24 October 2014
BBC America, the BBC’s commercial arm, will now be operated by American entertainment company AMC Networks, following a $200m (£125m) deal.
AMC, a company boosted by the tremendous success of its AMC Channel dramas Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, will manage BBC America as a standalone alongside other channels in the AMC Networks portfolio, including IFC, SundanceTV and WE tv. AMC bought a 49.9% stake in the Corporation, while BBC Worldwide will retain 50.1% stake.
The two networks already have drama co-producing experience, with such series as The Honorable Woman.
BBC Worldwide chief executive Tim Davie said AMC “are committed to the kind of high-quality, unmissable content that has already gained BBC America one of the most educated, affluent and tech savvy audiences in all of US television.”
Tony Hall, BBC director general, said the deal would “help us reach new audiences in the US, strengthen BBC America’s position for the long term and create opportunities for the UK creative community”.
2 September 2014
Starting on September 3rd, RT will be found on Freeview Channel 135, following the scheduled changes that will affect six news channels in total, including BBC News and Sky News. RT, a global television news channel, has been broadcasting in the United Kingdom since 2006 and on Freeview, Britain’s largest digital terrestrial television with a reach of more than 55 million viewers, since 2010.
With more than half a million weekly viewers RT leads other international news channels, including Euronews and Fox News, in UK’s BABR ratings. RT, which has just received its third International Emmy nomination for news, appeals to UK viewers with a “different take on news from mainstream media”, “informative news coverage”, and the range of stories that are of interest to the audience, according to a survey by Kantar Media.
RT is a global international news network that broadcasts 24/7 in English, Arabic and Spanish from its studios in Moscow and Washington, DC, and is available to 700 million viewers worldwide. RT is the first TV news channel in history to cross the billion views mark on YouTube. RT is the winner of the Monte Carlo TV Festival Awards for best 24-hr broadcast, and the only Russian TV channel to garner three nominations for the prestigious International Emmy Award for News. (Source: Press release)
16 September 2010
We are delighted to announce a high quality and truly international set of short listed entries for the People’s Choice category at the 2010 AIBs.
The “Best Coverage of Climate Change” award will be decided by online voting between:
• “Going Green – The Climate Summit” from CNN International
• “Low Impact Man” from VRT, Belgium
• “Earth Rescue Operation” from Phoenix Satellite Television in Hong Kong, China
• “Hard Talk on the Road to Greenland” from the BBC
• “Ross Kemp: Battle for the Amazon” from Sky Television
• “21st Century” from the UN
The full press release can be seen here
9 July 2010
As you will have seen, we have extended the deadline for entries to be submitted to the 2010 AIBs, the international media excellence awards, until 1600GMT on 16th July due to numerous requests. Broadcasters, content producers, providers of technology and others are responding to the extra time granted with large numbers of entries arriving at AIB headquarters every day.
So far companies in 21 countries have entered – from Argentina to China and from Australia to the USA. From phonecalls made to the AIB, we also know that many more entries are on their way.
It is particularly pleasing to see new companies entering for the first time – companies like KI.KA (Der Kinderkanal von ARD und ZDF) in Germany, TV Antena 1 in Romania, Russian Travel Guide Co Ltd Russia, Conker Media Ltd UK, Press TV Iran and eTV South Africa.
It is still not too late to enter if you are a producer or broadcaster of international TV or radio programmes (whether using terrestrial broadcasting, satellite, online or mobile) or if you produce the technology to power broadcasts, or if you run marketing programs for broadcasts (see the categories page on the website for the full list of different awards).
But with only one more week to the deadline, you will have to hurry so if you still want to enter go to the entries page for full details
11 June 2010
Two interesting studies have recently been released showing US and UK public perceptions of climate change after the recent “climategate” email leaks from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and controversies over mistakes in the 4th IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report.
In the US, the Woods Institute for the Environment have carried out their 5th annual survey. 74% of respondents in a 100o person telephone survey responded yes to the question “Has the Earth’s temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years?”. The figure is down slightly from last year, when it was 75%, and has declined each year from the first survey in 2006 when it stood at 85%. The analysis showed that the recent fall was due to those who are sceptical of climate change scientists reacting to cold weather in the last two years.
Note how this figure of 74% compares with the 63% figure found by Gallup for US citizens who are aware of climate change and believe it to be due to manmade changes (see our previous blog post). It seems to suggest a large majority of Americans who think the earth is warming believe that it is humans who are causing it, with the majority of sceptics not believing in global warming at all.
The Woods Institute survey, led by Josh Krosnick, also showed that despite the recent controversies, trust in climate scientists had actually risen slightly over the last year.
The newly published Ipsos Mori poll carried out with Cardiff University paints a similar picture of belief in the UK. In 2005, 91% of those surveyed thought that climate change was happening and this has now reduced to 78%. With 58% replying that they had noticed changes for themselves, it shows the power of personal experience and that we are reaching a stage where a majority have some relevant experience to back up any studies by experts. However, 40% of respondents thought that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated.
Overall, the studies show a smaller fall in belief in climate change than might be expected after the recent high profile controversies over the accuracy and independence of published results and also after recent cold weather that has caused headlines to change from “global warming” to “climate change”.
