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:: MediaScan ::
:: SWEDEN CALLING DXERS ::
:: from Radio Sweden ::
:: Number 2200--May 17, 1994 ::
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Satellite, shortwave and other electronic media news from Radio Sweden.
This week's bulletin was written by George Wood.
Packet Radio BID SCDX2200
All times UTC unless otherwise noted.
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Happy International Telecommunications Day, and this MediaScan is also
edition 2200 of Sweden Calling DXers, going back more than 46 years. Those
years have seen a lot of changes in the world of international broadcasting,
and some of the biggest changes have happened in the past few days and weeks.
We'll be looking at that in a few minutes.
NORDIC MEDIA NEWS:
SIRIUS--Satellite viewers are still waiting for something to happen on
Sweden's new Sirius satellite. Programmers seem to think the Swedish Space
Corporation and Teracom are charging too much for the transponders,
reportedly USD 3.75 million a year. (Bertil Sundberg in "Paa TV")
SWEDEN--Here in Stockholm, two of the 10 new private radio frequencies are
still empty. There's a tone on 106.7 MHz, where Ireland's Radio Hibernia is
supposed to start broadcasting. Now the owners of the final frequency, 106.3
MHz, have decided that rather than program pop and rock music like almost
everyone else, their new station will be Classic Radio, due to go on the air
in August. ("Dagens Nyheter")
Meanwhile, 5 of the 57 new private stations have failed to pay the concession
fees due April 1st, altogether 200,000 dollars. One of the stations is in
Stockholm, Storstadsradion. (TT)
FINLAND--Last week the Finnish government approved the licensing of two
special radio stations, and 6 new local stations. This brings the total
number of local radio stations in Finland to 59. The special stations are
Classic Radio, which will have transmitters in 21 cities, and a youth
station, which will be on the air in 6 cities. The government has postponed
making a decision on a national commercial radio channel. (FNB)
The Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE is planning to start building its
digital radio network (DAB) in 1997. Test broadcasts have already begun
around Helsinki. (YLE via BBC Monitoring)
INTERACTIVE TV--As the first in the world Saraxa Group, Finland have
introduced a system for broadcasters for interactive TV advertising. TOSS
CDI (Telephone Operated Spot System) uses Philips CDI Digital Video (MPEG-1)
- quality picture and interactive telephone software with a result that
viewers can participate in the commercial interactively and decide the looks
of the commercial with real time based controlling.
Finland's TV3 and Saraxa Group have agreed on starting Interactive
Advertising within a separate time slot starting to broadcast no later than
autumn 1994. ("Transponder")
NORWAY--We reported recently about Sweden's new TV6, a cable-only channel
aimed at women. A similar channel is being started in Norway by the Schibsted
concern, which owns two major Oslo newspapers and a large part of the
commercial channel TV2. The channel will be called TV Plus, and unlike its
Swedish counterpart it will broadcast by satellite. Like the Swedish channel,
however, it will largely depend on outside programming. (NTB)
SOUTH AFRICA--The Swedish TV6 is part of the Kinnevik media empire, which
includes TV3 entertainment channels in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish, the
TV1000 and FilmMax pay film channels, and projects in Estonia and Latvia. Now
Kinnevik is buying 20 percent of a new South African venture called Rainbow
Television, which has applied for a terrestrial licence. (TT)
EUROPEAN MEDIA NEWS:
BBC--Kinnevik is the largest Scandinavian broadcast empire, but on the world
stage it still pales compared to CNN or Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which
owns British Sky Television, Star TV in Asia, and Fox Television in the
United States.
Only a few months after Murdoch dumped the BBC off Star's Northern Asia beam,
the Beeb is fighting back with a new alliance with Pearson, which owns the
Financial Times and Thames Television, the BBC's partner in UK Gold. Together
this Fall they are splitting up the current BBC World Service Entertainment
channel to Europe.
Instead there will be a pure entertainment channel, which will continue to be
offered by subscription, apparently still handled by TV Extra in Sweden, and
in D2-MAC on the same transponder as the current World Service TV channel.
And in addition, the BBC will be offering a 24 hour news channel similar to
that available already in Asia and Africa, but with special programs for
Europe, and with commercial advertising. This will be on a Eutelsat, and the
one that's been mentioned by one of our sources is Eutelsat II-F1.
According to reports, the European venture will set a pattern for expansion
to other parts of the world.
INTERNATIONAL RADIO BROADCASTING--Even as the BBC World Service moves deeper
into satellite television, satellites are having their effect on
international radio broadcasters. Last time we reported on the re-
organization at Radio Netherlands, where four languages are being dropped.
