15 August 2003
Radio Australia’s parent body, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, has announced budget cuts of 17m US dollars. The ABC’s managing director, Russell Balding, says the cuts are due to the corporation’s failure to secure additional funding by the Australian government in the last federal budget. The cuts had been forecast some time ago.
In his statement, Mr Balding says the ABC board has approved management proposals for cuts to programmes and non-programme areas. Included is the already announced cut to digital television services. There will be further reduction in television advertising, schools production, live sport and News and Current Affairs budgets in television and radio. It reamins to be seen whether ABC AsiaPacific or Radio Australia will also suffer.
Around 100 positions will be affected, although redundancies will be limited to 20 to 25 jobs, said Russell Balding.
15 August 2003
Radio Korea International, South Korea’s external radio broadcaster, is marking its 50th anniversary by introducing broadcasts via satellite delivered by AIB member World Radio Network.
Broadcasts in English, French, German and Russian from Radio Korea International (part of the Korean Broadcasting System, the country’s public service broadcaster) will be delivered via WRN’s radio networks.
Ms Han Hee-Joo, Executive Director of Radio Korea International said: “Radio Korea International is celebrating its Golden Jubilee and in commemoration of this very special year, RKI is diversifying its platforms for the future by launching satellite audio broadcasting in English, French, German and Russian, via World Radio Network.”
15 August 2003
Sky, the international satellite TV network owned by media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, has launched its predicted new service in Italy. Sky Italia was created from a merger between Stream Television, jointly owned by News Corp and Telecom Italia, and the Telepiu network, which Murdoch’s media empire recently acquired from Vivendi Universal/Canal Plus.
Sky Italia will offer more channels than the previous Stream and Telepiu services combined, as well as a dedicated news channel, Sky TG24. Sky Italia is 80.1 per cent owned by News Corp, with the remaining 19.9 per cent held by Telecom Italia. Murdoch sais in June that he hoped to quickly attract three million Italian customers, and aimed to win over 10 million customers in the long term.
Although News Corp will take a a loss for the creation of Sky Italia, the TV-to-newspapers media giant sees strong growth ahead.
15 August 2003
AIB member VT Merlin Communications has a new Managing Director. Hes Doug Umbers, and his appointment follows the decision of Fiona Lowry not to return after maternity leave. Doug was previously Director of Business Development for the VT Group, and has played an important part in the evolution of VT.
