25 September 2009
As reported on the ABU web site:
After years of debate, Hong Kong has decided that public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) will remain a government department, Channel NewsAsia reports.
RTHK will also be given extra funds to set up its own TV channels, provide digital radio broadcasts and hire more staff.
There had been calls for RTHK to be corporatised, to make it a leaner and more cost-efficient body. Since the debate began three years ago, nearly half of the station’s staff have been on put on short-term contract terms.
Franklin Wong, Director of Broadcasting, said now that the uncertainty had been removed, RTHK will be recruiting people and collaborating with broadcasters overseas, on the mainland and local talents.”
The hiring freeze on the station has been lifted, and contract staff can re-apply for permanent positions at RTHK.
In addition, the government will create an advisory body for the station, and draw up a charter to govern its operations.
25 September 2009
From the GSMA Mobile Business Briefing:
Vodafone has officially announced details of its new Internet services initiative, ‘Vodafone 360,’ the UK-based operator’s answer to rival services such as Apple’s App Store and Nokia’s Ovi. Vodafone 360 aims to gather all of a customer’s friends, communities, entertainment and personal favorites (like music, games, photos and video) in one place.
Central to the service is a connected address book – known as ‘Vodafone People’ – which automatically synchs all contacts from a customer’s phone, social networks (such as Facebook) and other Internet messaging services such as Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk.
A catalogue of 1,000 applications is available at launch downloadable through the Vodafone Shop. The service is automatically backed-up and synchronised between the mobile and a PC or Mac. “Vodafone 360 is the first service of its kind to offer customers the benefits of a truly integrated mobile Internet experience that gathers all their contacts and content, all around them, in one place,” said Pieter Knook, director of Internet Services at Vodafone.
In a statement, Vodafone said that “the full Vodafone 360 experience” will be available initially on two specially-built handsets designed by Samsung. The proprietary User Interface on Vodafone 360 mobiles is based on the Linux-based LiMo platform. Vodafone added that a further four Nokia Symbian smartphones will come pre-loaded with Vodafone 360 at launch and that part or all of the service will be downloadable to over one hundred popular phones. Vodafone 360 will be rolled-out in eight of Vodafone’s European markets this year (Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK). Further launches penciled in for 2010 include India, Turkey, South Africa, New Zealand, Romania, France (via SFR), Russia (via MTS) and Australia (via Vodafone Hutchison Australia).
18 September 2009
The BBC Trust today announced a series of changes to the governance arrangements for BBC Worldwide. As part of its review of the BBCs commercial activities the Trust has agreed a revised governance framework within which the BBC must operate its commercial activities.
These changes are designed to strengthen the oversight of the BBCs commercial operation and ensure even greater clarity and confidence in the separation of the BBCs public service and commercial activities.
Among the changes agreed are: – the BBC Worldwide Board, which is a subsidiary board of the BBCs Executive Board, will become smaller and more focussed on the delivery of a rolling three year commercial strategy agreed by the Trust; – the new chairman of the BBC Worldwide board must be a non-executive director from the BBCs Executive Board thereby strengthening the link between the two boards and the role of the BBCs public service arm as the shareholder in the company; – there will be changes to the membership of both the BBCs Executive Board and the Worldwide Board in order to reduce the potential for conflicts of interest. Specifically, the Chief Executive Officer of BBC Worldwide will no longer be a member of the BBCs Executive Board and staff from BBC Vision (who produce most of the BBC content subsequently sold by Worldwide) will not be eligible to be members of the Worldwide Board. This will result in Jana Bennett stepping down from the BBC Worldwide Board.
These changes will bring the business further in line with the Combined Code on Corporate Governance. The Trust has also stipulated that it expects BBC Worldwide to operate as far as possible within the principles set by the Code, and any deviation from it needs to be agreed by the BBC Trust.
This new governance framework for BBC Worldwide, proposed by the Executive Board, will be stipulated in the Trusts protocols. The BBCs Executive Board, led by Director-General Mark Thompson, will be responsible for ensuring compliance with it. The changes will come into effect from 1 October 2009.