Now there are even more momentous changes coming at Swiss Radio
International. Beginning June 6th, SRI is establishing a 24 hour English
service to Europe via satellite, with half hour news and current affairs
blocks alternating with half hour feature programs. Only the first half hours
will be aired on shortwave. Shortwave to Europe will be reduced, and the
well-known media program "Swiss Shortwave Merry-Go-Round" will be going off
the air.
The English language channel will be on Teleclub's Astra transponder 9, 7.56
MHz. The new 24 hour French service from SRI started broadcasts on April 29
on Eutelsat II-F1, on TV5's transponder (11.080 GHz) 7.74 MHz. (James
Robinson and "Transponder")
Presumeably SRI will use its current Teleclub subcarrier 7.20 MHz for the new
German service.
Michael Murray, Secretary General of the European DX Council, has expressed
his concern about the cut-backs in shortwave broadcasting:
"The European DX Council is concerned that despite comments made by Swiss
Radio International on the continued use of SW transmissions, they are
planning from June to neglect their huge international radio listening
audience in favour of an unknown satellite audience, and in addition have
planned to withdraw their unique "DX" programme.
"It is suggested that all pressure, in the form of letters be sent to the
Managing Director of Swiss Radio International, Mr Ulrich Kundig, P.O.Box,
CH-3000 Berne 15, Switzerland protesting the disappearence of their "DX"
programme. We would ask DX Clubs and Broadcasters to include this information
in their next Club Bulletin or DX Programme. In addition a FAX can be sent to
the following number country code 41, area code 31 then 350 9544 marked for
the attention of Mr Kundig. The sooner complaints are filed the better."
(EDXC)
The EDXC is holding its annual conference in Paris this coming weekend, and
one of the speakers will be Andy Sennitt, Editor of the "World Radio TV
Handbook", who will be talking about satellites and the future of shortwave.
In this week's radio version of the program we interviewed Andy about the
changes in international broadcasting, and whether we would be telling the
EDXC participants that their hobby is dead.
(Note: In the future we ought to be able to include sound files with these
bulletins, with clips from interviews. But I imagine that they will take a
lot of room, and that downloaders without soundcards may prefer the current
system. Would people like to see two versions: MediaScan "Lite" without sound
files, and MediaScan "Plus" with? This is still a bit in the future, but
comment is invited.)
EUTELSAT--RTV Slovenia has tested for a few days on Eutelsat II-F1, 11.596
GHz.
On this same transponder, the German satellite magazine "Tele Satellit"
continues with its broadcasts of TV-TS on Fridays. The broadcasts run from
at least 19:00 to 20:20. SAT 1 Teletext reports that the channel can also be
seen on a Tuesday from 14:00 to 18:00 and on a Saturday from 12:00 to 17:00.
("Transponder")
On Eutelsat II F2, there are new radio stations on the ATV transponder. At
7.02 MHz is Number One FM and at 7.20 MHz is Klas FM. Both of these stations
used to be available on the back of HBB TV.
Another new Turkish language radio station has commenced broadcasts from the
7.38/7.56 MHz subcarriers of InterStar. The station has not yet been fully
identified although it may be called Radio Krol.
RDP Radio Portugal Internacional which is available on the 7.02/7.20 MHz
subcarriers of RDP Internacional broadcasts in a number of European
languages. For example English language broadcasts can usually be heard
during the evenings ending at 19:30 (European time?) when a French language
broadcast commences. ("Transponder")
ASTRA--According to various reports, Vox, while out of money and investors,
will continue to broadcast until mid-June, one report says June 20th.
(Thorsten Koch and "What Satellite TV")
RTL-5 is also reported to be closing, in July. (James Robinson) If it doesn't
close, expect RTL-5 to use Luxcrypt encrypting, rather than Videocrypt-2.
("What Satellite TV" and James Robinson)
The Chinese Channel is to scramble its signals from this Summer, using
Cryptovision. ("What Satellite TV")
Digital Music Express (DMX) has finally signed an agreement with British Sky
Broadcasting to carry up to 86 channels of almost CD-quality music by the end
of this year, using 40 digital audio subcarriers on the current 3 Astra
satellites. Consumers will have to buy a special tuner, currently still under
development. Music Choice Europe is also reported to be talking to Sky about
carrying its similar service, although DMX will apparently launch first.
("What Satellite TV")
INTELSAT--The three United Artists channels on Intelsat 601, Wire-TV, The
Learning Channel, and the Parliamentary Channel, will be switching to digital
transmission, using the MPEG-2 standard, beginning in July. (Another date
mentioned is June 7.) There will only be a few days of parallel PAL
broadcasts. (James Robinson and "Satnews")
The 7.38 MHz subcarrier on the Parliamentary Channel carries occasional horse
racing. (James Robinson)
After moving from Intelsat-K, NBC feeds from the US for Super Channel can now
be found on Intelsat 506 at 50 degrees West, 11.010 GHz. They had been on
10.968 GHz. ("Transponder")
Having been delayed by the crash of the Ariane-63 mission on January 24,
Ariane-64 is now scheduled for early June. It will be carrying Intelsat 702,
which is to replace the "Nordic" Intelsat 512 at 1 degree West. (AFP) The
largest cable operators in the Nordic countries are working together to
provide a Nordic satellite package comparable to cable offerings on Intelsat
702.
