From WOOD@stab.sr.seMon Mar 13 14:21:12 1995
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 14:25:35 +0100
From: George Wood <WOOD@stab.sr.se>
To: thbe@ccmail.svt.se, andy.sennitt@almac.co.uk, ab5sm@netcom.com,
hermod.pedersen@swedx.ct.se, kauto.huopio@lut.fi, kenta@sr.se,
ar416@freenet.buffalo.edu, bignoise@cix.compulink.co.uk,
tstader@aol.com, satnews@cix.compulink.co.uk, 100121.655@compuserve.com,
71163.1735@compuserve.com, 70630.560@compuserve.com,
100113.1517@compuserve.com, 76703.407@compuserve.com,
3382983@mcimail.com, 2446376@mcimail.com, jpdonnio@dialup.francenet.fr,
scdx@get.pp.se, tp6@evansville.edu, martyn@euro.demon.co.uk,
xx024@detroit.freenet.org
Subject: MediaScan/SCDX 2217
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:: MediaScan ::
:: SWEDEN CALLING DXERS ::
:: from Radio Sweden ::
:: Number 2217--Feb. 7, 1995 ::
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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 SCDX2217
All times UTC unless otherwise noted.
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NORDIC AND EUROPEAN MEDIA NEWS:
NON-EUROPEAN QUOTAS--The new European Commission is looking at the issue of
quotas for non-European television programming. At France's insistance, a
directive adopted a few years ago, ironically called "Television Without
Frontiers", seeks to force European broadcasters to use a majority of
European programming, where, and here's the loophole, practicable.
On the surface, of course, this would ban the ethnic channels for Japanese
and South Asians living in Europe. There's also the fuzzy question of what is
a European program, is it European financed, filmed in Europe, written by
Europeans, or starring European actors? Or all of the above.
(What do "Star Wars", "Star Trek: the Next Generation", "Casablanca",
"Murder, She Wrote", "Beauty and the Beast", "Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade", "An American in Paris", "The Longest Day", "The Pink Panther",
"Dallas", and "Falcon Crest" have in common? They all have some kind of
European connection.)
Now France is trying to plug the loophole, against considerable opposition.
Sweden is one of the three new members of the EU, and in today's editionof
the program I asked Minister of Culture Margot Wallstroem where her
government stands on the issue. She says they are sceptical of quotas, and
are hoping to work with the other Nordic nations to find alternatives.
Our conversation also covered the recent cutback of the budget for public
broadcasting in the recent Swedish government budget proposal, and her plans
for the future of private and community radio in this country.
On January 25, in an apparent effort to ease trans-Atlantic friction in the
quotas issue, the state-run France Television announced a major co-operation
agreement with Time-Warner. The agreement calls for co-productions by the two
companies, gives France Television special access to Time Warner music and
programs, an envisions joint development of new television services. The two
companies agreed to study joint projects for new cable or satellite channels.
(AP)
EBN--The postponement of Ariane launches, delaying the launch of Eutelsat's
Hot Bird-1, has prompted Dow Jones' European Business News to book a
transponder on Intelsat 601 until Hot Bird is in operation. EBN is set to
begin operations on February 27, 1995. Britain's ETN has announced a deal to
supply EBN with news. ("What Satellite TV" and "Tele-Satellit")
VT4--The American-owned and Benelux-based Scandinavian Broadcasting Systems
has launched a new Flemish channel to Belgium, called VT4. VT4 is trying to
get around the VTM state monopoly on Flemish broadcasting, by transmitting
from London by satellite, and is carried to Belgian viewers by cable. VT4 is
using Eutelsat II-F1, 11.145 GHz. ("Tele-Satellit")
NBC SUPER CHANNEL--Last time we reported that NBC Super Channel had not
appeared on the new Astra 1D satellite because the company had yet to sign a
contract. A few days later it finally showed up on transponder 50.
NBC has changed its Hot Bird transponder for one on Hot Bird 2. The
broadcaster will continue to use Astra for at least the next year, and the
Hot Bird 1 channel has been leased to the African pay-TV station Canal
Horizons. ("Tele-Satellit")
ASTRA--SES has ordered the 7th and 8th satellites to be co-located at 19.2
degrees east. Astra 1G will have 16 transponders for digital transmission
within the 11.7-12.75 GHz band, powered with 100W each. Another 16
transponders will back-up existing satellites. The launch date is planned for
Spring or Summer of 1997.
Astra 2A is intended to replace 1A after its lifecycle, and will be the last
Astra satellite for analog TV transmissions. SES has already announced that
British Sky Broadcasting has booked 9 transponders, 3 each on Astra 1E, 1F,
and 1G. The German Kirch-Gruppe has booked 8 transponders on Astra 1E. (1E is
due to launch in the Fall of 1995 on Ariane, while 1F is scheduled for March,
1996 from Russia). (Ludwig Alberter via Usenet News)
QVC--Many viewers have wondered why the European version of the QVC shopping
channel has been encoded, as part of the Sky Multichannels package. We
reported some weeks ago that QVC boss Barry Diller had said the channel would
end encryption soon. That report was denied by British Sky Broadcasting. Now
QVC says it will buying out much of BSkyB's share in the venture, increasing
its share to 80 percent, with BSkyB's shrinking from 50 to 20 percent.