In addition to the above changes, the Trust has decided that the financial threshold for referral of transactions for Trust approval should be lowered from £50m to £30m and the Trust will retain the ability to scrutinise any activity that it believes is not consistent with the strategy it has agreed.
Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust, said:
“The BBC Trust believes that these changes will strengthen the ability of BBC Worldwide to deliver value to licence fee payers through the return it makes on content owned and paid for by licence fee payers. The changes also respond to concerns raised by commercial competitors and others.
“These changes build on the principles set out in the interim conclusions of the Trusts commercial review, in which we set out our vision for a focussed BBC Worldwide that is more closely aligned with the BBCs public purposes. There will be no delay in progressing that objective although we must await the outcome of Governments Digital Britain review.
“Mark Thompson is right to say that in the longer term the BBC will look at whether Worldwide needs to be 100 per cent owned by the Corporation. However, the Trust wont contemplate any loss of direct control over BBC rights created as result of investment from the licence fee payer.”
The appointment of a new Chairman of the BBC Worldwide Board will be for the BBCs Executive Board to make; the current Chairmans term ends on 30 September.
This concludes the governance aspects of the Trusts review. The Trust aims to report on the remaining elements of the review following clarification of the outcome of the Digital Britain consultations.
18 September 2009
EJC Media News reports:
European journalists are producing an increasing amount of original content for online-only publications – but teach themselves the digital skills to produce it, a new survey has suggested. PR agency network Oriella PR Network, polled 354 journalists from national, trade, regional and broadcast media from Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Sweden and the UK, for the 2009 European Digital Journalism Survey, and results suggested a significant rise in the amount of original content being produced for online from 2008.
According to the survey, 43 per cent of those polled said at least 60 per cent of the material produced for online is original content. But 67 per cent of respondents said they had taught themselves digital skills, such as video editing and formatting for online. Only one in nine per cent of participants said they had received presenting to video training, for example.
Blogging was now part of the day job for 46 per cent of respondents, while 47 per cent said they were required to produce online video clips.
This year’s research also explored the impact of Twitter on European journalists. More than a third of European publications have Twitter channels, with the UK and Netherlands being the earliest adopters. (Journalism.co.uk)
18 September 2009
At IBC 2009, Quantel demonstrated complete integration of Apples Final Cut Pro into the Quantel sQ server News and Sports production environment. Final Cut Pro on Quantel is shipping now.
A new Quantel Final Cut Pro Gateway enables Final Cut Pro to be totally integrated into the sQ workflow in the same way as Quantels own editors. All the usual Quantel workflow benefits and speed to playout are available but now with Final Cut Pro there are no compromises.
Workflow advantages of the Quantel Final Cut Pro integration are:
Ability to edit expanding clips on Final Cut Pro editing of clips that are still being recorded
Finished edits are published instantly edits can be played out the second they are finished
Delta publishing – only new frames created on Final Cut Pro are moved to the sQ server; a big time-saver
Final Cut Pro can finish projects started on the journalist desktop with Quantel Low Bit Rate editors
Automatic protection against deleting the frames used in FCP edits when rushes are deleted
Our customers told us they wanted to enjoy the speed and flexibility of our sQ broadcast workflow and to tap into the large talent pool of Final Cut Pro editors, said Steve Owen, Quantel Director of Marketing. The FCP Gateway lets them do just that its the same great workflow but now with Final Cut Pro. Judging from the reactions of broadcasters that have previewed this development in our labs, we have met their need in full.
18 September 2009
euronews, the international multilingual news channel, has announced two new agreements in Indonesia with Indovision and Okevision for broadcasting the English version of euronews on DTH satellite platforms. These agreements will allow euronews to reach an additional half million households in Indonesia.
euronews is available since July 2009 on the Indovision satellite bouquet. Indovision, a brand of PT MNC Sky Vision, is the leading Indonesian operator for direct-to-home (DTH) satellite distribution. On the Indovision bouquet, euronews can be seen on channel number 334.
euronews is also available on Okevision since August 2009, a satellite bouquet belonging to PT Nusantara Vision. On Okevision, euronews is available on channel number 155.
In Asia, euronews is already distributed in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam, reaching more than four million homes in the region.
