News of ABU activities and the broadcasting industry in the Asia-Pacific January – March 2010 PP 4408/05/2010 (023973) ISSN 0127-4902 INSIDE: 4Vancouver Winter Olympics 4Report on UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) The Administrative Council has decided to appoint Javad Mottaghi as the next ABU Secretary-General. The announcement made after a Council meeting on 8 January in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Mottaghi, 55, is currently Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD). He will succeed David Astley, who has been Secretary-General since July 2002. Mr Astley is leaving the ABU at the end of June. Mr Mottaghi’s starting date is yet to be announced. Department, TV Social Department and News Department, and was Advisor to the President of IRIB. Mr Mottaghi has long been active in ABU activities. He was IRIB’s Liaison Officer for both the ABU and the European Broadcasting Union until 1996. He was a member of the ABU Administrative Council for three years as well as Chairman of the ABU Sports Group, Chairman of the ABU Olympic Sub-Group, Chairman of the World Football Cup Sub-Group, Chairman of the Asian Games Sub-Group and a member of the negotiating team An Iranian citizen, Mr Mottaghi has headed the AIBD since August 1998. Married with three children, he has 30 years of national and international experience in media and communications. He served Iran’s national broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), in various capacities from 1978 to 1996, notably in the fields of sports, production and news. He was the Director of IRIB’s Radio and TV Sports Department for 18 years. He also held the directorships of the Foreign Bureau and International Relations for TV Rights for the World Football Cup, Asian Games and the Olympics for several years. In February 2009, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association presented Mr Mottaghi with the Elizabeth R Award for Exceptional Contribution to Public Service Broadcasting. Mr Mottaghi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tehran Sharif University of Technology, a Master’s Degree in Management and is a PhD candidate in Management from the University of Teesside, England. Next Secretary-General named ABU Secretary-General designate Javad Mottaghi (centre) meets with the ABU directors at the AIBD
Transcript
News of ABU activities and the broadcasting industry in the Asia-Pacific
January – March 2010PP 4408/05/2010 (023973) ISSN 0127-4902
INSIDE: 4Vancouver Winter Olympics 4Report on UN Climate Change Conference (COP15)
The Administrative Council has decided to appoint Javad Mottaghi as the next ABU Secretary-General.
The announcement made after a Council meeting on 8 January in Kuala Lumpur.
Mr Mottaghi, 55, is currently Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD).
He will succeed David Astley, who has been Secretary-General since July 2002. Mr Astley is leaving the ABU at the end of June. Mr Mottaghi’s starting date is yet to be announced.
Department, TV Social Department and News Department, and was Advisor to the President of IRIB.
Mr Mottaghi has long been active in ABU activities. He was IRIB’s Liaison Officer for both the ABU and the European Broadcasting Union until 1996.
He was a member of the ABU Administrative Council for three years as well as Chairman of the ABU Sports Group, Chairman of the ABU Olympic Sub-Group, Chairman of the World Football Cup Sub-Group, Chairman of the Asian Games Sub-Group and a member of the negotiating team
An Iranian citizen, Mr Mottaghi has headed the AIBD since August 1998. Married with three children, he has 30 years of national and international experience in media and communications.
He served Iran’s national broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), in various capacities from 1978 to 1996, notably in the fields of sports, production and news.
He was the Director of IRIB’s Radio and TV Sports Department for 18 years. He also held the directorships of the Foreign Bureau and International Relations
for TV Rights for the World Football Cup, Asian Games and the Olympics for several years.
In February 2009, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association presented Mr Mottaghi with the Elizabeth R Award for Exceptional Contribution to Public Service Broadcasting.
Mr Mottaghi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tehran Sharif University of Technology, a Master’s Degree in Management and is a PhD candidate in Management from the University of Teesside, England.
