MEDIABLAB DAILY DIGEST DEC 31: BAIDU BENAZIR BHUTTO BRITNEY SPEARS THAKSIN
December 31st 2007 03:14
A compilation of MediaBlab news items published over the past 24 hours....'ave a happy new year
\BAIDU’S TOP FINANCE MAN DIES IN CHINESE HOLIDAY ACCIDENT
Shawn Wang, chief financial officer of the leading Chinese internet search firm Baidu.com Inc, died in an accident on December 27, the company said.
Reuters reports that the accident happened in China while Wang was on holidays, Baidu said in a statement. It did not elaborate.
Wang joined Beijing-based Baidu in 2004 and helped it list on the Nasdaq stock exchange the following year.
IS 2007 THE YEAR THE MEDIA CONGLOMERATE FINALLY BROKE?
BusinessWeek writer Jon Fine has made an interesting call: he has declared “2007 looks like the year the media conglomerate finally broke.”
This call comes just a week after America's Federal Communications Commission approved a plan to lift laws barring companies from owning newspapers and TV stations in the same city, and sparked outrage in those who see this as a gateway to further media consolidation.
Fine concedes there were a few big deals in 2007: News Corp-Dow Jones, Reuters-Thomson, and the pending Sirius-XM merger.
But he concluded that “the narrative overwhelmingly centred around companies slimming down or splitting up.”
He gave examples to back up his claim and suggested “the thinking behind the groaning multimedia behemoth was fundamentally misbegotten...eventually hugeness stops delivering.”
He said the limitations of synergy and scale have long been clear and pointed out that the Tribune Co bought Times Mirror in 2000 for more than $US8 billion, hoping newspaper and TV duopolies in cities like LA and Chicago would make for more robust national ad sales.
PBL MEDIA EDITORIAL DIRECTOR’S DEAL TO CO-HOST BREAKFAST RADIO SHOW QUICKLY CANCELED
On Friday morning MediaBlab reported that the Australian Women's Weekly editorial director Deborah Thomas would join Fairfax-owned Sydney radio station 2UE breakfast host Mike Carlton as his new on-air partner.
But later on Friday, Deborah Thomas's manager, John Fordham, withdrew her from negotiations with 2UE's owner, Fairfax Media, after she held discussions with her current employer, PBL Media.
It is believed PBL Media executives were unaware of Thomas's radio plans until they first read about them in The Australian newspaper.
Her PBL duties will be increased despite yesterday's news she will be replaced as editor-in-chief of the magazine by New Idea's Robin Foyster.
PBL, once the bulwark of the powerful Packer media empire has traditionally been an avowed rival of the Fairfax family empire.
MediaBlab was present at a dinner at Kerry Packer’s home in Bellevue Hill Sydney when the mogul unleashed a tirade against the Fairfax’s, stating that his company would rather go under than merge or cooperate with the Fairfax’s.
NEW ZEALAND’S RADIOWORKS ACQUIRES RADIO STATIONS FROM MARLBOROUGH MEDIA
New Zealand’s RadioWorks, a MediaWorks Company, will acquire the Blenheim-based Marlborough Media radio business which owns Sounds FM in Blenheim, Picton and Kaikoura, as well as Easy FM in Blenheim and Picton.
No disclosure of consideration has been made public at this stage.
Scoop NZ said the owners of Marlborough Media say they are pleased
to be handing the stations to a company committed to producing
live and local radio.
Dr Lynda Scott-Kelly, Marlborough media director told Scoop, "We have been involved with Sounds FM for 17 years. It was the
first FM station in Marlborough so we have somewhat mixed emotions,
but are delighted the stations are going to operators who are
passionate about local radio.
"There have been many highlights over the years, including the
New Zealand Radio Awards for Provincial Station of the Year at
the at the turn of the millennium and Outstanding Community Contribution
along with numerous announcing and programming awards. We have
great staff who form a dedicated team with a proud history."
The change in ownership is effective today.
MediaWorks NZ Ltd is a subsidiary of HT Media Holdings Ltd, and is New Zealand's leading private sector broadcast and online media company. Through its
wholly owned subsidiaries and divisions – TVWorks Ltd, RadioWorks
Ltd and NetWorks – , it owns and operates the TV3 and C4 television
networks, national radio brands The Edge, The Rock, More FM,
Kiwi FM, RadioLIVE, BSport, Solid Gold and The Breeze, plus several
local radio stations.
