MEDIABLAB DAILY DIGEST DEC 19: FREMANTLE MEDIA VOGUE APPLE DAILY FCC
December 19th 2007 02:39
A daily compendium of media news items published by MediaBlab over the past 24 hours
AUSTRALIAN-BASED FREMANTLEMEDIA PITCHES ITS WEB SHOW ATOMIC WEDGIE TO US TV NETWORKS
Australian-based FremantleMedia’s US division, FremantleMedia North America, producer of American Idol pitching a new pilot to broadcast and cable networks based on its web property Atomic Wedgie, an online and mobile comedy channel that earned nearly 3 million views on MySpace during the last three months.
According to TV Week in the US, Fremantle hasn’t inked a deal yet for the improv-style comedy show, but executives expect to have pitched it to six networks by the end of this week.
TV Week says that by positioning the new show as improv rather than a scripted series could help bypass the Writers Guild of America strike.
Steve Tao, senior vice president of scripted development at Fremantle said, “It has always been planned as borrowing stuff from the internet show, so strike or no strike, we were going to pitch it as improv.”
Fremantle launched Atomic Wedgie as a mobile channel in 2006, featuring a collection of short series such as Stupid Bar Tricks and Secret Girlfriend. When the MySpace channel debuted this fall and quickly rocketed up in views, Fremantle executives were confident they had a crossover property on their hands.
Secret Girlfriend is the most popular of the Atomic Wedgie series with more than one-third of the online views, and Fremantle has taken the concept of the short show—a girl talks directly to the camera as if she is speaking to her boyfriend—and expanded it into a 22-minute comedy.
TV Week said that American TV executives are increasingly interested in web properties, and reported, “ Earlier this month Bravo ordered a reality pilot featuring William Sledd, host of web series Ask a Gay Man, which runs on Bravo-owned OutZoneTV. Sledd started on YouTube. Newsmagazine Extra features two segments a week from online entertainment network No Good TV.
“Also, in November, NBC picked up the Marshall Herskovitz/Ed Zwick internet drama Quarterlife as a midseason replacement.
Incidentally, the following link provides the contract or agreement Fremantle signed for American Idol: Really Long Link
AUSTRALIA’S CUT OFF FOR THE FREE-TO-AIR TV ANALOGUE SYSTEM DEFERRED BY NEW GOVERNMENT
Australia’s new government has put back the cut-off date for the free-to-air television analogue system to 2009 in major cities and 2013 in the rest of Australia.
The Australian reports that Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy yesterday confirmed the dates for the switch to digital television, noting the slow take-up of the technology.
The Howard government had been proposing a switch to the high-definition digital signal by next year, but Senator Conroy said yesterday that December next year was "an impossible date".
Senator Conroy said he had created a Digital Switchover Taskforce under the head of Digital Australia, Andy Townend – the British expert hired by the previous government at $230,000 a year – to oversee the eventual switchover.
The announcement of Townend’s new role follows Senator Conroy’s strident attacks against the creation of the Digital Australia, describing it to The Australian’s Mark Day shortly before the election as "nothing more than a stunt designed to make us think something was happening'', and arguing its functions would best be taken over by the department.
AUSTRALIAN TOURISM-SPONSORED JAPANESE TV SOAP OPERA PROJECT DELAYED BY RECENT FEDERAL ELECTION
Tourism Australia has told MediaBlab that an ambitious plan by it to host a Japanese television soap opera as a means of reviving tourist numbers from Japan has been delayed by the recent federal election.
In May former Australian Tourism Minister Fran Bailey in May first flagged the novel idea of a Japanese soap opera filmed in Australia, in the hope of replicating the success of the Australian soap opera Neighbours, which has long been popular in Britain and led to a sustained flow of young British backpackers visiting Australia.
But on September 18, the Japan Times reported that the opposition Labor Party “has dismissed the idea as a stunt and a waste of taxpayers' money, but the government is hopeful the project will turn around the lagging Japanese market, which has fallen 13 percent in the first half of this year.”
But the project is still going ahead.
A Tourism Australia said, “Tourism Australia recently sought expressions of interest for the development of a Japanese television production and these are currently being reviewed.
“There has been some delay in the review process due to the caretaker period in the lead up to the recent election.”
TELSTRA TRICKS UP ITS AUSTRALIAN MOBILE PHONE CONTENT SERVICES
Australia largest telco, Telstra, said its Next G subscriber numbers have moved well past two million as at the end of November 2007, with a customer base that is increasing at around the 250,000 per month mark.
Telstra, which many analysts say is gearing up to became a media company, introduced new internet features for its phone network.
On Thursday Telstra will remove browsing charges within its BigPond Mobile Home and Today tabs – providing free access to selected content such as news, weather, and sports scores.
Telstra has added a new web tab to its BigPond Mobile portal, providing convenient access to a selection of the most popular web destinations, including MySpace, Hotmail and Yahoo!, without the need to type in a URL.
Telstra said its approach is “to take the Australian mobile content market to a new level. We want to stimulate data usage and part of that is demonstrating that the mobile phone is now a highly advanced device for surfing the mobile internet, not just making calls.
ALIVE IN BAGHDAD REPORTER SHOT DEAD IN BAGHDAD
A reporter for the web news program Alive in Baghdad has been killed by a spray of gunfire in Baghdad.
Alive in Baghdad said its reporter, 22 year old Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi, was killed at home on Friday. During an Iraqi National Guard raid in his neighbourhood, Al-Moussawi was shot 31 times in the chest and head and died at the scene,
Alive in Baghdad creator Brian Conley wrote that Al-Moussawi was a new reporter for Alive in Baghdad whose stories had yet to air.
