1 March 2011
Alhurra Televisions broadcasts of
the historic events in Libya have been jammed on the Nilesat satellite
system since Feb. 23. The Nilesat system, one of the most popular
satellite systems in the region, also carries Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.
The radio signals on Nilesat of Radio Sawa (in Arabic), Radio Farda (in
Persian), Radio Free Iraq (in Arabic) and Voice of America (in Kurdish)
have also faced intermittent interference in Nilesat.
The right to freedom of information is universal and essential amidst the tumultuous events in the region, said Walter Isaacson, chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees all U.S.
international broadcasting including Alhurra TV, VOA and RFE. Efforts,
including satellite jamming, to prevent people in the Middle East and
North Africa from getting much-needed accurate news and information are
abhorrent.”
Al Jazeera and Deutsche Welle have reported similar deliberate, harmful
interferences with satellite transmissions.
The jamming of the satellite system comes at the height of U.S.
international broadcastings extensive coverage of the uprising and
violence in Libya. Alhurra has provided live, continuous coverage since protests began Feb. 16. Surge broadcasting has included first person
accounts from Tripoli, Benghazi, Tubruk and Misratah. Alhurra is also
soliciting feedback from viewers in Libya and asking them to call in and
report what they are witnessing, as well as sending video and still
images through Facebook and YouTube. Alhurras correspondents in
Benghazi are interviewing protesters who say they are demonstrating
because they want Libya to be a free country and their children to live
in a democracy. Alhurra is also providing viewers with the American
perspective through talk shows and analysis from American experts on
Libya and the Middle East.
The coverage of Libya follows Alhurras in-depth reporting from Egypt, where surveys showed that 25 percent of Egyptian adults were tuning into Alhurra for the latest news on the demonstrations in Tahrir Square and across Egypt.
Intermittent but sustained interference to Alhurra Television meant viewers first lost images and then their screens went black between Feb. 23 and 27. Radio channels continued to be jammed on Nilesat as of Feb.28. Jamming this month has also affected TV and radio broadcasts to Iran for VOAs Persian News Network and Radio Farda.
28 February 2011
Thirteen broadcasters from around the world have indicated interest joining Eurovision TV Lab, including Japan’s NHK, Korea’s KBS, Germany’s ZDF and Britain’s BBC. The project is part of the Eurovision TV Lab Week in September.
The Eurovision TV Lab is a showcase for new innovative programme formats created by public broadcaster NPO/Nederland 3 where it has already been run successfully twice. The EBU supports the new initiative to extend the project to the rest of the world.
Roek Lips, NPOs channel manager and creator of the TV Lab in the Netherlands, says, This first-of-its-kind project will link younger audiences to new public service television formats. He adds, Broadcasters have opened themselves up to innovation and that is a brave thing to do.
Public broadcasters joining the Eurovision TV Lab will contribute at least one pilot programme to a pool, as part of the Eurovision TV Lab Week for one week in September. Whether current events, drama, music or chat, all these shows will be broadcast on TV for the very first time to see whether the new programmes are a hit or not. Each broadcaster will use the same technology to involve the viewers. Social media tools and applications will measure how the pilots work with the audience.
28 February 2011
RRsat Global Communications Network Ltd., a leading provider of comprehensive content management and global distribution services to the television and radio broadcasting industries, announced today that it is providing uplink, playout and connectivity services for fashiontv H3, the 3D programming on the Fashion TV Paris High Definition channel.
Beginning February 18, 2011, for the duration of one week, fashiontv H3D began daily 3D broadcasts between 2pm and 11pm (local Paris, New York and Hong Kong time) in 10 minute programs, in order to collect feedback from viewers and operators. As a result of the positive feedback, FTV has doubled the shows broadcast as part of the FTV HD programming played out and distributed by RRsat on its DTH platforms on the Intelsat-805 satellite over North, Central and South America, on the EUROBIRD-9A satellite to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and on the Asiasat-5 satellite to Asia and Australia.