According to Bill Schereck, president of QVC International, "Viewers will be
able to receive QVC, even if they do not subscribe to a Sky service. It's
clearly sensible to have as many people watching as possible, and this is a
first step in that direction." (Reuters)
BSKYB--In announcing pre-taxt profits of USD 86 million for the last half of
1994, British Sky broadcasting announced that its joint channel with Disney
is to start in October, 1995. Subscriptions have risen, and Sky is now in
more than four million British homes. (Reuters)
REUTERS AND MURDOCH--After failing to reach an agreement with WTN to more or
less take over the Sky News channel, Rupert Murdoch's British Sky
Broadcasting has formed an alliance with Reuters Television for Sky News. It
follows a similar deal in the United States between Reuters and Murdoch's Fox
Broadcasting network, announced on January 23. Reuters willbe in charge of
news gathering for Sky News, as well as make tailor-made programs and
syndicate Sky News worldwide. There's now speculation Reuters will also get
involved in Murdoch's Asian venture, Star-TV, which dumped BBC World Service
news last year, after pressure from China.
BBC--On the other hand, the new BBC World 24 hour news channel appeared right
on time on Eutelsat II-F1, 11.619 GHz, on January 26th. BBC World also
replaced the previous BBC World Service Television news channels to Asia and
Africa. The service has also been launched to American cable viewers this
month (although we have no details on available satellite channels).
Just as BBC World was coming on the air, and the BBC channel on Intelsat 601
was turning into the entertainment channel BBC Prime, the BBC's Andrew
Taussig was here in Stockholm. He joined us in the studio for a discussion
about rebroadcasting, and the future of shortwave. The private station
Classic FM here in Stockholm, owned by a British company, should be carrying
hourly bulletins of BBC news within a few weeks. The BBC is also putting
together a feed of hourly 5 minute newscasts to run in parallel with the
regular World Service output. This will not be available to dish-owners.
In our next program we'll be continuing our conversation to take up the plans
by the BBC and three other European broadcasters for a Europe-wide DAB
service.
DIGITAL SATELLITE RADIO--A consortium led by Alcatel Espace has announced it
is to build three satellites designed to transmit digital radio over four-
fifths of the globe. The American-based Worldspace company is to use the
system to reach listeners in the Third World by 1998. The Digital Audio
Broadcasting service will transmit to a new generation of receiver called
Starman, which will have a satellite antenna the size of a business card.
It's been developed by Motorola. Worldspace's three satellites, called
Caribstar, Afristar, and Asiastar, will broadcast news, entertainment, and
educational programs to Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean, and
Central and South America. (Reuters and France 2 teletext via BBC Monitoring)
ASIAN MEDIA NEWS:
APSTAR--China's Apstar-2 satellite exploded shortly after launch on January
26th (local time). Six local residents (including an entire family) were
killed in the crash, and 23 people were injured, when fragments of the rocket
and satellite fell in a mountainous area seven km from the launch site. The
explosion dashed the hopes of the world's media giants to broadcast to Asia's
huge television market. Apstar-2 was built to carry 100 digitally compressed
TV channels, and owuld have enabled broadcasters to reach two-thirds of the
world's population. It carried 26 C-band and 8 Ku-band transponders.
A Chinese-controlled newspaper in Hong Kong has blamed the American-made
satellite for the explosion. The Ta Kung Pao newspaper said the failure was
similar to the explosion that destroyed Australia's Optus satellite in
December, 1992. Both satellites were built by Hughes, which has denied
responsiblity for the Optus failure, and carried on Chinese Long March
rockets. The paper also suggests that sabotage may have been responsible,
caused by signals sent by foreign missile tracking stations.
Some 25 private Indian television channels were due to launch on Apstar-2.
Progam-makers, who had invested heavily in projects, now fase postponing
operations and seeking new vehicles. India may lease channels on its existing
Insat 2B and the Insat 2C satellite due to be launched in September. Both
India's state-broadcaster Doordarshan and Rupert Murdoch's Star-TV are said
by observers to be benefiting from the delay in new competition.
Portugal's RTP was among the broadcasters who had leased capacity on Apstar-
2. RTP has now made a provisional reservation to use the upcoming Asiasat-2,
which is to be launched in June, 1995. Other broadcasters who had planned to
use the satellite include Turner Broadcasting, ESPN, Home Box Office, the
Discovery Channel, and Hong Kong's TVB. (AP, Reuters, BBC Monitoring, and
"Tele-Satellit")
NBC--NBC has announced an expansion of its Asian News and Business Channel,
ANBC. It has been running 8 hours a day on Palapa B2P. The channel has now
begun 24 hour operations on PAS-2. The new ANBC service also launched
nationwide in Australia on January 26, via the Australis pay-TV network.