HARPERCOLLINS TO RUSH-PUBLISH BENAZIR BHUTTO’S BOOK BY FEBRUARY
The rush is on by HarperCollins to publish in book form the manuscript it recently received from Benazir Bhutto, according to the New York Post.
The publisher, a unit of News Corp, hopes to have Bhutto's "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West" in bookstores by February, Post business columnist Keith J. Kelly reported.
HarperCollins had given Bhutto an estimated $75,000 advance just before she returned to Pakistan in October after years of living in exile, the Post said.
Outspoken and predictably controversial Media Wire Daily reported, “Maybe the bookies at Harper Collins were holding out to see if Benazir Bhutto would have been successful in the Pakistan elections, before releasing the manuscript submitted to them by the slain former Pakistani prime minister in the form of a book.
“Then again like Bhutto herself, they probably knew it was only a matter of time before someone offed her. Now the company is rushing the book to press for no other reason but to catch buzz sales.”
INDIA’S CNN-IBN TV BASKS IN THE GLORY OF AN AWARD-WINNING 2007
India’s CNN-IBN rolls into the New Year celebrating after having been declared as the Best English News Channel for the year 2007 by the Indian Television Academy earlier in December.
This is the second consecutive year at that CNN-IBN won this gong at the Indian Television Awards which were held in Mumbai.
The channel’s editor-in-Chief, Rajdeep Sardesai was declared as the Best Male Anchor in the popular awards category, and the Best Male News Anchor award was given to Cyrus Broacha, who hosts The Week That Wasn’t on CNN-IBN.
CNN-IBN’s sister station CNBC-TV18 won Best Business News Channel.
CNN-IBN’s win was the third television award it landed in 2007. The channel also won at the News Television Awards 2007 and the Indian Telly Awards 2007, earlier this year.
Dilip Venkatraman, director-marketing, CNN-IBN and IBN7 told Indian media, “We are delighted to have won all the awards for ‘Best English News Channel’ this year. This would not have been possible without the support of all the stakeholders in the process, especially our viewers and advertisers. These accolades only increase our resolve to pursue viewer-centric initiatives which are driven by journalistic content.”
‘LEAVE BRITNEY SPEARS ALONE’ IMPASSIONED VIDEO AMONG YOUTUBE HITS OF THE YEAR
Videos by the so-called Obama Girl, a fan's tearful defence of Britney Spears and an attack by a herd of buffaloes on a pride of lions, were among the most popular clips on YouTube.com in 2007, according to Reuters.
One of the biggest YouTube hits was an eight-minute video titled Battle at Kruger. This video, which showed the battle between a herd of water buffaloes, a pride of lions and a crocodile over a young calf, has been watched more than 21 million times on YouTube.
Another hit was the Obama Girl video, created by Barely Political, featuring an attractive young singer professing her love for Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama. It has been viewed more than 4 million times and featured on television news and talk shows.
While Barely Political was clearly satirical, nobody is fully aware of what Chris Crocker was trying to do in his ‘Leave Britney Alone’ clip in September.
The clip is a close-up of Crocker breaking down in tears as he berates the media and paparazzi for hounding sandal ridden neurotic pop singer Britney Spears.
YouTube said the melodramatic two-minute clip made Crocker an instant YouTube star, has been watched more than 14 million times and is the fourth most-commented-on video in YouTube's history.
Crocker is a gay Tennessee-based YouTube and MySpace personality who describes himself as an “edutainer” who produces and acts in transgressive videos, whatever they may be.
He claims concerns over death threats has forced him to keep his exact identity and location private, but he says he shoots his videos at his grandparents’ home..
As of October 2007, his videos had received a combined 40.2 million plays on MySpace, and his vlog channel on YouTube is the 14th most viewed of all time in all categories, with over 48.7 million views.
His melodramatic Britney Spears tear-fest video generated over 4 million views in two days.
In September he signed a development deal with 44 Blue Productions in the US to star in a documentary-style reality TV show.
Something to look forward too in 2008 – not!
THAKSIN INTERVIEW BLOCKED BY THAILAND’S GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED TV STATION
A Thai TV news show was blocked from broadcasting an interview with deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in which he commented on his allies' victory in last weekend's election.