At the time of his death, Al-Moussawi working on an investigative assignment for Alive in Baghdad, but Conley wrote he “not 100 percent sure” that the assignment caused Al-Moussawi’s death.
Conley lamented that four family members of Alive in Baghdad correspondents had been killed since July.
Perhaps Conley should consider a name change for his web news program.
New Teevee reports that Alive in Baghdad is “an excellent unfiltered video show about Iraq reported and filmed by Iraqis and distributed by a small team in the US.”
VOGUE MAGAZINE IN THE US BRANCHES OUT AND CREATES ITS OWN IN-HOUSE AD AGENCY
Vogue magazine in the US has started up its own in-house ad agency, Vogue Studio, which has already worked with 29 brands, including Valentino, Montblanc, Cartier and Lancôme, and is the agency of record for Via Spiga and Adrienne Vittadini.
Women’s Wear Daily reports, “These brands can certainly bring their Vogue-created ads to other publications at, say, Time Inc. or Hearst Magazines, but the partnership is anchored in Vogue, said a spokeswoman.”
Terri Rawson, Via Spiga's senior vice president of marketing, said there was no pressure to hire Vogue Studio, adding it was chosen over other agencies, "because they understood our consumer and brand so well."
The in-house agency is under publishing director Tom Florio. Deborah Cavanagh, associate publisher of creative services, said the three-year-old agency competes with many big-name agencies for business and doesn't offer discounts. Its connections to photographers such as Patrick Demarchelier and Arthur Elgort, who has had a relationship with Conde Nast for more than three decades, also help attract clients.
Women’s Wear Daily said, “The agency — and magazine — will likely get a boost when brands see the results from the new VISTA Print Effectiveness report from Affinity, that studied 33 issues of Vogue and found that the magazine ranked number one for highest overall ad recall, among the 103 magazine titles measured. The study looked at advertising recall among readers with a household income of US$75,000-plus from January 2005 through September 2007.”
US SENATORS TRY TO BLOCK THE FCC’S PROPOSED EASING OF MEDIA CROSS-OWNERSHIP LAWS
Bloomberg reports that a bipartisan group of 25 US senators told the top American telecommunications regulator, Kevin Martin, to delay a vote on his plan to loosen restrictions on newspaper publishers owning broadcast stations.
The Federal Communications Commission has no comment on the letter, said Mary Diamond, a spokeswoman for the agency.
Lawmakers will act to ``revoke and nullify'' any easing of the cross-ownership rule that the Federal Communications Commission passes at its meeting tomorrow, the senators said in a letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican.
Martin issued his proposal to allow common ownership of a daily newspaper and nearby broadcast station in the 20 largest U.S. markets on November 13. The senators said Martin hadn't provided enough time for public response.
JOURNALISM A LETHAL OCCUPATION DURING 2007 SAYS MEDIA WATCHDOG GROUP
Media watchdog group, The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday that 64 journalists in 17 countries died while covering the news in 2007, the deadliest year in more than a decade.
In its annual report it said that Iraq led the list for the fifth year in a row, with 31 dead, one less than a year ago. Somalia was second with seven dead in 2007, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka each recorded five deaths.
The global figure of 64 was an increase of eight over the previous year and two short of the record of 66 set in 1994, when strife ripped Algeria, Bosnia and Rwanda.
The New York-based committee said it was still investigating 22 other cases from 2007 to determine whether they were "work-related."
Since the Vietnam War, murder has steadily replaced combat as the primary cause of media deaths.
Of the 31 killed in Iraq in 2007, 24 were murdered, the report said. All but one were Iraqi citizens, including nine working for international news organisations such as The Associated Press, Reuters, The Washington Post, ABC News and The New York Times.
MANUFACTURING THREATS – MEDIA LENS ON SUDAN, IRAN, AND THE WAR FOR CIVILISATION
News that British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons had been jailed in Sudan after allowing her pupils to call a teddy bear Mohammed was mentioned in a massive 257 articles in UK national newspapers in the first week, according to UK watchdog Media Lens.
It said the incident provided “an excuse to boost claims of genocide in Sudan in 10 of these (news reports.).
Media Lens said there were rare bouts of rationality shown in the coverage of the event in the UK, and that an Independent newspaper leader warned that it would be wrong "to treat Ms Gibbons' case, as some have done, as a harbinger of the supposedly inevitable clash between the 'enlightened' West and 'primitive' Islam".
Media lens reported, “The advice was largely ignored, however. Following Gibbons' release after eight days in jail, a December 4 Telegraph leader described how the ‘delight and mutual congratulations that have characterised the agreement between the Sudanese dictator and the British authorities... presents a nauseating picture’. The arrest being, after all, ‘testimony to the danger of allowing a rogue state to proceed unchecked’. (Leader, 'Sudan's grotesque stunt,' Daily Telegraph, December 4, 2007).
”Is Sudan, then, to replace Iraq as the third rogue member of the axis of evil?
“Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips appeared to recommend as much, writing a day earlier of how the teddy bear incident was ‘yet another symptom of the great onslaught being mounted against our civilisation and towards which not one inch of ground must be given if that civilisation is to survive.’
Media Lens ruled, “Such preposterous hyperbole belongs in the same category as Hitler's description of Czechoslovakia as ‘a dagger pointed at the heart of Germany’.”
MAGAZINES IN US DOCTORS OFFICES AND BEAUTY SALONS SCORE HIGH READERSHIP FIGURES ACCORDING TO STUDY
Media Daily News reports that a new study by McPheters and Co in the US shows that the proprietors of doctor's offices, beauty salons and places with waiting areas for customers find value in the magazines they distribute.
Most respondents say the publications generate substantial readership.
The study is intended to bolster the confidence of media buyers and advertisers in public-place copies, which are often dismissed as ‘junk circulation.’