Next Secretary-General named
ABU Secretary-General designate Javad Mottaghi (centre) meets with the ABU directors at the AIBD
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Published four times a year by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union
COVER STORY 1 Next Secretary-General named
NEWS 7 Philippines media chief receives posthumous award 11 WIPO DG visits ABU President, NHK11 India suspends applications for new TV channels
ASIAVISION 4 Asiavision gains 2 new members 4 NTV journalist relishes AVN attachment 5 Digitalising a newsroom ‘needs support of all staff’ 6 4 Asiavision members win awards
4th Quarter 2008 Vol. 27 No. 4
in this issueJanuary – March 2010 Vol. 29 No. 1
SPORTS 13 Winter Olympic: Patriotism shines over Vancouver 14 ABU to provide multi-channel transmissions for London 2012
LEGAL 7 ABU and Asian associations to fight against piracy DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS 8 UN Climate Change Conference (COP15): ABU on the ground in Copenhagen
PROGRAMME 6 RadioAsia attracts good support in India 9 ABU Prizes Workshop offers insights
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4 ABU News
ASIAVISION
Asiavision gains 2 new members
A valuable opportunity to see how journalists around the region work – this is how Nepalese journalist Puspahari Kyampa Rai described his attachment to the Asiavision centre in Kuala Lumpur.
Puspa, who has worked for Nepal Television for 20 years, spent a month at the centre from mid-January, helping Asiavis ion staff coordinate the daily news exchange.
He was the first NTV journalist to take part in the attachment scheme, funded by Asiavision,
Two more broadcasters have joined Asiavision, the ABU’s daily news exchange.
They are Afghanistan’s Saba TV, which joined on 1 January, and Cambodian Television Network (CTN), which took up membership on 1 March.
S a b a T V w a s l a u n c h e d i n 2006 and airs 24 hours a day in five of Afghanistan’s largest provinces.
It is operated by Saba Media Organization (SMO), which was established in 1997 as a cultural, non-profit media organisation that assists in the development of Afghan society through awareness raising and education.
S M O wo r ks to fa c i l i t a te t h e development and sustainability of free media initiatives in the country. It runs two radio stations in addition to Saba TV.
A free-to-air station, CTN was launched in March 2003 as a joint venture
Puspahari Kyampa Rai
Cambodian Television Network…Asiavision’s newest member
between local conglomerate the Royal Group of Companies and Swedish mobile phone company Millicom.
CTN is Cambodia’s highest-rating TV station, boasting 63 percent of prime time viewership. It carries four new programmes per day in addition to
a range of dramas, concerts, game shows and sport.
Its sister channel MYTV, launched in January last year, is aimed at the youth market.
The admission of Saba TV and CTN
brings Asiavision’s membership to 21, the largest since the news exchange was launched in 1984.
Asiavision members exchange nearly 10 thousand news stories a year by satellite and on a recently-launched file transfer site.
NTV journalist relishes AVN attachment coordination of the daily satellite feeds, also helping arrange a news flash from SLRC on Sri Lanka’s presidential election.
His previous overseas assignments have included two weeks at a TV station in Florida under an exchange programme and a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2005 to report on Nepalese peacekeeping soldiers.
Puspa has covered many major stories for NTV, among them Nepal’s transition to democracy, including extended live coverage. And he won an award for his coverage of the
under which journalists from member stations learn more about how the news exchange works.
“Spending a month at the centre really is a big opportunity for a mid-career journalist,” he said shortly before returning to Kathmandu.
“It broadens your outlook and allows you to learn how other journalists in the region write scripts and prepare visuals. Working in this international environment makes you a better journalist when you return home.”
Puspa actively participated in the
social problems facing women in the country.
Belonging to Asiavision had brought real benefits to NTV, he said, including training opportunities and the chance to develop relations with other members.
Digitalising a newsroom‘needs support of all staff’
ABU News 5
ASIAVISION
Digitalising a newsroom brings clear benefits but needs a commitment from staff at all levels to succeed, an Asiavision workshop in Mumbai has heard.
Participants were also told that extensive training was essential and that it would take time for a newly digitalised newsroom to be “bug free”.
The workshop in Mumbai on 7-9 December was staged jointly by Asiavision, the ABU’s daily news exc h a n ge, a n d Ca n a l Fra n ce International, and brought together senior journalists from Asiavision member stations.
