27 September 2004
Free-to-air broadcasters can help meet the fierce competition from satellite and cable television by relying on the quality of their content and the trust they have built up with viewers over the years, the ABU annual General Assembly in Almaty, Kazakhstan, has heard.
Other ways to maintain their edge include offering their material on a wide range of platforms, providing fast, accurate news and making good use of their archival material, senior broadcasters told the assembly.
The three-day assembly closed today, ending eight days of meetings attended by more than 300 participants from 94 organisations.
In a wide-ranging discussion on the growing challenges facing free-to-air broadcasters, participants noted that young people were showing a strong preference for the Internet over television.
Providing interactive content and making it available on several platforms would help address this issue, the assembly heard. There was widespread agreement that quality programming remained essential in the new media environment.
K S Sarma, the Chief Executive Officer of Indias national broadcasting corporation, Prasar Bharati, described the trust of the audience as a valuable asset.
Other speakers urged free-to-air broadcasters to make full use of new technologies and platforms, using the best possible content, rather than becoming passive players while pay-TV channels seized the initiative.
The ABU President, Katsuji Ebisawa, who is also president of Japans national Broadcaster NHK, said that in the face of increasing competition, the ABU could help minimise the information gap among its members by exchanging information and conducting other joint activities.
On another issue, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced plans for cooperation with the ABU through the establishment of an Asia-Pacific Broadcast Initiative. The two organisations have agreed to explore the feasibility of a competition in the region for broadcasters to produce documentaries on development issues.
27 September 2004
BBC World Service has won the Localisation Research Centre (LRC) 2004 Best Global Website Award for its Your Voice interactive websites. The award recognises the most innovative multilingual and multicultural website on the internet.
The Your Voice websites were launched in Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Persian and Urdu in October 2003 with the objective of making online debates between people in different countries possible throughout the world. The personal voices and topics emerging from these debates have since enriched BBC World Service news content in English and other languages.
LRC director Reinhard Schäler said: “The judging panel was impressed by the clear and user friendly design, respect for native language and success in promoting and creating cross cultural dialogue.”
Myra Hunt, Head of BBC World Service New Media, commented: “It is an honour to receive recognition for the skills and expertise of the Your Voices online team and to be able to play a vital role in bringing different voices across the world together to debate the issues that affect all our lives.”
23 September 2004
WRN, the London-based international transmission and broadcast specialist, has unveiled its new corporate identity with a new name, new brand and a new claim to support its expansion plans into new areas of media activity.
The company, formerly known as World Radio Network, engaged Brandhouse WTS to create its new brand and supporting collateral. Karl Miosga, WRNs Managing Director, explains that the new look underlines WRNs expansion from its roots in radio to other broadcast media: This change allows us to extend the brand across any media platform; TV, Internet, radio or mobile telephony. WRN becomes a brand with multimedia potential.
The brief to Brandhouse WTS was to bring together the many unique services the company provides to broadcasters from around the world under one identity, which in itself could be adapted flexibly as the company enters a sustained period of growth. Mark Wickens, Creative Partner at Brandhouse WTS, explains: At the core of the brand is the idea that WRN brings together and channels different media into a defined, quality offering. The graphic identity tells this story through the depiction of streaming, digital information on a global scale.
Simultaneously WRN is introducing a new brand claim. Transmitting Success, Tim Ayris, WRNs Marketing Manager, says is a positive, forward-looking support message that allows people to fully access the brand and expresses the companys values and aims.
WRN works with a number of top radio and TV brands, distributing their output domestically and international. Clients include FCUK FM, talkSPORT, top French station NRJ, Americas flagship speech station NPR, and VOA TV. In addition, WRN is well known for its own-branded international news and current affairs networks, broadcasting radio programmes from around the world, which are available on market-leading distribution platforms including Sky digital, Frances Canal Satellite, Sirius Satellite Radio in the US, the WorldSpace satellite radio service across Africa and Asia, mobile telephony portal MBN and mp3 download site AudioFeast. The company is actively developing a number of new project offerings including a TV channel.