Its sponsors include Bonnier Corp, Conde Nast, Hachette Filipacchi, Meredith, Time Inc, BusinessWeek, and the Magazine Publishers of America.
According to McPheters, on average each magazine is read by about 40 individuals per month; the average waiting room has 14 different magazines on display. However, it's unclear how accurate this data is, as it depends largely on the perceptions of the proprietors surveyed, rather than quantitative tracking of actual magazine use in public places.
A separate research initiative from Mediamark Research and Intelligence, announced earlier this month, aims to produce these kinds of quantitative results by placing radio frequency identification chips in magazines in public places.
ONLINE AD REVENUE THE ONLY BRIGHT STAR IN A GLOOMY NIGHT, SAYS SURVEY OF US AND CANADIAN NEWSPAPER EXECS
Toronto-based Kubas Consultants has released its annual preview of ad revenue expectations and strategies among US and Canadian newspaper execs and managers.
The study, conducted in late November, surveyed over 500 daily newspaper execs and managers about ad revenues and strategic initiatives for 2008.
Canada accounted for 85 of the 508 respondents, while the US accounted for 423.
Media in Canada reports that Canadian newspapers were noted for being much more optimistic about prospects for 2008, as well as less likely to reduce staff or format or start a new free daily or weekly publication next year.
But as a whole, Canadian and US execs and managers projected decreases in five out of eight ad revenue categories. Online revenue, preprints and direct mail were seen as the most promising growth areas, while industry leaders saw a negative future in classifieds, real estate and national advertising.
Compared to 2007, newspaper execs and managers' outlook for 2008 is "subdued, to say the least," states the study.
"Canadian newspapers, however, may be the exception, due to their distinctly optimistic outlook on ad revenues. The economy may be better north of the border, but not that much better."
Online is "clearly at the top of everybody's list," states the study, which also calls online the "one bright star in what is otherwise a gloomy night."
Read the full Kubas Consultants report here
CANADIAN RADIO REVENUE ON TRACK TO INCREASE BY ALMOST 9 PERCENT IN 2008
Media in Canada says that according to the latest numbers released by Canadian Broadcast Sales yesterday, national radio sales climbed 9.5 percent in the first quarter, and are on track to post strong annual growth of 8.7 percent.
The television writers' strike could have a positive impact on radio if it remains unresolved, and television audiences become more fragmented."
The top five spending categories accounted for 56.8 percent of total dollars in Canada. Retail led the way with 17.9 percent, while telecommunications accounted for 11.7 percent, financial services and insurance was 9.3 percent, and government 7.7 percent, due largely to the Ontario election. National automotive was down to 10.19 percent from 15.6 percent.
MORE ARRESTS OF JOURNALISTS IN CHINA IN LEAD-UP TO OLYMPICS
Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of dissident writer Wang Dejia, who was arrested at his home in Guilin, in the southern province of Guangxi, on December 13, and charged with "subverting state authority." He uses the pen-name of Jing Chu.
His arrest could be linked to articles he had written and posted on the Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum http://asiademo.org/) and the Aboluowang forum. The sites carry such headlines as "Illegal possession of state secrets: a Communist Party invention for persecuting prisoners of conscience", "Manacled Olympic Games will bring the public nothing but misfortune" and "With journalist Li Yuanlong sentenced to two years for four articles, how much will I get?"
Wang met US embassy representatives in October to discuss the human rights situation. His family thinks his arrest is linked to both the meeting and his articles.
Reporters Without Borders said, "Eight months before the Beijing Olympic Games, it is very worrying to learn of the arrest of another writer who had criticised the way the games are being organised. It suggests that there could be an increase in repression of Chinese who dare to voice reserves about the games, either online or to foreign journalists."
Meanwhile, Nanjing-based journalist Sun Lin has denied charges of "illegal possession of firearms" and "disturbing the peace" when he finally received a visit from lawyer Mo Shaoping on December 14 in prison in the eastern city of Nanjing. Mo was refused a visit in September. The police have sent the findings of their investigation to prosecutors along with a request that Sun be brought to trial.
Also known by the pen-name Jie Mu, he told Mo that, during questioning, the police asked him about his journalistic activities and told him he had been arrested for refusing to stop writing articles for Boxun (http://news.boxun.com/), a Chinese-language news website based abroad.
He said the firearms charge was based on false statements by persons who claim he gave them sporting air pistols. He said does not even know one of these persons. He added that the charge of disturbing the peace was based on an incident in 2004 when he was helping evicted people and did nothing illegal.
Sun's wife, He Fang, has meanwhile been detained on a charge of "illegal possession of explosives."
Sun, arrested in Nanjing on May 30, was the founder of the now-banned newspaper Da Du Shi as well as being a Boxun correspondent.
HONG KONG’S NEXT MEDIA PROFITS SURGE 37 PERCENT, MAINLY DUE TO ITS NEWSPAPER OPERATIONS
Hong Kong’s Next Media, publisher of Apple Daily and Next Magazine, has seen its half yearly profits surge 37% to HK$215.5 million (A$32 million).
Marketing reported that its newspaper operations in Taiwan and Hong Kong bolstered the result.
The group's earnings before interest and tax came in at 23 percent up on its 2006 result.
Next Media's newspapers division accounted for 70 percent of the group's total income in the six months to September 30, 2007.
Apple Daily's advertising revenue slipped 3.6 percent, but its average daily sales between January and June 2007 increased to 309,261 copies, compared with 297,289 from the same period last year.
Marketing said Next Media's strong result was not mirrored by its competitor Ming Pao, which saw its net profit for the six months to September drop 12.3 percent to HK$14.3 million.