TURNER--Turner Broadcasting has opened Turner Productions SA in France to
produce and acquire programming primarily for its European cable and
satellite channels, deflecting complaints from the French and the EU about
the American bias of its programming. ("Satnews") The French are upset about
the French audio subcarrier on the Cartoon Network, Yogi Bear seemingly being
a threat to French culture, as a violation of the EU directive requiring
satellite channels to carry a majority of European programming "where
practicable".
The question is what is European programming? Are films with European
directors European, even if they are produced in Hollywood? Are Greto Garbo
or Ingrid Bergman movies European? What about American-financed films shot in
Europe, or "Star Wars", where a lot of the post-production and special
effects were done in Britain? Is "Hogan's Heroes" a European program, since
it is located in Germany, though shot in Southern California?
On May 26th, Turner's European TNT programming has the theme "German
Directors", with such "European" films as "Kismet", "Gaby", and "Two Sisters
from Boston". Will this improve TNT's Euro-stats?
RADIO CAROLINE--"The Guardian" reports that the pioneer offshore pirate
station Radio Caroline will take to the airwaves again to celebrate its 30th
anniversary. Caroline was launched outside British territorial waters in 1964
to try to break the BBC's radio monopoly. It was outlawed in 1967, moved to
Dutch waters, and continued intermittently until 1990.
The radio ship "Ross Revenge" will be equipped with a legal FM transmitter
for a month of broadcasts from off the Essex coast. Several of the original
disc jockeys will take part in the celebration. Radio Caroline manager Peter
Moore told the newspaper he hopes the temporary return of the station would
herald a full-scale revival, this time using satellite technology. (Reuters)
ASIAN MEDIA NEWS:
STAR-TV--Star-TV, fresh from dumping the BBC World Service and opening a pay
film channel to northern Asia in its stead, is planning to launch an Indian
pay-Tv film service by October. Star plans to split its two services (north
and south Asia presumeably) in 1995 to provide two Western movie channels,
one Hindi channel, and one Chinese channel. ("Satnews")
CYBERSPACE:
There's been quite a bit of reponse to last issue's coverage of broadcasters
and the Internet. Sometimes I wonder if I should even venture into these
realms, since most of you reading this will know lots more about the Net than
I do. (So far Radio Sweden just has our CompuServe mailbox, and Kauto Huopio
kindly uploads lots of interesting items from Usenet News Groups. But our
network Guru Kent Berggren has promised to give us a proper Internet mailbox,
and I have dreams of making schedules, newscast texts, and perhaps even
sound files available. But that make take awhile. See above about including
sound files with these bulletins.)
Tony Harding has received an interesting message from the NBC Nightly News
(which has the address nightly@nbc.ge.com, rather than the one listed last
time). The reply reads in part: "...If you want a summary of the five-part
series "Almost 2001" that is running this week, please send an e-mail message
to: summary@nbc.ge.com" There are further e-mail addresses to receive
transcripts of particular scripts or information about particular stories.
Ralph Brandi comments: "Next time you go net.surfing, you might want to check
the following World Wide Web link:
http://itre.uncecs.edu/radio/
This is a shortwave and satellite page put together by Pete Costello,
pec@joker.att.com, and housed on a computer run by Jay Novello,
jay@itre.uncecs.edu. It's still a work in progress, but it contains access to
a bunch of things, like date and time servers for locations around the world,
solar forecasts, sound clips of broadcasts, schedules and the like,
broadcasters' official net sites, like CBC and VOA, and the
rec.radio.shortwave FAQ (that's my part in setting this up....) One the
first page of the FAQ, I even have a reference to the directory on
ftp.funet.fi containing past issues of SCDXers, the electronic edition."
"Satnews" reports that a version of the popular US radio program "Professor
Neon's TV and Movie Mania" is being distributed directly to listeners over
the Internet.
SHORTWAVE:
VOA--As a greeting to the EDXC conference, the Voice of America will be
making a special stereo shortwave transmission of VOA Europe on May 20th,
between 20:00 and 23:00 hrs UTC, on 13834 kHz. This is from a 50 kW
transmitter at the new VOA relay site in Morocco.