AP reported that Channel TITV, controlled by the military-installed government, planned to air an interview with the deposed leader on Wednesday evening but the program was replaced at the last minute, according to Jom Petchphradub, the program's host, who conducted the interview in Hong Kong.
Thaksin, who has been living abroad since the coup, was in Hong Kong during and after Sunday's general election.
In a 40-minute interview conducted on Monday, Thaksin voiced his reaction to the election, his plans to eventually return to Thailand and spoke about his year in self-imposed exile, among other topics, Jom told The Associated Press.
Jom said officials in the government's Public Relations Department, which falls under the Prime Minister's Office, called one of his editors to inquire about the interview, which was subsequently yanked from the air on Wednesday evening.
The channel's news editor, Sonthayan Chuenraethainaitam, confirmed that the interview was pulled from the air but said he did not have details "from the officials concerned."
AP said it was unclear if government officials barred the broadcast or if the network's executives censored the program after getting a call from the Public Relations Department.
The head of the Public Relations Department, the only official authorised to comment on the matter, was not available to comment.
NOW IT’S THE VIDEO COMPACT DISC REVOLUTION IN MYANMAR
A colourful Ahnyeint, or variety dance, video compact disc which features four comedians mocking and ridiculing the Myanmar regime's weak points and appalling governance, is popular among Yangon residents and is being widely circulated, according to a Mizzima news report.
"This VCD is widely being circulated in Yangon. Almost everyone has watched this VCD and likes it. If someone has not yet watched the VCD, those who have watched it give it to them. This way, the VCD is circulating and everybody likes it," a student told Mizzima.
A student from Yangon Eastern University told Mizzima that famous sermons by sayadaws (abbots) and secretly recorded video footages during the September ‘Saffron revolution,’ and uncensored foreign films are also available from roadside vendors in downtown Pansodan Street.
"But you cannot get these uncensored DVDs and VCDs easily. You have to place an order and collect it the next day at the time given by the vendors because the vendors are at risk of being arrested if they are founding possession of these DVDs and VCDs," he said.
There are reports that the authorities are chasing vendors selling such DVDs and VCDs, although no one has been reportedly been arrested yet.
But Ko Tin Htay and Ko Than Tun were sentenced to four and half years in prison on April 25 this year for being in possession of 'The Night of Diamonds' a documentary VCD which compares the lavish and extravagant wedding reception of Thandar Shwe, daughter of Senior General Than Shwe, with the miserable daily life of the common people who live in poverty.
This video was originally distributed to leading international news agencies by Aung Zaw, the editor and founder of the Chiang Mai-based dissident magazine, The Irrawaddy Journal.
Earlier this year, allegations were made that funds received for payments by news agencies for this video were misappropriated Aung Zaw.
But a MediaBlab investigation revealed that the allegations, primarily made by Stephen Finch, a Brit reporter who had been fired by the Irrawaddy Journal, were baseless.
ASIA-PACIFIC BROADCASTING UNION TO HOLD DIGITAL AND MOBILE TV SYMPOSIUM IN MALAYSIA
The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union will hold ‘Symposium 2008: Progression to Digital and Mobile Service’ in Kuala Lumpur, on March 10-13.
The union said, “Implementation of digital and mobile broadcasting services is gaining momentum in the Asia-Pacific region. However, technology does not stand still and new enhancements are being introduced to digital broadcasting systems, programme content innovations and the resulting business strategies. This symposium aims to address these aspects and discuss how implementation strategies, consumer services and business planning can be employed to undertake the progression to digital and mobile services.
”With an emphasis on mobile services, the symposium will have a strong element of digital radio and TV broadcasting, while two sessions will be devoted to programming issues; content creation for mobile TV, and content and services for shortwave digital radio. Technology workshops will provide focused presentation of specific technologies for radio, TV and mobile broadcasting.
SRI LANKAN JUNIOR GOVERNMENT MINISTER TRIES TO INVADE TV STATION AND COMES A GUTSER
A Sri Lankan junior government minister, Mervyn Silva, made an international prat of himself after tele-footage was broadcast globally of him storming into the state-owned SLRC TV station with armed men and assaulting its news director for not airing a recent speech he had made.
Silva has a reputation for trying to intimidate journalists, and his latest tirade prompted the entire staff of the station to stop work and stage a strike in protest against the violence, according to Lanka Business Online.