The aim was to share experiences in digitalising newsrooms and introducing file-based systems, and to help Asiavision members who have not yet undergone the process to prepare for it.
The Technical Manager of the France Télévisions group, Yves Le Bras, said the support of staff was important because the digital transition and introduction of a tapeless environment could create fear among them.
Despite this, going digital brought many benefits, he said, including quicker access to information sources, more agility in covering hot news and a reduction in the time needed for technical tasks.
CFI provided three speakers from France. In addition to Mr Le Bras, they were David Botbol, Web Manager, News and Sports, France Télévisions group, and Didier Giraud, Operations Manager for Strategy and Partnership, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA).
Speakers from two Asiavision members shared their experiences of digitalising their news operations: Marco Bass of ABC Australia and Channel NewsAsia’s Lilyn Leng and Norraine Md Yusof.
Ms Norraine was among those who stressed the importance of training. She said Channel NewsAsia newsroom staff had been trained over
a six-month period when the channel digitalised its news operations.
‘Super users’ had been identified for each functional work group and, after undergoing intensive training themselves, had trained the rest of their colleagues.
Going digital was neither easy nor cheap, she said, and there needed to be constant communications between the people installing the new system and those who would use it.
Jonas Hasting of TVTECASIA, who helped launch the channel CTN in Cambodia from scratch, said a key element had been “training, training and training”. None of the staff had ever seen a non-linear editing system, he said.
Raghu Rajagopalan of Singapore-based systems integrator Benchmark Broadcast Systems said the users should def ine the newsroom workflow, not the system installers.
“Train the users extensively,” he said. “Train everyone on the entire workflow.”
John Curzon from digital technology
provider Avid stressed the importance of the human element in digitalising a newsroom.
“The key to making it work is getting your people involved and making them believe in it,” he said.
“The equipment is the easiest part…the real issue involves people: getting them to accept change and embrace it whole-heartedly rather than resisting.”
Mr Botbol agreed, saying it was essential to convince journalists to adopt a new way of working if a broadcaster wanted to launch a successful news website.
“The most difficult thing is to tell them: ‘You are going to have to change your ways,’”, he said. “If they are not convinced it’s the way to go, it can’t work.”
Other points raised by speakers:
• Every newsroom is different and each broadcaster must assess its own needs as it moves to a tapeless newsroom. • The process must be led by executives who strongly believe in the benefits of going digital.
Mumbai workshop participants
French experts Didier Giraud, Yves Le Bras and David Botbol
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NEWS
RadioAsia attracts good support in India T h e m o v e o f t h e a n n u a l RadioAsia conference from Singapore to India worked well, the ABU’s acting Secretary-General, David Astley says.
Since 2005, the conference has been held in conjunction with the BroadcastAsia exhibition and conference organised by Singapore Exhibition Services (SES) in June each year.
“It was an experiment to see if we could attract sufficient international speakers without it being adjacent to BroadcastAsia, and also to see if there was sufficient local interest in an international radio conference in India,” Mr Astley said.
“We were pleased with the outcome having attracted more than 40 international speakers, 20 local speakers and about 150 delegates – roughly the same numbers as the last conference in Singapore.
“But sponsorship support from the radio industry was much stronger than in previous years – perhaps an
Making available visuals of major developments as quickly as possible has seen DDI-India, CCTV-China, BTV-Bangladesh and IRIB-Iran coming out winners of the monthly Asiavision Award over the last four months.
The Asiavision Award for January 2010 went to DDI for its coverage of two train accidents that occurred during dense fog in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh.
The two separate collisions occurred on the morning of
2 January near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh within an hour of each other. The incidents claimed the lives of at least six people.
CCTV won the Asiavision Award for December 2009 for its coverage of a student stampede at a private middle school in China. The incident in Xiangxiang in central China’s Hunan province on the night of 7 December killed eight students.
The school’s students had just completed their evening study session and were exiting the building when one of them toppled down the stairs
on the second floor, triggering a crush.
The Asiavision Award for November went to BTV for its coverage of a passenger ferry tragedy near the Nazirpur Ferry Ghat in Bangladesh’s Bhola district. BTV overcame logistical hurdles to provide visuals of the 28 November incident on the same day it happened to the Asiavision exchange.
