The World in the Lens of Global Television

Assoc. Prof. Maria Neykova, PhDFaculty of Journalism and Mass

Communication, Sofia University

We need news to live our lives, to defend ourselves, to connect with each other, and to identify friends and foes. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in “The Elements of Journalism”

Knowing about the world is not a luxury; it is an urgent necessity. A Boston Globe foreign correspondent

As globalisation has intertwined nations, communities, and businesses ever more tightly, the number of problems that cannot be solved by any one country – not even a superpower – on its own has soared. […] This gap between the growing need for joint international action and the declining ability of nations to act together may be the world’s most dangerous deficit.Moisés Naim in FT

MEDIA: International? Transnational? Global? Truly global?

One definition of globalisation:

A historical process involving a fundamental shift of transformation in the spatial scale of human social organization that links distant communities and expands the reach of power relations across regions and continents.

The Globalization of World Politics, Oxford Univ. Press 2011

Global media - Network of public (state) or privately funded

media, broadcasting news that cross national borders, reaching many parts of the world and thus forming a global information flow; as they transport and globally spread ideas and information, they create ideas about what other people, cultures, religions, countries, continents are, meaning they work for the collective awareness.

Global media

Global media are characterized by simultaneously developing advanced sense of global solidarity – they act as agents of homogenization, and reinforce disparity – heterogeneity.

International news production is expensive and especially foreign TV reporting requires big money.There is a small group of countries that maintain a strong investment in international broadcasting and it includes the United States, UK, China, Qatar, Russia, Iran, several Latin American governments with Venezuela as the largest shareholder, France, Germany.

Audience

• There is no internationally standardised measuring system for international broadcasters, so broadcasters’ own estimates have to be relied upon.

CNN International• Website:

www.cnn.com/international

• Start: Sept. 1st, 1985

• CNN about itself: “…the only U.S. cable news organization committed to worldwide newsgathering and reporting a broad range of stories without picking sides”.

At: http://stateofthemedia.org

CNN International logo

CNN International logo from February 1 1995 to December 31 2005

Actual logo

CNN International logo from January 1 2006 to September 21 2009

CNN International

• Ten years later, the site is launched.

• The popularity of CNN is associated with the coverage of Operation "Desert Storm" in 1991.

• CNN reaches 132 million households globally (as of 2011).

Al Jazeera English

The satellite channel started on 15.11.2006.The exact budget is not known, but it is said that Qatar spends “hundreds of millions of dollars a year” for the channel.

The potential worldwide audience is of over a billion people that speak English, whose perspective is not Anglo-American.

AL JAZEERA ENGLISH TELEVISION.A GLOBAL TV NEWS NETWORK.

• Al Jazeera English website receives 22 million visits every month.

• Al Jazeera Network has

more than 70 bureaus

across the globe, the majority

in the Southern hemisphere,

incl. in Gaza and Harare.

Al Jazeera English

• Mission: To be the voice of the people, the voice of the Middle East, “the voice of the South.”

• Motivation: to take audience from CNN, BBC, Sky News and Fox News; to seek and display the topics ignored by the West-oriented media.

Al Jazeera English• Qatar, whose al-Jazeera network has

become a familiar player on the international broadcasting scene, is currently rolling out a new U.S. operation with former ABC newswoman Kate O’Brian at the helm. She is the president of Al Jazeera America which was launched on August 20, 2013.

BBC WorldThe BBC’s World Service, long considered the

gold standard of international broadcasting, has undergone massive cutbacks in recent years.

(The BBC encompasses both the national broadcaster, which has an independent board of governors and a budget based on license fees for radio and television sets, and the BBC World Service, which is underwritten and directed by the British Foreign Office.)

BBC World• International commercial news channel,

which appeared in 1991.Offers news and analysis in 27 languages . BBC World News is the 24-hour international news channel of the BBC in English, which could be accessed in more than 200 countries and territories around the globe. Weekly audience is estimated at 74 million, making it the largest television service of the BBC.

Euronews / euronews

• The channel was created in 1992, but its start was on Jan. 1, 1993. This is the first channel that transmits 24 hours a day in 7 languages : French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, English and Russian. This is the longest existing pan-European channel which is believed to reach 200 million households worldwide.

Euronews partnerships

France24France is among several European nations that have their own international information services.

France24 started in Dec. 2006 with an annual budget of 100 million dollars. It is a global news channel owned by the public electronic operator and TF1; offers services in French, English, and Arabic. France24 is often seen as France's part in the fight against the global dominance of the U.S.

CCTV• Beijing spent a reported £4bn on

expanding state media. CCTV’s budget is unknown.

• CCTV is unique in its extensive resources and its ties to the Chinese government: the most dynamic economic power in the world today, and one with an ever-growing appetite for global influence.

CCTV

• CCTV’s Washington bureau has a staff of 30 covering its Chinese-language service, and more than 100 in its English-language operation, 70 of them non-Chinese. It currently has 12 Latin American bureaus – doubled over the period 2012-2013 – at a time when no U.S. television network has any.

CCTV

• The global CCTV was envisioned by its architects not as a rival to the Voice of America and the BBC World Service, but rather as a challenge to CNN.

CCTV’s English-language news and documentaries are dramatically improving. A new generation of broadcast journalists has emerged. These reporters, some trained in China and some in the US, often approach their stories with far more independence and professionalism than their predecessors – even if they do have to respect certain “no-go areas.”

PressTV

Iran’s Press TV, launched in July 2007, presents a highly politicized English-language 24-hour news service.

PressTV

• The channel started with the ambition to offer the West “second look.” It was funded by former President Ahmadinejad. Press TV was seen as a political response of a government under siege by the Bush junior administration. After the elections in both countries the situation has changed, still difficult to tell which direction.

RT

RT (the network formerly known as Russia Today) was founded in Dec. 2005 to improve the country’s image abroad. It is financed by the Russian government and currently broadcasts in Arabic, English, Russian, and Spanish. RT America is broadcasting from a Washington, DC studio.

RT

• It is believed that annually the channel costs between 30 and 40 million dollars

• RT has 22 bureaus in 19 countries and territories, with a presence in Washington, New York, London, Berlin, Gaza, Cairo, Baghdad and other key cities and employs over 1000 media professionals around the globe.

TeleSur

• The beginning was on July 24, 2005 with a 4-hour program, which became 24-hour in October the same year.

• This is the first news network that reaches throughout Latin America.

TeleSurTeleSur, based in Caracas, is available in Spanish and Portuguese. It is owned by a consortium of Latin American governments, the largest shareholder of which is Venezuela. It has served as a mouthpiece for the policies of late president Hugo Chavez, and its future will depend on the direction of post-Chavez Venezuela.

About us: Started from Camerapix in Sept. 2008, Africa24 Media is a Pan-African online media agency that connects the rest of the world with content production resources and information from and about Africa …Africa24 Media is the place that Africa and the rest of the world are coming to be able to cover the entire continent and tell of the magic that Africa inspires…

Africa 24 Media• Creator is the photojournalist and

entrepreneur Salim Amin. Headquarters is in Nairobi, Kenya.

• Mission – to provide news and information on cross-border issues, mostly related to health, environment, business, art, music, while does not avoid the problems of the continent. Follows the model of Al Jazeera.

Africa Independent Television

 AIT is motivated by uniquely altruistic aim to promote and methodically project Africa from an African perspective. AIT offers the world a new insight into the African experience. The mission is to enhance global understanding through an untainted appreciation of the world and its people.

Corporate Objective - …sharing the African Experience