TMG Chandrasekera, director of news at SLRC, and a victim of the assault told Lanka Business Online, "About 10.05am Mervyn Silva and his goons came to the newsroom and accused me of not airing a news item about himself.
"He grabbed me by the neck and dragged me to the chairman's office where he assaulted me. I managed to escape but a thug grabbed me and assaulted me again."
Chandrasekera said SLRC employees prevented the minister and his men from leaving the premises until he apologised. The minister was released after he apologised and was escorted out by a police rescue team.
NEW ZEALAND’S MAORI TELEVISION TO LAUNCH INDIGENOUS TV BROADCASTING AWARD
New Zealand's national indigenous broadcaster, Maori Television, is launching a lifetime achievement award for indigenous television broadcasting.
Maori Television chief executive Jim Mather says the new award will recognise people who have made an outstanding contribution to the indigenous television broadcasting industry in New Zealand.
Scoop.co.nz said the award is to be presented at the inaugural World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference to be held in Auckland on March 26-28, 2008.
Media accreditation has now opened for the three-day broadcasting conference which will be the first-ever gathering of indigenous television leaders from throughout the world.
A World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network will also be launched as part of the event.
CHINA CLAIMS IT WILL HAVE A MORE OPEN MEDIA DURING AND AFTER THE BEIJING OLYMPICS
China will have a more open attitude toward the world and ensure better services for the media in the future, the leading information official said according to a report in China Daily.
And about 30,000 foreign journalists are expected to be in Beijing next summer for the Games alone, and State Council Information Office minister Cai Wu said his office is helping train local news officials to better serve the media.
The training is aimed at changing the mentality of news officials and government leaders at different levels and preparing them to face the outside world more openly.
He said the office has already trained news officials from 31 provincial capitals and municipalities, and the program will be expanded next year to include city level media officials.
The country implemented a new set of regulations on reporting in the run-up to and during the Olympics from this year. They stipulate that from this year to the end of the Olympic Games, overseas reporters only need an interviewee's permission to conduct an interview.
But Reporters Without Borders is dubious about Cai Wu’s claims that new rules for the foreign press introduced as part of the preparations for next August's Beijing Olympics could remain in force after the games are over.
Reporters Without Borders said, "So far this is just a promise like so many other promises that have been made. The authorities need to start respecting the new regulations first. We monitored 65 cases of foreign journalists being arrested, beaten, and prevented from doing a report or threatened since the new rules were supposed to take effect on January 1, 2007. And the day before the minister's statement, an Associated Press reporter was detained in southern China."
Speaking at a news conference yesterday, Cai Wu said, “No document says that when this new regulation expires on October 17 next year (2008) we are going to return to the previous regulations. If practice shows that it will help the international community know better about China and if it is in the interests of China's efforts of reform and opening up, it is not at all necessary for us to change a good policy."
Jocelyn Ford heads the press freedom committee of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, which wants the new regulations made permanent.
She told Reporters Without Borders, “The minister's statement is encouraging. I would be surprised if China went back to tighter restrictions on foreign correspondents. But we are still waiting to see whether the regulations giving foreign correspondents reporting freedom will be more fully respected by Chinese authorities.”
She said that in 2007 her organisation received reports of 180 violations of the rules, ranging from surveillance of journalists to detentions."
This is not the first time that a Chinese official has hinted that the former regulations, under which foreign reporters had to request permission every time they wanted to travel within the country or interview Chinese citizens, would not be restored after the Olympics.
Wang Wei, a member of the Beijing games organising committee, promised in 2001 that there would be "total press freedom" before and during the games. But there have been many incidents involving foreign reporters this year and the Chinese media are still under the Propaganda Department's control.
The latest incident was the arrest and expulsion on December 26 of an Associated Press reporter from a village in southern China where there have been protests again the confiscation of land for a power plant.
INDONESIA EXTENDS DEADLINE FOR NATIONAL BROADCASTERS TO BUILD NETWORKS WITH LOCAL TV STATIONS
The Indonesian government has extended the deadline for national television stations to build networks with local TV stations by selling part of their shares to the regional broadcasters.
The new deadline is to December 28, 2009.