The ill-fated ferry listed and partly sank in the early hours on Saturday, claiming close to 100 lives.
Re m a r ka b le cove rage o f t h e immediate aftermath of twin car
bombings in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, earned IRIB the Asiavision Award for October. The Asiavision centre carried out a newsflash with IRIB providing exceptionally well-shot footage of the devastation of the suicide attacks.
The near simultaneous attacks on the morning of 25 October targeted the Justice Ministry building and the nearby Baghdad provincial government offices. The twin blasts claimed more than 100 lives and more than 600 people were injured.
Four AsiaVision members win awards
indication of the strong interest in all the activity that is happening on the Indian radio scene,” he added.
The conference was a two and half day event at the Lalit Hotel in New Delhi, preceded by four well-attended workshops hosted by Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), Deutsche Welle, The Nielsen Company and Germany’s Broadcast Partner.
Following the conference there was
a one day seminar on community radio organised by the Asian Media Communications and Information Centre (AMIC) at the Habitat Centre.
Mr Astley said the original intention was to move RadioAsia around different countries after India, with both China and Indonesia having expressed interest in having the event in their territories.
“However, many of the Indian radio
operators have suggested that we hold it for a second year in India given the interest that the first event created in the Indian trade press.
“So we are currently discussing with our partners – AMIC and SES – whether to hold it one more year in India before moving on to other countries,” he said.
A full report on the conference will appear in the next issue of ABU News.
A panel discussion in progress at RadioAsia
Philippines media chief receives posthumous awardOne of the Philippines’ top honours has been conferred on the government’s late Press Secretary, Cerge Remonde, who passed away in January.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo conferred the Order of Lakandula with Rank of Grand Cross on Mr Remonde “for his outstanding service to the Republic of the Philippines and in recognition of his life as an exemplary media man and public servant”.
Mr Remonde, who was well known amongst ABU members, was found unconscious after a heart attack at his home in Manila. He was 51.
He is survived by his wife, Marit-Stinus Remonde, who is a newspaper columnist and community worker in his home province of Cebu.
Mr Remonde was a respected broadcast journalist in the Philippines and was most active in ABU affairs during the years that he supervised government media entities NBN-4, RPN-9, and IBC-13 as head of the Government Mass Media Group.
H e w a s a p p o i n t e d P r e s s Undersecretary for Broadcast Media in February 2001, and Press Secretary in February 2009.
After graduating from the University of the Visayas in Cebu City, he became
Wearing a traditional barong tagalog, Cerge is equally at ease with officers of the Philippines military
Cerge Remonde is interviewed by journalists from the government TV station, NBN, last November
a popular radio commentator, which became his launching pad to national prominence in the broadcast industry.
He served several terms as head o f t h e i n d u s t r y a s s o c i a t i o n , Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP).
Mr Remonde was only the second Filipino journalist to be elevated by KBP to its Hall of Fame, the first being the venerable Teodoro F. Valencia.
In February, KBP renamed its annual chapter leaders’ conference after Mr Remonde. It is now called the Cerge M. Remonde Annual Chapter Leaders’ Conference
The ABU’s acting Secretary-General, David Astley, said he had been shocked to learn of the death of “a good friend and respected industry colleague” at such a relatively young age.
“This is a great loss to the media industry in the Philippines and in the region. Cerge was a veteran newsman who was held in high esteem by all who knew him,” Mr Astley said.
The Network General Manager and CEO of the government broadcaster, NBN, Jose Isabelo, who had worked closely with Mr Remonde for many years, said he could not help but choke with emotion every time he remembered Mr Remonde.
”Secretary Remonde was more than my superior. He was more than a friend to me, more like a brother. I lost a soul brother, a confidante, an adviser, almost like a part of my life has been taken away,” Mr Isabelo said.
“But despite the deep pain, I know that what he wants for us is to move on and remember the legacy he left behind.”
