From WOOD@stab.sr.seMon Feb 20 17:58:01 1995
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 16:53:16 +0100
From: George Wood <WOOD@stab.sr.se>
To: bergstamta@decus.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: scdx2218
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:: MediaScan ::
:: SWEDEN CALLING DXERS ::
:: from Radio Sweden ::
:: Number 2218--Feb. 21, 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 SCDX2218
All times UTC unless otherwise noted.
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EUROPEAN MEDIA NEWS:
EU QUOTAS--As we mentioned last time, the new European Commission has been
looking at the issue of quotas for non-European television programming.
France has been trying to tighten the directive "Television Without
Frontiers", adopted a few years ago, that sought to force European
broadcasters to use a majority of European programming, but added a loophole,
saying this would only be where practical.
The French suffered a set-back at the recent meeting of European Union
Ministers of Culture. But what do European film-makers feel about quotas?
Radio Sweden's Jim Downing was at the recent Gothenburg Film Festival, and
filed a report, including an interview with fil director Christina Olofsson,
who is against quotas and in favor of subsidies to local film-makers to make
better European films which can compete with Hollywood.
NORWEGIAN QUOTAS--Norway is not a member of the European Union, and it looks
like Norwegian attempts to enforce another sort of quota, on media ownership,
may force one of the country's most popular satellite broadcasters to move
its uplink abroad. TV Norge, on the Intelsat 702 satellite, is owned by the
Scandinavian Broadcasting System, which despite its name is based in
Luxembourg, and owned primarily by the ABC television network in the US. It
also runs Sweden's TV 5, or Femman, another station in Denmark, and Belgium's
new VT-4 channel.
Norwegian politicians are considering legislation to block a single owner
from holding more than one third of a broadcasting organization. While TV
Norge's management has denied there are plans to move, there's widespread
speculation in Norway this will happen should be ownership law be passed.
(NTB)
TV3--There's a precedent--Sweden's TV3, which broadcasts separate Norwegian,
Swedish, and Danish services by satellite and cable, is based in London to
avoid Swedish media laws. They've suffered a setback recently -- a leading
Swedish department store chain has withdrawn all its advertising from TV3, to
protest against television violence.
The Aahlens chain says TV3 carries the most violent programming on Swedish
television. The channel took its most violent children's program, the
American series "Power Rangers", off the air last year, following several
incidents of children assaulting playmates in Scandinavia. However, the
program returned to the schedule a few weeks later. ("Dagens Nyheter")
TV-SAT--There's been a lot of speculation about Germany's TV-Sat direct
broadcast satellite, which has been up for sale. The main rivals have
apparently been the Norwegians, who want to place the satellite next to Thor
at 1 degree West, the Swedish Space Coporation, who want another satellite
with Tele-X and Sirius at 5 degrees East, and Eutelsat, who want to beef up
the 13 degrees East position while waiting for the delayed Hot Bird
satellite.
According to an item on the Usenet alt.satellite.tv.europe newsgroup, the
Norwegians have won, and the satellite began its move from 19 degrees East to
1 degree West last weekend. It's expected to arrive at its new position in
mid-March. (Kauto Huopio)
FINLAND--Finland's first local TV station started transmissions last week in
Tampere. It is the first regional television station in the Nordic countries,
and in his opening address, Finnish Communications Minister Ole Norrback
promised franchises for Helsinki, Turku, and Lahti, if the applicants were
forthcoming. (YLE via BBC Monitoring and Kauto Huopio)
EUROPEAN DIGITAL RADIO--Last time we started a conversation with Andrew
Taussig, the BBC World Service radio's head of broadcasting for Europe, who
was here in Stockholm. Britain is expected to become the first country in the
world with regular broadcasts using digital audio broadcasting, D-A-B, due to
start later this year. But the BBC is also involved in a program with several
other countries to carry separate international digital channels in English,
French, and German across Europe.
The initial project is between the BBC and counterparts in Germany, France,
and the Netherlands. Once the project is running, other European broadcasters
will be invited to join in. There's a practical reason for this, the
participants want the system to be relayed across the continent, with a
single DAB frequency from northern Sweden to southern Italy. In addition, the
EU, which is funding the project, wants all its members included.
A non-DAB pilot program will be airing on the BBC's medium wave transmitter
on 648 kHz, which is well received in Brussels. (Andrew Taussig)
EBN--The new European Business Channel from Dow Jones is due to launch on
Intelsat 601 on February 27th.