The left channel of VOA Europe programming will be on the lower sideband, the
right channel on the upper sideband. If you have two radios capable of
selectable sideband reception, you may be
able to hear shortwave stereo. (VOA)
The Voice of America's regular weekly shortwave and medium wave listening
audience is approximately 92 million adults, according to calculations from
survey data by the U.S. Information Agency's Office of Research. This is a
conservative estimate. It does not include listeners who tune to VOA
programs rebroadcast by affiliate radio stations around the world.
Geographically, the audience to VOA direct broadcasts breaks down as follows:
Africa, 20 million; Latin America, 6 million; China, 19 million; other East
Asia and Pacific countries, 1 million; Europe, including the former Soviet
Union, 21 million; and Near East and South Asia, 25 million.
About one in five listeners tune in VOA Worldwide English programs; the rest
listen to VOA's language service broadcasts. The research indicates that
VOA's audience is generally young, male, and well
educated, although this may vary in different parts of the world. (VOA)
In response to the continuing crisis in the former Yugoslavia, VOA's Serbian
Service has expanded its daily broadcasts to Serbia temporarily to four hours
and 15 minutes. Each day, the service produces eight half hour programs and
an additional 15 minute show from 5:45 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. local time.
A typical Serbian service program begins with 15 minutes of news followed by
news-related material, interviews, American and international press reviews,
and a variety of feature programs. The service also covers any debate in
Congress regarding the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
Listeners tune in VOA Serbian on shortwave, medium wave, and on five
affiliate radio stations that rebroadcast the service's programs. Three of
the affiliate stations simulcast programming as it is received by satellite
directly from VOA studios in Washington, D.C.
The affiliate stations include Studio B in Belgrade, B92 also in Belgrade,
Radio Smederevo in Serbia, Radio Bajini Basta in Serbia on the Bosnian
border, and Fo Net, an audio news service supplying radio stations throughout
Serbia. A sixth station, Radio Pozarevac, will begin broadcasting VOA
Serbian in the near future. (VOA)
IRAN--The Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran is broadcasting in Bosnian at
18:30-19:00 hrs UTC on 9745 kHz. (BBC Monitoring)
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Sweden Calling DXers/MediaScan is the world's oldest radio program about
international broadcasting. Radio Sweden has presented this round-up of radio
news, features, and interviews on Tuesdays since 1948. It's currently
broadcast on the first and third Tuesdays of the month.
Radio Sweden broadcasts in English:
Europe and Africa:
16:15 hrs on 1179 and 6065 kHz
17:30 hrs on 1179, 6065, 9655, and 15390 kHz
20:30 hrs on 1179, 6065 and 9655 kHz
21:30 hrs on 1179 and 6065 kHz, and
22:30 hrs on 1179 and 6065 kHz
Middle East and Africa:
17:30 hrs on 6065, 9655, and 15390 kHz
20:30 hrs on 6065 and 9655 kHz
Asia and the Pacific:
11:30 hrs on 13775, 15120, and 15240 kHz
23:30 hrs on 11910 kHz and
01:30 hrs on 9695 and 11695 kHz
North America:
12:30 and 13:30 hrs on 15240 and 17870 kHz
02:30 and 03:30 hrs on 6040 and 9850 kHz
South America:
00:30 hrs on 6065 and 9850 kHz
The broadcasts at 16:15, 17:30, 21:30, and 22:30 hrs (and weekends at 20:30)
are also relayed to Europe by satellite:
Astra 1B (19.2 degrees East) transponder 26 (Sky Movies Gold/TV Asia/Adult
Channel) at 11.597 GHz, audio subcarrier at 7.74 MHz,
Tele-X (5 degrees East) (TV4 transponder) at 12.207 GHz, audio subcarrier
7.38 MHz.
Radio Sweden is also relayed to Europe via the World Radio Network on MTV's
transponder 22 on Astra, audio 7.38 MHz, daily at 20:00 hrs UTC.
Radio Sweden can also be heard on WRN's North American service on ASC-1, on
SCOLA's transponder 23, audio 6.20 MHz, daily at 00:00 and 20:00 hrs.
Contributions can be sent to DX Editor George Wood by fax to +468-667-6283,
from MCI Mail or CompuServe to the CompuServe mailbox 70247,3516, from
Internet to 70247.3516@compuserve.com, or to SM0IIN at the packet radio BBS
SM0ETV.
Reports can also be sent to:
Radio Sweden
S-105 10 Stockholm
Sweden
Contributions should be NEWS about electronic media--from shortwave to
satellites--and not loggings of information already available from sources
such as the "World Radio TV Handbook". Clubs and DX publications may reprint
material as long as MediaScan/Sweden Calling DXers and the original
contributor are acknowledged, with the exception of items from BBC
Monitoring, which are copyright.
We welcome comments and suggestions about the electronic edition, Sweden
Calling DXers, and our programs in general.
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Thanks to this week's contributors Good Listening!