("Tele-Satellit")
CHINA--The state broadcaster China Central Television has contracted to use
PanAmSat's PAS-2 and PAS-3 satellites to forge the first global television
service in Chinese. The deal enables CCTV to use PanAmSat's global television
system to broadcast across Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Africa, reaching
an overseas Chinese audience of 40 million. CCTV quietly began broadcasting
to Asia and parts of North America in December over PaAmSat's Pacific
orbiter, PAS-2. Its Mandarin Chinese broadcasts will be widened to all of the
Americas, Europe, and Africa when PAS-3 is launched over the Atlantic late
this year. (Reuters)
SOUTH KOREA--South Korea's first communications satellite, Mugungahwa (named
after the country's national flower "Rose of the Sharon"), is scheduled to be
launched from Cape Canaveral on July 18, 1995. (Reuters)
NORTH AMERICAN MEDIA NEWS:
PBS--The new Republican majority in the American Congress is considering a
major reduction in the budget allocation for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, which funds non-commercial public service radio and television
in the United States.
Some Republicans have even suggested privatizing public broadcasting. Senator
Larry Pressler of South Dakota, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committe,
which controls CPB's budget, says he has met with the heads of several
telecommunications companies, included Bell Atlantic Corp., who have
expressed interest in buying and running CPB. The President of the Colorado-
based Jones Intercable Inc., the 8th largest cable operator in the US, has
also indicated interest in getting in on the "privatizing" of public
broadcasting. Under Jones' proposal, PBS programming would be synidcated to
commercial television stations, cable networks, and video networks run by
telephone companies. (NPR and "San Francisco Chronicle")
CYBERSPACE:
EUROPE--A British-based company called Wildfire is to announce a new
satellite feed over Astra. The company plans to broadcast a daily feed of the
Usenet newsgroups carried on the Internet. Spokesman Stephen Howard says they
ppan to take a day's news, compress it, and broadcast it across Astra in the
early hours of the morning. The dat would be sent in the spare lines within
the verticle blanking interval, already used for teletext. An inexpensive
adaptor costing around GBP 50 would convert the compressed feed into a
standard format suitable for use with most newsreaders. Users would gain the
ability to download as many newsgroups as they wished, without paying
telephone charges. They would still need a conventional dial-up account to
send messages to the Usenet system. ("Tele-Satellit")
We have tried to contact Wildfire about this service, but have yet to receive
an answer.
KJHK--Pete Costello has pointed out that we gave the wrong URL for the new 24
hour Internet feed from KJHK in Kansas. Their home page is actually:
http://www.cc.ukans.edu/~kjhknet
The reflector was correctly given as: 129.237.117.95
This is accessible from UNIX machines, and from Macintoshes runnng a program
called CU-SeeMe. The program exists for Windows, but handles only video, not
audio, as yet.
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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:
17:15 hrs 1179 and 6065 kHz
18:30 1179, 6065, 9655, and 13690 kHz (also Africa/Middle East)
21:30 1179, 6065, and 9655 kHz (also Africa/Middle East)
22:30 1179 and 6065 kHz
23:30 1179 kHz
Asia/Pacific:
12:30 hrs 13775, 15120, and 15240 kHz
23:30 11910 kHz
01:30 9895 and 11695 kHz
North America:
13:30 and 14:30 hrs on 11650 and 15240 kHz
02:30 and 03:30 hrs on 6200 and 7120 kHz
Latin America:
00:30 hrs on 6065 and 6200 kHz
The broadcasts at 17:15 and 18:30 hrs are also relayed to Europe by
satellite:
Astra 1B (19.2 degrees East) transponder 26 (Sky Movies Gold) at
11.597 GHz, audio subcarrier at 7.74 MHz,
Tele-X (5 degrees East) via TV5 Nordic at 12.475 GHz, audio subcarrier
7.38 MHz.
Radio Sweden is also relayed to Europe via the World Radio Network on VH-1'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 Galaxy-5,
on WTBS's transponder 6, audio 6.8 MHz, daily at 00:00 and 20:00 hrs.
Sound files of Mediascan are archived at:
ftp.funet.fi:pub/sounds/RadioSweden/Mediascan.
If you access to the WorldWide Web, you can also find the programs among the
offerings of Internet Talk Radio at various sites, including:
ftp://town.hall.org/radio/Mirrors/RadioSweden/MediaScan
The World Radio Network is also available live via the Internet MBONE. Check:
http://town.hall.org/radio/wrn.html
Contributions can be sent to DX Editor George Wood by fax to +468-667-6283,
via the Internet to wood@stab.sr.se, from MCI Mail or CompuServe to the
CompuServe mailbox 70247,3516, 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!