EUROPEAN UNION--Not content with the EBU's Euronews, the European Union has
started its own broadcasts on Eutelsat II-F2, on 11.080 GHz. It's in clear
PAL. Five subcarriers of the trnsponder, at 6.60, 7.02, 7.20, 7.38, and 7.56
MHz, carry audio to accompany the video in different EU languages. The
transmissions are all of EU-related material, including relays of sessions of
the European parliament, and news conferences gives by EU officials. The
transmissions are on the air at various times of the day. When no events are
being relays, a program schedule is displayed. (BBC Monitoring and James
Robinson)
ARIANE--After being stopped by a launch failure in December, Western Europe's
Ariane satellite launch program is scheduled to resume operations from March
14. Arianespace says a series of 21 corrective measures costing more than USD
8 million have been adopted to ensure the reliability of the rocket. March's
scheduled mission will attempt to launch Eutelsat's Hot Bird-1 satellite, and
Brazil's Brasilsat B2. A spokesman for Arianespace would not give an exact
date, but said the launch was scheduled from March 14th onwards. (Reuters)
DMX--DMX is ready to launch its CD-quality mucis service from Astra in April.
Offering 90 channels of themes music, DMX anticipates that relatively few
satellite TV enthusiasts will take the service at first. Consumer receivers,
made by Technisat and Kathrein in Germany, will cost in Germany around the
equivalent of GBP 200, but should fall to around GBP 100 when the market has
matured. The service will cost around GBP 7 a month. ("What Satellite TV")
EUTELSAT--Eutelsat says its sold all 20 transponder leases on its Hot Bird 2
satellite, due to launch in August, 1996. ("What Satellite TV")
QVC--Which we've previously reported would be leaving the Sky Multichannels
package and switching to clear PAL, has changed instead to soft Videocrypt
encoding. Like UK Gold and Sky Sports previously (but no longer), this means
that anyone with a Videocrypt decoder can watch the station, without a BSkyB
smartcard. ("What Satellite TV")
GERMANY--The media authorities in Frankfurt have issued five licences for new
TV channels in Germany. They have been awarded to new music channels Viva 2
and VH-1 Germany, FAB (Fernsehen aus Berlin), the family channel Super RTL,
and TM3, the third channel from Tele Munchen. So far none of the new channels
that have booked space on Astra 1D have been awarded licences. This includes
Kabel Plus and the shopping channel HOT.
Viva 2 is believed to have secured the Eurosport transponder on Eutelsat II-
F1 which will be vacated when Europsort moves to the upcoming Hot Bird
satellite. Super RTL will occupy channels on Hot Bird and Astra's transponder
13 when RTL vacates for Astra 1D. ("Tele-Satellit")
Despite a report that the German VH-1 will be using the evening time on
Nickelodeon's transponder 46 on Astra, there's nothing there yet. It's worth
keeping an eye on it, along with the other vacant Astra transponders.
DEUTSCHE WELLE--Dieter Weirich, director of Deutsche Welle Radio and TV
International, announced at the Intersat 95 trade fair in Frankfurt that
Deutsche Welle will launch a 24 hour international TV channel in German,
English, and Spanish from July 1, 1995. (apparently expanding the current
Deutsche Welle TV in those three languages, and squeezing the USIA's Worldnet
off the transponders, just as France's TV5 did a couple of years ago). (ADN
via BBC Monitoring)
TV ASIA/ZEE--Astra broadcaster TV Asia has dealt with its first serious
potential competitor by merging with it. Last December Zee-TV, broadcast to
India over Rupert Murdoch's Star-TV, and partly owned by Star, announced it
would start a European channel this March. TV Asia has responded by merging
with Zee-TV. ("What Satellite TV")
ASIAN MEDIA NEWS:
IRAN--Iran's Council of Guardians, a body responsible for endorsing the
approvals of the Majlis, on February 15 endorsed a law banning the use of
satellite dishes and equipment. Satellite dish owners will have one month to
turn in their equipment or pay fines ofup to USD 740. Over the past few
years, hundreds of thousands of Iranian households, bored by state
television, have installed satellite dishes, which are smuggled into the
country. Supporters of the ban say satellite dishes are the spearhead of a
"Western cultural invasion". Opponents say the government should first supply
alternative entertainment. (IRNA via BBC Monitoring and Reuters)
ISRAEL--Israel TV's channel 3 began full-time broadcasting on satellite and
cable on January 22. It can now be received in most of the Middle East, the
Gulf, and North Africa. (BBC Monitoring) Presumeably the satellite in
question is Intelsat 702, which carries three Israeli television channels.