Half yearly revenue for the Ming Pao, part of the One Media Group, was up 6 percent.
KURDISTAN PRESIDENT PLEDGES TO NOT SIGN NEW RESTRICTIVE GOVERNMENT PRESS BILL
The president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government said he will reject a restrictive new press bill that was approved by the regional parliament on December 11.
According to the Committee to protect Journalists, President Masoud Barzani told a delegation from the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate that he would not sign the bill once it reached his desk, pledging instead to send it back to parliament for revision.
Parliament’s approval of the new press bill on Tuesday triggered a storm of criticism among Iraqi Kurdish journalists. They objected to increased financial penalties and restrictive provisions that were added to a draft version of the bill that had been under discussion among journalists and members of parliament for several months.
TODAY’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN SOUTH KOREA MAY SOLVE INTERMINABLE PRESS ROOM ROW
Some relief in sight to the rather bizarre South Korean press room long-drawn-out debacle, with Reporters Without Borders also urging for resolution.
It has appealed to “whichever candidate wins today’s presidential elections to find a solution to a row over the removal of press rooms from within the country's ministries.
The administration decided in May 2007, at the initiative of President Roh Moo-hyun, to close most press rooms inside public buildings and construct new ones but journalists were then barred from free access to ministries and major administrative buildings.
The reform was seen as necessary to concentrate official communications in just a few press rooms in the capital, Seoul, Gwacheon and in Daejeon.
The government adopted the new rules under the heading "Steps to develop a modern support system for the media", but most journalists' organisations objected to them as an attempt to restrict access to information. Civil servants can no longer speak directly to the press.
The journalists in the protest refused to use the new rooms and now 'camp out' in the corridors of the various administrations.
The authorities on October 11 closed press rooms which had been used for decades within the main administrative buildings. The internet was cut off and equipment removed.
Reporters Without Borders also called on the candidates to make public their position on a reform of Article 7 of the national security law, which still allows journalists to be imprisoned for expressing any sympathy with the regime in North Korea.
"It is not a sign of weakness towards the totalitarian regime in North Korea to remove penalties from the law which are contrary to freedom of expression," the organisation said.
DODGY DEALINGS IN SOMALIA: KIDNAPPED FRENCH JOURNALIST SAID TO BE FINE
Reuters reports that a Somali clan elder said on Tuesday that he had seen a French journalist kidnapped by gunmen since the weekend and he was in a "fine" condition.
But the local elder, who is related to the kidnappers, also told Reuters the group was demanding an $80,000 ransom for the release of Gwen Le Gouil in the northern Puntland region.
"We saw the French journalist. He is fine. We tried to convince the abductors to release the journalist, but they refused and demanded $80,000," Abdulqadir Ahmed told Reuters.
"We are going to negotiate with them again today."
Le Gouil was in the semi-autonomous region of north Somalia working on a piece for the Franco-German TV network Arte Television about human trafficking of African migrants to Saudi Arabia through Yemen.
Known for its relative stability compared to chaotic south Somalia, Puntland has, however, become increasingly associated with kidnappings, hijackings and piracy.
In May, two foreign aid workers were seized and later released after negotiations between their captors and clan elders, while in October gunmen hijacked a cargo plane carrying khat, a lucrative narcotic leaf.
LEADING SPANISH MEDIA COMPANY SUES NIELSEN OVER A DOWNGRADE FOR NEWSPAPER WEBSITE AUDIENCE
Spain's top media company Prisa has taken legal action against US-based media firm Nielsen due to an ‘unjustified’ downgrade of its audience figures for the website of its newspaper, El Pais.
Prisa said, “The lawsuit argues that due to the serious negligence on the part of Nielson in its measurement of audience figures for ELPAIS.COM, El Pais and Prisa suffered serious damages due to lost advertisement this year.”
AFP reports Prisa's assets include El Pais, Spain's top-selling newspaper, business paper Cinco Dias, television channel Cuatro, Cadena Ser as well as numerous interests in Latin America.
THE WORD ‘WEBLOG’ CELEBRATES ITS TENTH BIRTHDAY
The word ‘weblog’ was first coined ten years ago, on December 17 1997, by Jorn Barger to describe what he was doing with his pioneering Robot Wisdom web page.
BBC News reports that the word was an abbreviation for the logging of interesting web sites that Barger featured on his regularly updated journal.
A decade on and blog-watching firm Technorati reports it is tracking more than 70 million web logs.
Official numbers are hard to find but some estimate that the size of the blogosphere in late 1998 encompassed only 23 sites. In 1999 the phenomenon took off as easy to use tools started to appear which made it much easier to write and maintain these sorts of websites. Also in 1999 the word ‘blog’ was coined as a shortened form of the original term.
Technorati estimates that there are now 120,000 new blogs being created every day. Posts are being added to blogs at a rate of 17 per second - a total of 1.5 million per day.
CONRAD BLACKS NUMBER TWO MAN GETS TWO YEARS AND A BIT MORE IN PRISON
Conrad Black’s numero two man, David Radler, was sentenced today to 29 months in prison for his role in stealing millions of dollars from Hollinger shareholders.
“I'm sorry for what I've done,” said Radler, 65, the former publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times and number two man in the once powerful Hollinger newspaper empire, according to News Ltd’s new online venture, The Australian Business Newsletter.
He had pleaded guilty to fraud and testified against his long time business partner and head of Hollinger, Conrad Black, in return for a lenient sentence.
Radler, who already has paid millions in restitution, also was fined $US250, 000 (A$291,000).
Black was sentenced last week to six-and-a-half years in prison for swindling Hollinger shareholders out of $US6 million.