ABU News 7
NEWS
8 ABU News
DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
ABU on the ground in Copenhagen
From climate change refugees to deforestation, and emission l e v e l s t o c a r b o n t r a d i n g , ABU members travelled to Copenhagen in December to get first hand answers and coverage at the momentous United Nations Climate Change conference.
While the long-drawn out talks failed to seal a binding legal agreement, ABU members delivered substantive on the spot reports.
With financial support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the ABU provided fellowships to producers from CCTV-China, Metro TV-Indonesia, DDI-India and Channel NewsAsia-Singapore.
The ABU staff also provided on the ground daily camera support and satellite and broadband feeds for the use of the broader ABU membership.
The ABU’s presence at the conference followed on from a commitment from
ABU members in the Ulaanbaatar Declaration on Climate Change to dedicate the resources and broadcasting space needed to comprehensively report on the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.
Live coverage of the high-level meetings forms part the ABU partnership with the ADB on its 18-month project on climate change solutions.
“Based on trends, Asia and the Pacific by far suffers the most deaths and the most economic damage from natural disasters than any other region in the world,” ADB Senior Advisor in climate change Robert J Dobias said during the conference.
“Looking at those trends, if we expect that climate change will exacerbate the problems we’re already seeing, then we can expect that the region will continue to be hit very hard in terms of mortality and economic damage from climate change impacts”.
The ABU invites its members to submit entries.
Entry deadline: 2 August 2010Category: TV (News, Current Affairs)Entry requirements:First transmission period is from 1 July 2009 to 1 July 2010Prize: US$1,500.00 Awards presentation: In October 2010 (during the ABU General Assembly in Tokyo, Japan)
According to the ADB, greater investments in c lean energy, climate-resilient infrastructure, energy efficiency initiatives, and other adaptation and mitigation measures were among the strategies needed to protect countries from the increasingly severe impacts of climate change.
To access the climate change content (Copenhagen news reports and b-roll, plus new materials on climate change solutions from the ABU members around the region) from the broadband feed or to receive preview DVDs on content produced out of the Climate Change Solutions Initiative, please contact [email protected].
Journalists around the world at work at the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference
ABU Prize for Climate Change Reporting 2010
ABU and Asian associations join hands to fight content piracyT h e A B U a n d t h e C a b l e and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) joined hands with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping (APEC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to adopt a statement of support for the Broadcasters’ Treaty in a seminar held in Jakarta, Indonesia in December.
Themed ‘Signal Piracy, Regulation and Enforcement in a Convergent World’, the seminar, as part of the effort in combating content piracy, saw CEOs, intellectual property and broadcasting officials from more than 21 APEC economies begin a process of rights owners and broadcasters working with the various governments to agree on some benchmark policies to adopt to deal with signal-theft problems.
The seminar was co-organised by
USPTO and CASBAA.
CASBAA began working with authorities in Indonesia to combat TV pirates in August 2009 to “stamp out signal theft, intellectual property rights theft and trademark infringement…to curb the activities of an estimated 695 illegal cable operators serving 1.4m households”.
CASBAA, in the third quarter 2009 issue of its publication ‘Connections’, pointed out that across the Asia-Pacific region, the pay-TV industry estimates a loss of US$1 billion a year.
The ABU Copyright Committee, represented by Anna Ward, Legal Council on Content and Rights to SBS-Australia, spoke about the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty and different approaches to deal with piracy at the seminar.
On ‘Will WIPO Broadcasters’ Treaty will be useful?’, Ms Ward said an updated or new treaty was
important to improve and enhance the rights of broadcasters, making them more relevant, effective and useful in the current environment.
“The 1961 Rome Convention is no longer relevant in today’s age.”
I a n Ca ro ll , Exe c u t i ve o f Vi ce President and General Manager of Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific, in his presentation ‘Nature, Dimension and Prevalence of Signal Theft’, said the broadcasting industry was suffering from weak legislation and lack of international cooperation across jurisdictional issues.
He suggested that “ it should have in its ‘toolbox’ to tackle the problem of signal theft, a higher level of international co-operation and a range of laws to address licensing and enforcement, as well as criminal sanctions/laws against trafficking in circumvention devices that are only available in some countries such as Australia.”
