predominantly in the UK & Ireland.
France, Germany, Poland, Spain and the UK remained the traditional key markets for ASTRA satellite reception. ASTRA’s overall audience growth is driven by the ongoing increase of digital direct-to-home (DTH) reception across most European countries. At the beginning of 2005, 24 million homes received digital services via ASTRA at 19.2° or 28.2° East, up from 17.7 million at year-end 2003¹
ASTRA has consolidated its strong position in the digital marketplace in a very competitive environment. Three out four digital satellite homes within the ASTRA footprints receive services carried by ASTRA. As a consequence, digital reception now accounts for 58% of ASTRA’s total DTH reception, up from 49% in 2003¹
Last but not least, ASTRA is received by 17.3 million exclusively analogue satellite homes. 70% of these homes (more than 12 million) are located in the German-speaking countries with a strong analogue channel line-up.
5 May 2005
You can register for the AIB Global Media Business Conference in three easy ways:
online
by phone
by fax
To register online,
click here
To register by phone, call +44 (0) 20 8297 3993
To register by fax,
download
the Registration Form in PDF format, print it and fax to +44 (0) 20 8297 0343
There is no UK VAT or Canadian GST levied on delegate fees.
5 May 2005
AIB
chief executive Simon Spanswick is to chair the first day of the Digital Radio
Show in London on 1 June.
The two day conference will examine the state of digital radio markets around
the world and the different systems that have been developed from DAB to DRM to
HD Radio, as well as looking at the opportunities for interactivity and enhanced
data services.
Spanswick, who has been involved in digital radio since the early 1990s, will
lead speakers from across the industry, including AIB members such as RadioScape
and Deutsche Welle and other organisations including Microsoft, RTL Group,
iBiquity and the EBU.
Full information the conference is available online by following the link
5 May 2005
At the 3rd International Radio Meeting in Mexico City (4-6 May), organised by Radio Netherlands with Mexican partners, Director-General Jan Hoek set out in a speech how he sees the role of the European public broadcasters.
Here are extracts from his speech:
“Our public media is under increasing pressure from commercial competitors. Some large commercial radio and TV networks feel there is no-longer a place for public-financed media. Their lawyers and lobbyists believe that public broadcasting should be marginalized so that it only serves an elite.
I disagree. Commercial broadcasting is primarily interested in the consumer, and only those consumers that have purchasing power. Public broadcasting, if it is doing its job, should be to the benefit of the citizen.
It is the job of public media, and Radio Netherlands in particular, to help citizens to understand our complex world. We think there are aspects of life in Europe, which are of interest to people all over Latin America. But we also believe that many of the issues that you are currently facing with integration, national identity and freedom of speech are very relevant to Europeans.
We have a long way to go. Most Europeans know more about the daily life of movie stars in Hollywood than they do about the culture of neighbouring countries. Yet, we can also see that communities that become isolated from the outside world and society very quickly radicalize. These days, radicalization is quickly linked to extremism, terror and intolerance. There are too many recent examples in Europe and Latin America where people, many of whom are from the media, have given their lives because they said what they believed.
In Europe, we live with several paradoxes. We have become global witnesses and voyeurs to politics, everyday life, disasters and catastrophes. But we do not have an adequate European forum, in which this new European experience can be debated in a proper democratic way.
There is still a huge and growing imbalance in the information flow between North & South, and especially East and West. It is too easy to get lost in a sea of sound bites and uncut press conferences. There may be content, but there is little discussion of context. Again, television, but particularly radio has an important role to stimulate sensible debate, especially when the interests of the citizen do not run parallel with commercial interests. No country has prospered where the media is smothered by the government or filtered by purely commercial interests.
At Radio Netherlands, we spend a lot of time and effort following the emerging democracies in Latin America. Even a small country can act as a catalyst for a discussion; putting issues on the table that larger countries either deliberately ignore or dont think have mass appeal.
We must recognise that media has a social responsibility, as well as being there to please our stock-holders or stake-holders. All of us here in this room have an enormous power to influence public opinion. And we must use it to search for balance, being critical when things go wrong, but also constructive to show that there are alternatives to a spiralling circle of poverty, misery, disease and maybe war.
It is very easy to be destructive. No-one can guarantee the world will be a better place. But through dialogue we can and should make the best effort to try.”
5 May 2005
From 1 May Deutsche Welle has a second rebroadcasting partner in Iraq: Radio Alnas is rebroadcasting parts of the Arabic programme of DW-RADIO.
Four hours of DW programming daily is being rebroadcast in the evening, on MW 594 KHz which can be received nationwide. From June 2005 these programmes will also be on FM in Baghdad and in surrounding areas. Radio Alnas takes the DW signal via the Nilesat satellite.
DWs first rebroadcasting partner in Iraq was Radio Schatt Al-Arab in Basra.