RUSSIAN JOURNALIST GETS ONE WAY TICKET TO MOLDOVA FOR WRITING ABOUT CORRUPTION
A journalist who had written a string of articles about high-level corruption in Russia was barred from entering the country in another apparent sign of tightening Kremlin control, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Natalia Morar, of Russia's New Times magazine, one of the last remaining opposition publications, said she was pulled aside at a Moscow airport as she tried to return to Russia early yesterday from a reporting trip in Israel.
Her documents were in order, but she was told she wasn't allowed into the country because she posed a threat to national security.
She has been out on a plane back to her original home, the former Soviet republic of Moldova, after living and working in Russia for the past six years.
The Kremlin declined to comment.
NEWSPAPERS CHANGE THEIR WAY OF WOOING LOCAL ADVERTISERS TO STAVE OFF WEB ENCROACHMENT
Web companies now beginning to dominate the US market for local ads online, and newspaper publishers are scrambling to change the way they sell ads, hiring sales teams that specialise in the digital market and creating new editorial packages to sell to compete with web companies.
The Wall Street Journal reports that companies like McClatchy, which publishes 31 daily newspapers in the US, is revamping its commission and incentive plans to better reward staff for online sales.
Gannet operates 50 mom-centric social-networking sites around the US as part of a broader strategy to boost online revenue through hyper-localised, and other publishers are talking steps to improve the way they sell online ads.
"Newspapers are tied too closely to defending their print products and have not seen the Internet as an innovative and competitive tool to go out and compete," Gordon Borrell, chief executive of Borrell Associates, told the Wall Street Journal.
In Australia, some of the major metro newspapers, such as the Melbourne Age have already adjusted their ad sales force to go after local retail, pointing out that the changing nature of revenue accretion is not just down to the simplistic notion of exclusively online bleed, but also a change in the nature of the marketplace itself with metro communities turning inward and becoming more local, or indeed even hyper local.
The Melbourne Age advertising director, David Hoath, who joined the paper from the UK in July 2005, embarked on a forward-to-the-past strategy, of pulling his advertising department personnel out of the plush boardrooms of national advertising agencies and having them return to the old-fashioned notion of pounding the pavement in search of new business, and wooing the bottom end of town instead of exclusively pursuing the top end.
“The Age has had a very interesting year. We undoubtedly felt the cold breeze with a bit of downturn in our national numbers, but that’s not unique to us.”
INDIA’S GLOBAL BROADCAST NEWS BUYS MAURITIAN EQUITY COMPANY’S STAKE IN JAGRAN TV
Global Broadcast News, broadcasters of 24-hour English news and current affairs channel CNN-IBN, is buying out the 10.01 per cent stake the Mauritius-based New Vernon Private Equity Fund holds in Jagran TV.
Exchange4media said that according to a company release, the Global Broadcast News has approved the acquisition of 1,347,231 equity shares that New Vernon had in Jagran TV.
Last year Global Broadcast News acquired a 49 percent stake in BK Fincap, the holding company of Jagran TV, which owns Hindi news channel IBN 7.
AUSTRALIAN-BASED FREMANTLEMEDIA PITCHES ITS WEB SHOW ATOMIC WEDGIE TO US TV NETWORKS
Australian-based FremantleMedia’s US division, FremantleMedia North America, producer of American Idol pitching a new pilot to broadcast and cable networks based on its web property Atomic Wedgie, an online and mobile comedy channel that earned nearly 3 million views on MySpace during the last three months.
According to TV Week in the US, Fremantle hasn’t inked a deal yet for the improv-style comedy show, but executives expect to have pitched it to six networks by the end of this week.
Steve Tao, senior vice president of scripted development at Fremantle said, “It has always been planned as borrowing stuff from the internet show, so strike or no strike, we were going to pitch it as improv.”
Fremantle launched Atomic Wedgie as a mobile channel in 2006, featuring a collection of short series such as Stupid Bar Tricks and Secret Girlfriend. When the MySpace channel debuted this fall and quickly rocketed up in views, Fremantle executives were confident they had a crossover property on their hands.
Secret Girlfriend is the most popular of the Atomic Wedgie series with more than one-third of the online views, and Fremantle has taken the concept of the short show—a girl talks directly to the camera as if she is speaking to her boyfriend—and expanded it into a 22-minute comedy.
TV Week said that American TV executives are increasingly interested in web properties, and reported, “ Earlier this month Bravo ordered a reality pilot featuring William Sledd, host of web series Ask a Gay Man, which runs on Bravo-owned OutZoneTV. Sledd started on YouTube. Newsmagazine Extra features two segments a week from online entertainment network No Good TV.
Incidentally, the following link provides the contract or agreement Fremantle signed for American Idol: Really Long Link
AUSTRALIA’S CUT OFF FOR THE FREE-TO-AIR TV ANALOGUE SYSTEM DEFERRED BY NEW GOVERNMENT
Australia’s new government has put back the cut-off date for the free-to-air television analogue system to 2009 in major cities and 2013 in the rest of Australia.
The Australian reports that Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy yesterday confirmed the dates for the switch to digital television, noting the slow take-up of the technology.
The Howard government had been proposing a switch to the high-definition digital signal by next year, but Senator Conroy said yesterday that December next year was "an impossible date".
Senator Conroy said he had created a Digital Switchover Taskforce under the head of Digital Australia, Andy Townend – the British expert hired by the previous government at $230,000 a year – to oversee the eventual switchover.
The announcement of Townend’s new role follows Senator Conroy’s strident attacks against the creation of the Digital Australia, describing it to The Australian’s Mark Day shortly before the election as "nothing more than a stunt designed to make us think something was happening'', and arguing its functions would best be taken over by the department.