The Jakarta Post reported that Indonesia’s Information and Communications Minister, Muhammad Nuh, said the government had to extend the deadline because it was impossible to provide technical regulations to implement the 2002 Broadcasting Law, which mandates the establishment of the networks, in less than two years.
"We were impeded by the constitutional and judicial reviews of the law and its derivative, the 2005 government regulation, whose verdicts were passed only in April," he said.
However, a member of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission, Bimo Nugroho, said both reviews were "irrelevant excuses" to justify the deadline extension.
"Neither review ever touched any article on the broadcast networking system," he told The Jakarta Post.
Bimo said the extension of the deadline showed the government's partiality to national TV stations, although he acknowledged that it was not easy for TV stations to implement the law because selling shares depended on market mechanisms
CHINA TO RELEASE NEW POLICY FOR ONLINE VIDEO BROADCASTING AND SHARING IN 2008
China will release a policy on online video sharing and broadcasting next year, according to Interfax China Online.
Wang Xudong, Minister of Information Industry, told local media at an annual national information conference that the policy will be the first to be jointly issued by the Ministry of Information Industry and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
At present, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television regulates TV and online video broadcasting, while the Ministry of Information Industry regulates internet content providers, and an official from Ministry of Information Industry regulation department said that at present, it is hard to tell which businesses should be regulated by which bureaucracy in the online video sector.
He said the responsibilities of the ministries will be clarified in the new regulations, which are still being discussed, according to Interfax China Online.
Wang said that companies carrying out an online video business should apply to both bureaucracies once the new regulations have been published.
In addition, current regulations do not specify whether foreign videos are banned from online video sharing and broadcasting sites in China. This has led many foreign TV and film companies to provide content via the internet rather than through television channels, which are highly regulated by the government.
GLOBAL WARNING IS COOL, AND COOLING IS THE NEW WARMING
On Friday MediaBlab published an item about a report by scientist David Whitehouse in the New Statesman claiming that warming has stopped globally.
Whitehouse wrote, “The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every other year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased.”
It has since been pointed out to MediaBlab that global warming can also mean cooling, according to a Canadian Greenpeace representative who in 2005 explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.”
Or presumably, according to Whitehouse’s statement, it can also mean staying the same, roughly.
But, according to the Washington Times, cooling global warming is definitely taking place: “Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world.
”Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years.
“Antarctica is getting colder.
“Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.
”South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades, and unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In north-eastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.”
GOOGLE’S BRITISH AD REVENUE NOW GREATER THAN THAT OF TRINITY MIRROR GROUP
The Sunday Times in London has dramatically announced that after “colonising cyberspace, Google is going into the newspaper business,” and is in talks with several newspaper publishers to sell space in their pages to its online clients (see earlier MediaBlab story in archives.)
The Times said this expansion “will worry” rival media companies who have already called for greater regulation of the fast-growing Google.
Google Print Ads is an extension of Google AdWords, the auction system that lets companies bid for a slot that appears alongside specific online word searches.
Instead of an auction, advertisers pick a newspaper online through Google and enter a bid for available advertising space on a given page and day.
But rather than offering to pay the list price, customers say what they are prepared to pay. Publishers can choose to accept or decline the offer.
Google takes a slice of the advertising revenue from every deal struck. It even offers to design the ad if the advertiser does not have the capability to do it alone.
"We believe that online and offline are part of the same melting pot," Google said. "It is not an 'either or'."
Google's British advertising revenues rose roughly 40 per cent to about pound stg 1.25 billion (A$2.84 billion) this year, overtaking the publisher Trinity Mirror's income, which includes newspaper sales on top of advertising.
Print Ads, which started in the US mid-year, already supplies 600 titles.
WOMEN UNDER-REPRESENTED IN KEY UK NEWSPAPER POSITIONS
The journalists making key editorial decisions at newspapers and broadcasters are overwhelmingly male, according to a survey just published by The Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equality and published the research.
According to the Guardian, Its study showed that only two out of Britain’s 17 national newspapers editors were women – the Sun's Rebekah Wade and Tina Weaver of the Sunday Mirror – while there was just one female deputy editor, Jane Johnson of the News of the World.
It also found that while 15 out of 34 radio and TV presenters were women, just one out of 17 news program editors were female.
Only 26 percent of political journalists registered at the House of Commons, 104 out of 395, were women, the society said, while just two out of the 16 political editors of national newspapers were female.
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