29 May 2003
In a global first this August, the German capital will become a digital-only city for television, when the licensing body MABB switches off the analogue signal completely.
BBC World – an AIB member – the BBC’s 24-hour international news and information channel, is the only foreign TV network to be awarded a digital terrestrial (DVBT) frequency in Berlin.
To date, 25 stations have won licences to broadcast on the new digital spectrum but BBC World will be the only non-German channel to have been granted a frequency.
BBC World has been broadcasting on terrestrial analogue television in Berlin since 1996, when it broke new ground as the first and only overseas station ever to be given such a licence.
Patrick Cross, BBC World Managing Director says: “It is a great honour and a reflection of the quality of BBC World that we are the only news channel to have been granted this highly sought-after digital frequency in Berlin. I am delighted that viewers will continue to have access to our unrivalled, impartial news coverage.”
BBC World Service radio – also an AIB member – broadcasts in Berlin on FM.
28 May 2003
Britain’s Independent newspaper reported 28 May that Jasseem Alli, the chief executive of the Al-Jazeera Arabic television news service, is to return to his post with Qatar television. Qatar TV owns Al-Jazeera.
Mr Alli has spent eight years in the job at al-Jazeera. The report quoted a spokesman as saying that Mr Allis return was unconnected with documents procured by British intelligence services in Baghdad which had appeared to link him with Iraqi intelligence services.
28 May 2003
EuroNews, the pan-European television news channel, has appointed Luis Rivas as Editorial Director.
Luis Rivas, 45, joined EuroNews in 1993 as Chief Editor and in January 2003 he became acting Editorial Director. Luis is an experienced journalist who has held several editorial roles with the Spanish state broadcaster TVE, most notably as correspondent in Moscow and Budapest. Luis has also worked for the Spanish weekly magazine El Tiempo and for the audio-visual department of the Spanish press agency EFE, where he produced news programs for Latin America.
Philippe Cayla, President of EuroNews said: “I’m delighted to see Luis Rivas apppointed as Editorial Director of EuroNews, composed of 160 multilingual journalists working in 7 different languages. Luis has led the channel through its excellent coverage of the Iraq war and seen our European audience more than double.”
Luis Rivas said: “In 10 years of existence, EuroNews is today a major player among news channels in Europe. We intend to reinforce this role and develop it outside the borders of our continent. EuroNews is a unique and fascinating project, because it’s the only information channel offering news from a European, rather than a national, perspective.”
27 May 2003
TVB 8 and TVB Xing He Channel have begun broadcasting on AsiaSat 3S. With AsiaSat 3S, TVBs two 24-hour Mandarin language satellite channels coverage will extend to all cable TV operators and more than 1.2 billions Chinese viewers across the satellites footprint covering over 50 countries and regions in Asia, the Middle East, Australasia and the C.I.S.
TVB 8 and TVB Xing He Channel are operated by Hong Kong-based TVB Satellite Broadcasting Limited (TVBSB), a subsidiary of Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB). TVB 8 carries a diverse mix of entertainment, infotainment and music programmes while TVB Xing He Channel offers a wide selection of top-rated classical and modern dramas.
AsiaSat 3S currently broadcasts over 70 television channels, including those from Arirang TV, Asia Plus, Bloomberg TV, CCTV, Indus Vision, NOW, Pakistan TV, Phoenix Satellite TV, MATV, SABe TV, Sahara TV, STAR, Sun TV, Tech TV, Turner Broadcasting System and ZEE Network.
27 May 2003
With UK culture minister Tessa Jowell claiming that conventional television sets are expected to be redundant by 2010, it may be that the day of digital radio and TV has finally dawned in Britain, with official figures showing that digital TV viewing is on the increase, and that millions of listeners are tuning in to new radio stations, often through their computers and television sets.
Authoritative listening figures clearly show how the renaissance in radio is being fuelled by the growing availability of more than 50 digital stations. Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) radio sets have tumbled in price to 150 US dollars. The growth in satellite and cable subscribers and the expansion of the internet have also provided ways of receiving digital stations.
The BBC World Service will have had a large proportion of digital listeners among its weekly UK reach of 1.36 million. Jenny Abramsky, the BBC’s director of radio and music, said: “[These] figures show that the whole industry goes from strength to strength with more people listening to radio.” She highlighted the success of the BBC’s Asian Network, which has picked up hundreds of thousands of digital listeners.
The rise of digital radio has been hampered by the difficulty in buying DAB sets. Mandy Green, of the Digital Radio Development Bureau, said that such problems were over. “The people making these radios in this country are not Sony and Hitachi. They are small, mostly British, entrepreneurial manufacturers.
27 May 2003
Path 1 Network Technologies has signed a worldwide OEM and reseller agreement with Scientific-Atlanta. Under the agreement, Path 1 will supply Scientific-Atlanta with OEM versions of its new Chameleon VidX product family, which provide key elements required for broadcasters and television service providers to migrate traditional ASI interfaces to IP network solutions. Scientific-Atlanta will also resell Path 1’s Chameleon vidX Cx1000 Video over IP Gateway under the Path 1 brand name. Within the terms of the agreement, Scientific-Atlanta also has OEM and reseller rights to future Path 1 products.
Current products under the agreement include Path 1’s Demultiplexers, Multiplexers and Video over IP Gateways. Since the Chameleon vidX(TM) product family utilizes a software-driven approach many available features and increased capabilities can be delivered via software upgrades.
The features offered by Chameleon vidX include handling up to 1024 streams of Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) VOD content, music and other data which can be multiplexed and de-multiplexed (grouped and un-grouped) for IP transport to existing digital cable set top boxes. Chameleon vidX(TM) allows cable operators to leverage the full benefit of IP transport infrastructure without the need for a forklift upgrade of existing equipment.
Moreover, Path 1’s Chameleon vidX products offer the only economically viable solution currently available that allows Telcos to deliver all TV programming “on demand” over DSL. This capability is particularly important to Telco operators in European and Asia Pacific markets. Unlike the U.S. market, which predominantly utilizes coaxial cable and fiber to deliver television programming and video-on-demand to end users, these areas utilizes an extensive legacy infrastructure of twisted-pair copper which possess limited bandwidth.