AUSTRALIAN TOURISM-SPONSORED JAPANESE TV SOAP OPERA PROJECT DELAYED BY RECENT FEDERAL ELECTION
Tourism Australia has told MediaBlab that an ambitious plan by it to host a Japanese television soap opera as a means of reviving tourist numbers from Japan has been delayed by the recent federal election.
In May former Australian Tourism Minister Fran Bailey in May first flagged the novel idea of a Japanese soap opera filmed in Australia, in the hope of replicating the success of the Australian soap opera Neighbours, which has long been popular in Britain and led to a sustained flow of young British backpackers visiting Australia.
But on September 18, the Japan Times reported that the opposition Labor Party “has dismissed the idea as a stunt and a waste of taxpayers' money, but the government is hopeful the project will turn around the lagging Japanese market, which has fallen 13 percent in the first half of this year.”
But the project is still going ahead.
A Tourism Australia said, “Tourism Australia recently sought expressions of interest for the development of a Japanese television production and these are currently being reviewed.
“There has been some delay in the review process due to the caretaker period in the lead up to the recent election.”
TELSTRA TRICKS UP ITS AUSTRALIAN MOBILE PHONE CONTENT SERVICES
Australia largest telco, Telstra, said its Next G subscriber numbers have moved well past two million as at the end of November 2007, with a customer base that is increasing at around the 250,000 per month mark.
Telstra, which many analysts say is gearing up to became a media company, introduced new internet features for its phone network.
On Thursday Telstra will remove browsing charges within its BigPond Mobile Home and Today tabs – providing free access to selected content such as news, weather, and sports scores.
Telstra has added a new web tab to its BigPond Mobile portal, providing convenient access to a selection of the most popular web destinations, including MySpace, Hotmail and Yahoo!, without the need to type in a URL.
Telstra said its approach is “to take the Australian mobile content market to a new level. We want to stimulate data usage and part of that is demonstrating that the mobile phone is now a highly advanced device for surfing the mobile internet, not just making calls.
ALIVE IN BAGHDAD REPORTER SHOT DEAD IN BAGHDAD
A reporter for the web news program Alive in Baghdad has been killed by a spray of gunfire in Baghdad.
Alive in Baghdad said its reporter, 22 year old Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi, was killed at home on Friday. During an Iraqi National Guard raid in his neighbourhood, Al-Moussawi was shot 31 times in the chest and head and died at the scene,
Alive in Baghdad creator Brian Conley wrote that Al-Moussawi was a new reporter for Alive in Baghdad whose stories had yet to air.
At the time of his death, Al-Moussawi working on an investigative assignment for Alive in Baghdad, but Conley wrote he “not 100 percent sure” that the assignment caused Al-Moussawi’s death.
Conley lamented that four family members of Alive in Baghdad correspondents had been killed since July.
Perhaps Conley should consider a name change for his web news program.
New Teevee reports that Alive in Baghdad is “an excellent unfiltered video show about Iraq reported and filmed by Iraqis and distributed by a small team in the US.”
VOGUE MAGAZINE IN THE US BRANCHES OUT AND CREATES ITS OWN IN-HOUSE AD AGENCY
Vogue magazine in the US has started up its own in-house ad agency, Vogue Studio, which has already worked with 29 brands, including Valentino, Montblanc, Cartier and Lancôme, and is the agency of record for Via Spiga and Adrienne Vittadini.
Women’s Wear Daily reports, “These brands can certainly bring their Vogue-created ads to other publications at, say, Time Inc. or Hearst Magazines, but the partnership is anchored in Vogue, said a spokeswoman.”
Terri Rawson, Via Spiga's senior vice president of marketing, said there was no pressure to hire Vogue Studio, adding it was chosen over other agencies, "because they understood our consumer and brand so well."
The in-house agency is under publishing director Tom Florio. Deborah Cavanagh, associate publisher of creative services, said the three-year-old agency competes with many big-name agencies for business and doesn't offer discounts. Its connections to photographers such as Patrick Demarchelier and Arthur Elgort, who has had a relationship with Conde Nast for more than three decades, also help attract clients.
Women’s Wear Daily said, “The agency — and magazine — will likely get a boost when brands see the results from the new VISTA Print Effectiveness report from Affinity, that studied 33 issues of Vogue and found that the magazine ranked number one for highest overall ad recall, among the 103 magazine titles measured. The study looked at advertising recall among readers with a household income of US$75,000-plus from January 2005 through September 2007.”
US SENATORS TRY TO BLOCK THE FCC’S PROPOSED EASING OF MEDIA CROSS-OWNERSHIP LAWS
Bloomberg reports that a bipartisan group of 25 US senators told the top American telecommunications regulator, Kevin Martin, to delay a vote on his plan to loosen restrictions on newspaper publishers owning broadcast stations.
The Federal Communications Commission has no comment on the letter, said Mary Diamond, a spokeswoman for the agency.
Lawmakers will act to ``revoke and nullify'' any easing of the cross-ownership rule that the Federal Communications Commission passes at its meeting tomorrow, the senators said in a letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican.
Martin issued his proposal to allow common ownership of a daily newspaper and nearby broadcast station in the 20 largest U.S. markets on November 13. The senators said Martin hadn't provided enough time for public response.
JOURNALISM A LETHAL OCCUPATION DURING 2007 SAYS MEDIA WATCHDOG GROUP
Media watchdog group, The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday that 64 journalists in 17 countries died while covering the news in 2007, the deadliest year in more than a decade.
In its annual report it said that Iraq led the list for the fifth year in a row, with 31 dead, one less than a year ago. Somalia was second with seven dead in 2007, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka each recorded five deaths.
The global figure of 64 was an increase of eight over the previous year and two short of the record of 66 set in 1994, when strife ripped Algeria, Bosnia and Rwanda.