23 September 2004
According to a note posted on the EBUs website, France’s television channel TF1 has stopped sending news teams to Iraq because of the risk of kidnappings.
“We have decided not to replace the teams going to Baghdad. When our team that is currently over there comes back, we will wait a little before sending another one,” said TF1 news director Robert Namias, speaking on RTL radio on 22 September.
The current team is due back at the end of this week, Namias added.
Two French journalists, Radio France correspondent Christian Chesnot and Le Figaro reporter Georges Malbrunot, and their Syrian driver, Mohammed al-Jundi, were seized south of Baghdad on 20 August.
21 September 2004
ABC Television Network, a unit of The Walt Disney Company, has reached agreement with Teletrax to electronically track the U.S. television airings of its TV show promotions. ABC will use Teletrax to detect and monitor usage of its on-air promotions by ABC broadcasters in the top 100 U.S. markets.
ABC will use Teletrax to monitor television promotions for some of its most popular series including “Alias”, “NYPD Blue” and “The Bachelor.” ABC produces thousands of promotions every year that are featured in news, daytime, primetime, late night, and sports slots, which will now be tracked by Teletrax. In employing Teletrax’s patented technology and monitoring service to track and analyze TV airings of show promotions, ABC joins other high-profile Teletrax clients who have also signed long-term contracts with the video watermarking company to monitor similar content.
“Each day, ABC television programming entertains and informs millions of Americans, making the network’s content eminently valuable,” said Andy Nobbs, managing director of Teletrax. “We are delighted that ABC has selected Teletrax’s unrivaled short-form, promotional spot tracking service to enhance the ROI practices for its properties.”
Teletrax’s technology embeds an imperceptible and indelible digital watermark into video whenever it is edited, broadcast or duplicated. A global network of decoders, or “detectors,” then captures all occurrences of the embedded video being broadcast via satellite, cable or terrestrially and generates tracking reports for the original content owners. Additionally, Teletrax can detect usage with granular precision, down to one second of video, and it is unaffected by conversion from one video format to another, such as transfer from NTSC to PAL, the two most widely used television systems worldwide.
Launched more than two years ago as a service using patented technology developed by a joint venture between Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands and Medialink, Teletrax is the first and only global video watermarking service. With the continuing growth of TV channels worldwide fueling demand for video material, Teletrax services and technology hold vast potential to help content providers such as motion picture studios, TV sports and entertainment program producers and distributors, news organizations and advertisers unlock greater benefits from their video assets. Significant applications of Teletrax include monitoring contractual compliance, auditing residuals, understanding repurposing of long-form and promotional material, and managing copyrighted material.
Since 2002, Teletrax has rapidly expanded its global monitoring network to nearly 50 nations with more than 800 channels currently tracked in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, the Middle East and South America.
20 September 2004
Albanias Head of State Alfred Moisiu awarded his country’s Presidential Medal for “special civilian merit” to the Voice of America’s Albanian Service in an award ceremony in Tirana on 17 September.
VOA “was and continues to be a joint traveler of our history of the last six decades by being the voice of hope and freedom to Albanians,” President Moisiu said as he presented the medal to International Broadcasting Bureau Director Seth Cropsey. Calling VOA broadcasts an “irreplaceable source of information,” the president recalled the period of democratic transition in the early 1990s as “especially unforgettable…when people followed the Voice of America as if it was water in the desert.” President Moisiu also said that VOA continues to enjoy the attention of a large audience thanks to its objective news and airing of independent and balanced views. Director Cropsey accepted the award on behalf of VOA’s Albanian Service, thanking Albania for its continued support of VOA, its allegiance to the United States, and its assistance in the war on terrorism.
VOA Albanian’s popular TV news program Ditari is broadcast daily to audiences throughout the Balkans. VOA also transmits 8 hours a week of news in Albanian via shortwave. Programs are available on the Internet at www.VOAnews.com/Albanian.