10 ABU News
LEGAL
WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry said the WIPO had a legacy relating to broadcasters’ rights that it had not dealt with. “In the case of broadcasters, there is now some hope that we may be able to move forward in the course of the next year or two towards seeing some conclusion to this particular issue.”
Quoting ‘Copyright Reporter’ in August 2009, he said: “It’s now fairly clear and accepted generally that the scope of a new instrument should deal only with conventional broadcasting and retransmission of conventional broadcasts over the internet (simulcasts) not with broadcasts originating on the Internet.”
The combined advocacy of the free-to-air and pay-TV broadcasters in the Asia-Pacific region would bring a powerful influence to bear on the revived negotiations for WIPO’s introduction of a Broadcasting Treaty, Ms Ward said.
A statement by John Madeiros for CASBAA stressed the importance of the Broadcasters’ Treaty to pay-TV broadcasters, as highlighted in the seminar:
Statement of Support for the Broadcasters’ Treaty
Pay-TV and FTA broadcasters share a common interest in seeing WIPO conclude a good treaty to protect broadcasters’ rights. Whether content is broadcast on a subscription basis or an advertising-supported basis, it is the lifeblood of our industries, and we are all damaged by signal theft and unauthorised distribution. Here are some strong reasons why both segments of the industry should strongly support a good treaty:
• Free (ad-supported or government-supported) content in one market is pay-TV content in other markets. Once it is stolen it loses its value, and ALL broadcasters lose the ability to generate revenue to support production.
• Increasingly, even state broadcasters are turning to advertising or subscription revenues in overseas markets to supplement meagre budgets. They cannot do this if unauthorised distribution reduces eyeballs (for ad sales) or subscription revenues (for pay-TV).
• Even where it is high-value international pay-TV content that is the object of signal theft, FTA broadcasters are damaged as well. Widespread unauthorised distribution of international pay-TV content reduces interest and viewership in locally-produced content.
• For their part, pay-TV broadcasters rely on encryption and conditional access systems to achieve a measure of content protection but in the absence of strong international legal protections those systems cannot achieve their full effect. Pay-TV broadcasters need internationally agreed protections that prevent content from being misappropriated in one market and widely distributed in another.
• The drawbacks of current weak protection of broadcasting copyrights have been made painfully obvious to CASBAA members, who have in various Asian markets had to rely on difficult and burdensome approaches to ultimate content owners in other parts of the world in order to bring legal actions to protect their own broadcasting interests here in Asia. It shouldn’t have to be that way – why should an Asian-based broadcaster have to get the consent of someone in London or Hollywood to obtain legal protection for his business? Yet, that is the effect of the current regime in a large number of Asian markets.
WIPO DG visits ABU President
ABU News 11
NEWS
The World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Director General, Francis Gurry, paid a visit to the ABU President, Yoshinori Imai, and the President of NHK, Shigeo Fukuchi, in early March.
The visit saw a session of exchanging views, from the need to protect broadcast content and signals in the digital world, to challenges of compliance and enforcement of
The Indian government will no longer accept applications for new television channels until a report on the availability of spectrum has been submitted.
With as many as 512 television channels operating in the country, the suspension applies to applications for permission both to uplink television channels from India and to downlink channels to India.
“It has been observed that although improved technologies have resulted in better utilisation of the available spectrum and transponder capacities, the spectrum and transponder capacities for satellite TV channels are not unlimited,” the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said.
the laws or regulations that have been adopted.
Mr Gurry emphasised the importance of finalising the Broadcasters’ Treaty to protect broadcasters’ rights in the digital and Internet age. He expressed the hope that solutions could be found for pending issues and to advance the discussions at the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) this year.
Mr Fukuchi agreed and expressed similar concerns about the challenges NHK was facing as Japan’s public broadcaster. He said that TV channels could offer a variety of services not only for traditional TV service but on-demand and online services. At the same time the audiences could enjoy such services on many devices such as TVs, PCs and mobiles.