The New York-based committee said it was still investigating 22 other cases from 2007 to determine whether they were "work-related."
Since the Vietnam War, murder has steadily replaced combat as the primary cause of media deaths.
Of the 31 killed in Iraq in 2007, 24 were murdered, the report said. All but one were Iraqi citizens, including nine working for international news organisations such as The Associated Press, Reuters, The Washington Post, ABC News and The New York Times.
MANUFACTURING THREATS – MEDIA LENS ON SUDAN, IRAN, AND THE WAR FOR CIVILISATION
News that British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons had been jailed in Sudan after allowing her pupils to call a teddy bear Mohammed was mentioned in a massive 257 articles in UK national newspapers in the first week, according to UK watchdog Media Lens.
It said the incident provided “an excuse to boost claims of genocide in Sudan in 10 of these (news reports.).
Media Lens said there were rare bouts of rationality shown in the coverage of the event in the UK, and that an Independent newspaper leader warned that it would be wrong "to treat Ms Gibbons' case, as some have done, as a harbinger of the supposedly inevitable clash between the 'enlightened' West and 'primitive' Islam".
Media lens reported, “The advice was largely ignored, however. Following Gibbons' release after eight days in jail, a December 4 Telegraph leader described how the ‘delight and mutual congratulations that have characterised the agreement between the Sudanese dictator and the British authorities... presents a nauseating picture’. The arrest being, after all, ‘testimony to the danger of allowing a rogue state to proceed unchecked’. (Leader, 'Sudan's grotesque stunt,' Daily Telegraph, December 4, 2007).
”Is Sudan, then, to replace Iraq as the third rogue member of the axis of evil?
“Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips appeared to recommend as much, writing a day earlier of how the teddy bear incident was ‘yet another symptom of the great onslaught being mounted against our civilisation and towards which not one inch of ground must be given if that civilisation is to survive.’
Media Lens ruled, “Such preposterous hyperbole belongs in the same category as Hitler's description of Czechoslovakia as ‘a dagger pointed at the heart of Germany’.”
MAGAZINES IN US DOCTORS OFFICES AND BEAUTY SALONS SCORE HIGH READERSHIP FIGURES ACCORDING TO STUDY
Media Daily News reports that a new study by McPheters and Co in the US shows that the proprietors of doctor's offices, beauty salons and places with waiting areas for customers find value in the magazines they distribute.
Most respondents say the publications generate substantial readership.
The study is intended to bolster the confidence of media buyers and advertisers in public-place copies, which are often dismissed as ‘junk circulation.’
Its sponsors include Bonnier Corp, Conde Nast, Hachette Filipacchi, Meredith, Time Inc, BusinessWeek, and the Magazine Publishers of America.
According to McPheters, on average each magazine is read by about 40 individuals per month; the average waiting room has 14 different magazines on display. However, it's unclear how accurate this data is, as it depends largely on the perceptions of the proprietors surveyed, rather than quantitative tracking of actual magazine use in public places.
A separate research initiative from Mediamark Research and Intelligence, announced earlier this month, aims to produce these kinds of quantitative results by placing radio frequency identification chips in magazines in public places.
ONLINE AD REVENUE THE ONLY BRIGHT STAR IN A GLOOMY NIGHT, SAYS SURVEY OF US AND CANADIAN NEWSPAPER EXECS
Toronto-based Kubas Consultants has released its annual preview of ad revenue expectations and strategies among US and Canadian newspaper execs and managers.
The study, conducted in late November, surveyed over 500 daily newspaper execs and managers about ad revenues and strategic initiatives for 2008.
Canada accounted for 85 of the 508 respondents, while the US accounted for 423.
Media in Canada reports that Canadian newspapers were noted for being much more optimistic about prospects for 2008, as well as less likely to reduce staff or format or start a new free daily or weekly publication next year.
But as a whole, Canadian and US execs and managers projected decreases in five out of eight ad revenue categories. Online revenue, preprints and direct mail were seen as the most promising growth areas, while industry leaders saw a negative future in classifieds, real estate and national advertising.
Compared to 2007, newspaper execs and managers' outlook for 2008 is "subdued, to say the least," states the study.
"Canadian newspapers, however, may be the exception, due to their distinctly optimistic outlook on ad revenues. The economy may be better north of the border, but not that much better."
Online is "clearly at the top of everybody's list," states the study, which also calls online the "one bright star in what is otherwise a gloomy night."
Read the full Kubas Consultants report here
CANADIAN RADIO REVENUE ON TRACK TO INCREASE BY ALMOST 9 PERCENT IN 2008
Media in Canada says that according to the latest numbers released by Canadian Broadcast Sales yesterday, national radio sales climbed 9.5 percent in the first quarter, and are on track to post strong annual growth of 8.7 percent.
The television writers' strike could have a positive impact on radio if it remains unresolved, and television audiences become more fragmented."
The top five spending categories accounted for 56.8 percent of total dollars in Canada. Retail led the way with 17.9 percent, while telecommunications accounted for 11.7 percent, financial services and insurance was 9.3 percent, and government 7.7 percent, due largely to the Ontario election. National automotive was down to 10.19 percent from 15.6 percent.
MORE ARRESTS OF JOURNALISTS IN CHINA IN LEAD-UP TO OLYMPICS
Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of dissident writer Wang Dejia, who was arrested at his home in Guilin, in the southern province of Guangxi, on December 13, and charged with "subverting state authority." He uses the pen-name of Jing Chu.
His arrest could be linked to articles he had written and posted on the Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum http://asiademo.org/) and the Aboluowang forum. The sites carry such headlines as "Illegal possession of state secrets: a Communist Party invention for persecuting prisoners of conscience", "Manacled Olympic Games will bring the public nothing but misfortune" and "With journalist Li Yuanlong sentenced to two years for four articles, how much will I get?"