Michel Adam, President and CEO of Fashion TV said, “FTV is among the pioneers in delivering high quality 3D programming over DTH networks. Based on the feedback we are receiving from our viewers we expect to launch fashiontv H3D, a 24-hour 3D channel over DTH, during the summer of 2011 to a myriad of satellite, cable, IP and mobile platforms all over the world. Fashion never looked better and we appreciate RRsats ability to get us launched with quality programming, meeting a very tight schedule.
We are proud to be responsible for the technological side of launching fashiontv H3D on RRsats Intelsat-805, EUROBIRD-9A and Asiasat-5 DTH platforms, commented Ziv Mor, CTO and VP Business Development of RRsat. Following RRsats delivery over terrestrial fiber of a live 3D interactive event between Tel Aviv and London together with BT, and our subsequent real-time delivery by satellite of 3D sports events over Europe, this effort is another testament to our ability to play out and deliver 3D content in multiple languages, over multiple satellites integrated within an HD platform. We look forward to broadcasting our first 24 hour 3D channel in 2011.
28 February 2011
The Associated Press has announced the latest new ENPS signing in South Asia, further strengthening its position in the region.
Somoy TV will join the nearly 800 newsrooms across the globe already using APs Essential News Production System to create, manage and deliver their video news content. The Somoy deal will see the installation of ENPS to manage the broadcast content of the new and soon to launch 24-hour TV news channel based in Bangladesh.
The new signing brings ENPSs South Asian client list up to nearly 20 news broadcasters operating across the region. Somoy joins an impressive client list of leading broadcasters including Indias Doordarshan one of the largest terrestrial broadcasters in the world and Delhi-based Sahara TV.
South Asia is seeing a rapidly growing broadcast market with many new channels emerging every year, says Keisuke Kayaba, Middle East, Asia & Southern Africa Sales Manager for ENPS. Our customers in the region are ambitious and dynamic and technically very forward-looking. We aim to meet their ever-growing needs and exceed them by providing an ENPS solution which meets all of their technical requirements whilst at the same time providing ease of use for both journalists and system administrators.
A number of Somoys technical management team are formerly of Desh TV in Dhaka – an ENPS customer for two years – where they gained first-hand experience of ENPSs easy-to-use functionality and the flexibility ENPS gives them to choose their server, automation and graphics systems.
In the Somoy newsroom, ENPS will run alongside a Quantel Enterprise sQ server with Quantel sQ view, cut & edit fx editors and Apple FCP for craft editing. News automation will be provided by OmniBus Columbus, and the graphics system will be by VizRT, with prompting by Autoscript.
ENPS works alongside Shaf who have an impressive 10 year track record of selling, installing, training and supporting ENPS in more than 25 newsrooms in India. Shaf have recently started to widen their interests to cover territories outside India, and Somoy TV is the first ENPS project they have won in Bangladesh.
At BES in Delhi, ENPS will be showcasing the latest version of ENPS, which features full NRCS integration with both YouTube and Twitter, reflecting the increasing importance and influence of user generated content in the news landscape – particularly for 24 hour channels such as Somoy TV which feature a lot of rolling news coverage. Customers who enable these features can now see their chosen Twitter feeds come into ENPS in real time and view them as they would view their standard agency wires. Users can also tweet directly from ENPS. The YouTube integration allows users to search for video in YouTube directly from ENPS and drag links into ENPS scripts. They will also be showing the ENPS mobile suite on iPad and a smartphone version.
28 February 2011
The Iranian Cyber Army has taken credit for a cyber attack on the Voice of America, according to reports by Iranian state media outlets Press TV and Fars News Service. VOA suffered a web Domain Name System (DNS) attack, while VOAs Persian News Network (PNN) and RFE Radio Farda programs have faced increased satellite signal interference, and RFE faced a denial of service attack on its telephone systems in an effort to keep Iranians from contacting Radio Farda.
As popular protests unfold across the Middle East and audiences for U.S. international broadcasting surge, efforts to interfere with the networks have increased. Our broadcasters are at the forefront of reporting the most tumultuous events we have seen unfold since 1989, said Walter Isaacson, chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which oversees all U.S. international broadcasting including the Alhurra TV, VOA and RFE. It is a testament to their vital role that they are subject to the work of hackers and signal interference.