The meeting saw the WIPO, NHK
and the ABU agreeing to cooperate with one another and to play a leading role in creating a fruitful and constructive dialogue among the related stakeholders, to raise awareness on intellectual property issues and to build a sense of compliance and enforcement of regulations relating to intellectual property particularly in developing and emerging countries.
(From left) NHK Assistant Director General Yoshiyuki Takagi, Secretary to WIPO Director General Steve Thom, NHK President Shigeo Fukuchi, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry and NHK Vice President Yoshinori Imai
India suspends applications for new TV channels“A need is felt to revisit the present policy for uplinking and downlinking with respect to the approach towards grant of permission including the eligibility criteria and the terms and conditions of the permission.”
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is working on a report on the availability of spectrum at the ministry’s request.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told parliament last month that in additional to the existing TV channels, 152 applications were awaiting permission to uplink from India and 14 applications were pending for permission to downlink from India.
Patriotism shines over Vancouver by John Barton
One week into the Vancouver Winter Olympics the local police found themselves in a ticklish situation.
Would they allow the ‘party’ to continue with all its nationalist passions fuelled by a few drinks? Or step in to curb the natural celebrations that followed every Canadian success, and there were many, that went on long into the night and early morning.
Vancouverites had taken a leaf from the ‘having loads of fun’ summer games of Sydney a decade earlier, and decided to show the world that they, too, could whoop it up.
It was infectious. The city threw off its conservative image and danced and partied for the duration of the Games as each Canadian athlete rose to the medals podium to win more gold than ever before.
A memorable games and a happy
time, in spite of the weather and the tragic death of a Luge competitor from Georgia during a training run on the day of the opening ceremony. Twenty-one year old Nodar Kumaritashvili speared off the luge track at 144 kmh and was flung headlong into a pole. He died shortly afterwards.
The dark pall that fell over the first few days of competition following his death was mercifully lifted for the organisers when, for the first time in their history, Canada won a gold medal on home soil.
Alexandre Bilodeau topped the podium in the men’s moguls thus igniting a Canadian gold rush that continued to the final day with the men’s hockey team triumphing in one of the most memorable finals of all time.
Local newscasts, newspapers, magazines and bloggers all agreed that 30 million Canadians came
The International Broadcast Centre was housed in the Vancouver Exhibition and Convention Centre.
Downtown buildings
together as one in an afternoon of immeasurable national pride.
It underscored the city fathers’ mission to “touch the soul of the
nation and inspire the world creating and delivering an extraordinary Olympic experience…”
They did, in spades!
12 ABU News
SPORTS
ABU News 13
SPORTS
Director of Sport, John Barton, said the ABU would be providing its membership with a multi-channel service for the summer Olympics in London in 2012 as has been the case since Sydney 2000.
“For various reasons, not the least of which was the high cost of the multi-channel service in Vancouver, we were not able to give members the sort of extensive Olympic programming they have been used to.
“Members should realise that putting together a programming platform that covered almost all heats and qualifying events, and all finals, was not cheap.
“It was obvious that our broadcasters did not want to invest heavily in this asset in Vancouver. However they were well-served with two daily highlights programmes, and the Olympic News Service (24 hours a day) provided by Olympic Broadcast Services,” he said.Smart building with a ‘Go Canada!’ giant banner
Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) was founded in 2001 by the International Olympic Committee to act as the host broadcaster for future games. Vancouver represented the first time that OBS had conducted an entire games without another broadcast partner.
And the result was exceptional.
“I know we see it after each Olympics but nevertheless it is true. These were technologically a very creative and innovative event, taking the Olympic viewer right to the heart of the action as never before,” the ABU’s Director of Sport John Barton said.
ABU to provide multi-channel transmissions for London 2012
ABU maintains historic coverage levels The ABU provided coverage to all its Olympic territories thus completing a winter games transformation for much of Asia.
Twenty-two countries aired a packaged one hour daily highlights from Vancouver as well as running various segments from the 24-hour Olympic News Channel.
“We have come a long way as an Olympic partner since the days of Salt Lake City in 2002,” ABU Director of Sport, John Barton said.