Channel 3 is listed on 11.023 GHz.
APSTAR--A pro-Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong has claimed that the recent loss
of the Apstar-2 satellite was due to a failure within the satellite, and not
the Chinese Long March rocket. China made similar claims when Australia's
Optus satellite failed to achieve orbit in 1992. Later in the week the
newspaper backed away from the claims, saying only that the investigation was
continuing. Shortly after the crash, the same newspaper had claimed that
sabotage from foreign tracking stations was responsible for the failure, in
order to cause a loss of confidence in the Chinese space program. ("Tele-
Satellit" and Reuters)
Despite the Apstar failure, MTV Asia plans to launch new channels in April
and May, using current capacity on four existing satellites. Meanwhile,
another Apstar broadcaster, Asian Business News, has now booked a transponder
on PAS-4, due to be launched in mid-1995. ABN, owned jointly by Television
New Zealand, Dow Jones, Singapore's SIM, and cable giant TCI, is currently on
Indonesia's Palapa P2 satellite. Ted Turner's TNT and Cartoon Network,
scheduled for Apstar-2, continue to broadcast on Apstar-1. (Reuters)
TVB--Britain's media group Pearson has bought 10 percent of Hong Kong's
Television Broadcasts, TVB, the world's leading producer of Chinese language
drama, and a potential rival to Rupert Murdoch's Star-TV. TVB's plans to
expand into South Asia have been temporarily halted by the failure of the
Apstar-2 satellite, but Pearson has also secured an agreement with a local
broadcaster in that region to start a TV channel soon. ("Tele-Satellit")
JAPAN--NHK is to launch a gloval TV service via satellite. By using the TV
Japan services for North America and Europe, this will mean a five hour
program to North America and three hours to Europe, free of charge. From 1996
onwards, NHK's plans include expanding broadcasting hours, and launching a
similar service to Asia and the Pacific in 1998. (Radio Japan via BBC
Monitoring) Is this a reference to the Japanese service on Astra, JSTV? It is
hardly free, except for immediately after the Kobe earthquake when JSTV
commendably dropped its coding.
NORTH AMERICAN MEDIA NEWS:
USA--The Federal Communications Commission has announced the award of
spectrum located between 2310 and 2360 MHz for the creasion of a "direct-to-
radio" satellite broadcasting service. The Digital Aufio Radio Swervice
(DARS) will deliver CD quality radio to the public. While four companies have
applied to provide the new service, it is expected that a challenge from the
National Association of Broadcasters will delay any start-up for at least two
years. ("Dishcetera" via Curt Swinehart)
CYBERSPACE:
USA--A third American college radio station has begun broadcasts over the
Internet. This is KUGS at Western Washington University in Bellingham.
Information about the station can be found at:
http://www.pacificrim.net:80/~kugs
Another college station, WREK at Georgia Tech, is preparing to launch on the
Net. The URL seems to be:
http://www.gatech.edu/wrek/wreknet_tech.html
(Pete Costello, who's Shortwave/Radio Catalog can be found at:
http://itre.unceces.edu/radio)
EUROPE--Wildfire, the service reported last time that intends to transmit the
Usenet newsgroups to Europe using the blank lines on an Astra transponder,
has the URL:
htt://www.tecc.co.uk/wildfire/index.html
They write: "Each user will need to purchase our receiver/ decoder unit which
is an internal PC card. This will be available throughout Europe. Our target
end user price is around GBP 50 - 80, inclusive of VAT (17.5%) and UK
postage. Prices for other systems will be similar when they are available,
with the exception of the external RS232 box which will be considerably more.
It is intended that the receiver will be sold for close to cost price, to
encourage take up of the service
"In addition to this each user will need to take out a subscription to
receive the service. This pays our satellite transmission costs (our largest
cost), and enables up to provide support in an ongoing basis. The
subscription will be around GBP 8 - 10 per month, and this will include the
user receiving as much or as little of the service as they wish.
All users will of course need a normal Internet account (for sending news and
for using interactive services), and a satellite dish and receiver...Note
that the dish and receiver is not dedicated to use with this system, it can
be used for watching TV at any time other than when we are 'on air'."
(Wildfire)
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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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