On Monday, February 21, an unknown party hacked the Voice of Americas primary domain name (VOANews.com), and other related domains, redirecting visitors to a website claiming to be run by a group called the Iranian Cyber Army. Yesterday, Irans Press TV reported a statement by Ali Saeedi Shahroodi, an official with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claiming, The hacking of a VOA homepage by the Iranian Cyber Army
shows the power and capability of the Corps (IRGC) in the cyber arena. Irans semi-official Fars News Agency also credited the Iranian Cyber Army, in a February 22 report, explaining that the attack was in response to VOAs reporting on events in Iran.
The attack did not affect internal systems or servers, nor was any data lost or compromised. The BBG is working with appropriate authorities to investigate further. There’s a saying that a hit dog hollers – that can be applied to whoever tried to cut off access to VOA News by attacking the domain provider on Monday. The fact that the sites were redirected to the Iranian Cyber Army certainly raises an eyebrow or two, said Dana Perino, a member of the BBG. Technology is chipping away at the stranglehold on free and fair information inside Iran. VOA and RFE are strongly committed to providing the news at it happens in a variety of ways so that every Iranian that can get access to the free media can benefit from our journalists’ reporting.
Last week RFEs Radio Farda faced a variation of a denial of service attack on its phone lines with a flood of automated calls aiming to clog its answering machines. Calls played just over one minute of a looped recording of speeches and sermons in Persian before hanging up.
Since February 13, there has been intermittent but frequent interference of VOA PNN and Radio Farda satellite signals with programming in Persian for audiences in Iran.
As of the morning of February 21, there has been a continuous service interruption on one satellite channel carrying VOAs PNN. PNN is carried on three other satellite paths as well as online, including its popular TV satire, Parazit. Millions of the shows fans use proxy servers to access the program through social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. Similarly, Radio Farda’s website has seen an approximate 50 percent increase in web traffic over the past two weeks.
28 February 2011
The Association for International Broadcasting, the industry association for international TV, radio, mobile and online broadcasting, has expressed its concern at the continuing disruption to transmissions of a number of its members.
Deliberate, harmful Interference has been noted to the satellite transmissions of Alhurra, Al Jazeera and Deutsche Welle since unrest began in a number of North African and Middle Eastern countries. It is believed that much of the current jamming originates from the Tripoli area of Libya where the Gaddafi regime continues to control much broadcasting, intelligence and communications infrastructure.
“Deliberate, harmful interference – or jamming – has been something that international broadcasters have had to contend with for decades,” says Simon Spanswick, AIB CEO. “Today, the jamming signals are being used against satellite TV services from a range of broadcasters serving audiences in the North Africa and Middle East regions. This restricts access to free and unbiased news and information by people who are desperately in need of this. AIB condemns the interference and calls on any agency involved in jamming satellite signals to desist immediately.”
International broadcasters such as Alhurra and Al Jazeera have established additional satellite feeds to ensure continued access to news and current affairs programming across the region:
Alhurra, which has suffered interference to its Nilesat TV channel, has opened a new frequency on Nilesat 7o West on downlink frequency 11.296 MHz, horizontal polarisation, FEC 5/6 and symbol rate 27500.
Al Jazeera English can be seen on Nilesat 7o West on downlink frequency 12015, vertical polarisation, FEC 5/6, symbol rate 27500.
Al Jazeera Channel can be seen on Nilesat 7o West on downlink frequency 11555, vertical polarisation, FEC 3/4, symbol rate 27500.
Jamming has also affected broadcasts to Iran. Deutsche Welle and Voice of America have suffered extensive jamming of satellite programming during February as popular uprisings developed. It is presumed that Iranian authorities are seeking to prevent news of the revolts from international media reaching the country’s citizens.
“AIB will continue to monitor the situation and assist its members to counteract the attempts to block their programmes,” continues Spanswick. “The attempts to silence news broadcasters demonstrate very clearly the impact that international broadcasters have and the fear felt by dictators when uncensored news is available to their citizens.”