“Then we only had three countries and five broadcasters in our pool. Today it is the maximum – 22, even though there are precious few winter Olympians in them. That does great credit to the members for their strong support of the Olympic movement and its core philosophy,” he said.
“When you add in the spectacular images created by high definition television it became even more compelling,” he said.
A m o n g t h e n e w t e c h n i c a l initiatives were:
Da r t F i s h – p e r fo r m a n ce s o f athletes in Alpine skiing were ghosted on top of each to give the viewer an instant comparison. The same technique was also used in the Bobsleigh, Skeleton and Luge events.
Virtual Flags – in speed skating the flag of individual athletes was
displayed on the ice before the start.
Best jump – in Ski jumping a virtual line was used across the landing zone to show the current best jump.
For the statistically minded OBS:• Produced 900 hours of live programming
• Deployed 2,200 games time personnel• Used 22 HD OB vans• Had 91 multilateral broadcast trailers• Used 400 cameras, many of them speciality cameras• Had 550 commentary positions• Used over 60 replay devices
OBS delivers a creative and innovative Olympics
ABU Prizes Workshop offers valuable insights Collaboration between TV and radio producers from different countries had provided the opportunity for an exchange o f o p i n i o n s f r o m a w i d e perspective, an ABU Prizes Workshop in Brunei has heard.
Acting Deputy Director of RTB-Brunei Mahari bin Abdul Rajak said this kind of collaboration made a producer develop and improved their work. The two-day workshop, held on 28 and 29 January showcased a series of award-winning, commended and shortlisted programmes from the ABU Prizes 2009. It was held in conjunction with RTB Media Carnival 2010, the department’s annual activity to highlight the achievements of RTB in the industry and its efforts in getting closer to the public.
RTB TV producers, university students majoring in broadcasting, professionals from the production houses, independent TV directors and producers, resource persons and panelists were the participants of the workshop.
T h e wo r ks h o p b e ga n w i t h a full screening of a Commended programme of the Documentary category from MBC-Korea ‘The Land of Dinosaurs’.
The participants were introduced to different techniques, options and alternatives used during the making of the documentary.
The producer, Yoon MiHyun, said the ABU Prizes provided an effective means of support for programme makers in an ongoing campaign to improve quality.
Participating in workshops and
Workshop participants
Yoon MiHyun
Q&A session
discussions with other producers had constantly motivated her to create new programmes and make improvements to old one, Ms Yoon said.
Winner of the ABU Prize 2009 for Drama category, Akashi Yoshinaga of NHK-Japan, said the winning entry ‘Cry Baby Yoroku Episode 2’ had provided him with a rare opportunity to meet other producers who were also trying to meet the needs of the audiences.
The drama, which was produced by Mr Yoshinaga, is about a five-year old Yoroko living in the Warring Sates period, in Japan, being taken away from home to a temple, where he is to be groomed to serve his young master who will be the future lord of the Echigo domain.
He said that workshop as such had allowed him to view good quality programming of others with a sharper eye and a deeper knowledge.
It was a place for interaction on a profound level, where communication and debate sparked sometimes interesting discussions and intelligent answers, Mr Yoshinaga said.
Another programme shown was shortlisted entry ‘Ode to Joy: 10,000
Voices Resound’ of the Entertainment category, produced by Satoru Ochi of NAB/MBS-Japan.
It is a unique programme in which the aim was to convey the spirit of Friedrich Schiller’s hymn, love and peace of mankind through portraying 10,000 citizens singing Beethoven’s ninth symphony in harmony.
Mr Ochi explained the production techniques of the programme. He said that the screenings made it possible to measure the quality temperature of his professional work.
“I was thrilled to see what other colleagues from other stations had chosen as their best programme.”
Participants also took the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the categories, format and content of the contest during Q & A session on ABU Prizes.
Mr Mahari said the feedback he received from the station’s producers on the workshop was that the quality of programmes screened was high. He believed that the local producers had discovered and explored new ideas and new ways in telling stories.
On the other hand, RTB’s Deputy Director of Training Hajah Salamah Haji Tengah said the workshop had provided them with a valuable opportunity in preparing RTB’s entries for this year’s contest.
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