Wang met US embassy representatives in October to discuss the human rights situation. His family thinks his arrest is linked to both the meeting and his articles.
Reporters Without Borders said, "Eight months before the Beijing Olympic Games, it is very worrying to learn of the arrest of another writer who had criticised the way the games are being organised. It suggests that there could be an increase in repression of Chinese who dare to voice reserves about the games, either online or to foreign journalists."
Meanwhile, Nanjing-based journalist Sun Lin has denied charges of "illegal possession of firearms" and "disturbing the peace" when he finally received a visit from lawyer Mo Shaoping on December 14 in prison in the eastern city of Nanjing. Mo was refused a visit in September. The police have sent the findings of their investigation to prosecutors along with a request that Sun be brought to trial.
Also known by the pen-name Jie Mu, he told Mo that, during questioning, the police asked him about his journalistic activities and told him he had been arrested for refusing to stop writing articles for Boxun (http://news.boxun.com/), a Chinese-language news website based abroad.
He said the firearms charge was based on false statements by persons who claim he gave them sporting air pistols. He said does not even know one of these persons. He added that the charge of disturbing the peace was based on an incident in 2004 when he was helping evicted people and did nothing illegal.
Sun's wife, He Fang, has meanwhile been detained on a charge of "illegal possession of explosives."
Sun, arrested in Nanjing on May 30, was the founder of the now-banned newspaper Da Du Shi as well as being a Boxun correspondent.
HONG KONG’S NEXT MEDIA PROFITS SURGE 37 PERCENT, MAINLY DUE TO ITS NEWSPAPER OPERATIONS
Hong Kong’s Next Media, publisher of Apple Daily and Next Magazine, has seen its half yearly profits surge 37% to HK$215.5 million (A$32 million).
Marketing reported that its newspaper operations in Taiwan and Hong Kong bolstered the result.
The group's earnings before interest and tax came in at 23 percent up on its 2006 result.
Next Media's newspapers division accounted for 70 percent of the group's total income in the six months to September 30, 2007.
Apple Daily's advertising revenue slipped 3.6 percent, but its average daily sales between January and June 2007 increased to 309,261 copies, compared with 297,289 from the same period last year.
Marketing said Next Media's strong result was not mirrored by its competitor Ming Pao, which saw its net profit for the six months to September drop 12.3 percent to HK$14.3 million.
Half yearly revenue for the Ming Pao, part of the One Media Group, was up 6 percent.
KURDISTAN PRESIDENT PLEDGES TO NOT SIGN NEW RESTRICTIVE GOVERNMENT PRESS BILL
The president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government said he will reject a restrictive new press bill that was approved by the regional parliament on December 11.
According to the Committee to protect Journalists, President Masoud Barzani told a delegation from the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate that he would not sign the bill once it reached his desk, pledging instead to send it back to parliament for revision.
Parliament’s approval of the new press bill on Tuesday triggered a storm of criticism among Iraqi Kurdish journalists. They objected to increased financial penalties and restrictive provisions that were added to a draft version of the bill that had been under discussion among journalists and members of parliament for several months.
TODAY’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN SOUTH KOREA MAY SOLVE INTERMINABLE PRESS ROOM ROW
Some relief in sight to the rather bizarre South Korean press room long-drawn-out debacle, with Reporters Without Borders also urging for resolution.
It has appealed to “whichever candidate wins today’s presidential elections to find a solution to a row over the removal of press rooms from within the country's ministries.
The administration decided in May 2007, at the initiative of President Roh Moo-hyun, to close most press rooms inside public buildings and construct new ones but journalists were then barred from free access to ministries and major administrative buildings.
The reform was seen as necessary to concentrate official communications in just a few press rooms in the capital, Seoul, Gwacheon and in Daejeon.
The government adopted the new rules under the heading "Steps to develop a modern support system for the media", but most journalists' organisations objected to them as an attempt to restrict access to information. Civil servants can no longer speak directly to the press.
The journalists in the protest refused to use the new rooms and now 'camp out' in the corridors of the various administrations.
The authorities on October 11 closed press rooms which had been used for decades within the main administrative buildings. The internet was cut off and equipment removed.
Reporters Without Borders also called on the candidates to make public their position on a reform of Article 7 of the national security law, which still allows journalists to be imprisoned for expressing any sympathy with the regime in North Korea.
"It is not a sign of weakness towards the totalitarian regime in North Korea to remove penalties from the law which are contrary to freedom of expression," the organisation said.
DODGY DEALINGS IN SOMALIA: KIDNAPPED FRENCH JOURNALIST SAID TO BE FINE
Reuters reports that a Somali clan elder said on Tuesday that he had seen a French journalist kidnapped by gunmen since the weekend and he was in a "fine" condition.
But the local elder, who is related to the kidnappers, also told Reuters the group was demanding an $80,000 ransom for the release of Gwen Le Gouil in the northern Puntland region.
"We saw the French journalist. He is fine. We tried to convince the abductors to release the journalist, but they refused and demanded $80,000," Abdulqadir Ahmed told Reuters.
"We are going to negotiate with them again today."
Le Gouil was in the semi-autonomous region of north Somalia working on a piece for the Franco-German TV network Arte Television about human trafficking of African migrants to Saudi Arabia through Yemen.
Known for its relative stability compared to chaotic south Somalia, Puntland has, however, become increasingly associated with kidnappings, hijackings and piracy.
In May, two foreign aid workers were seized and later released after negotiations between their captors and clan elders, while in October gunmen hijacked a cargo plane carrying khat, a lucrative narcotic leaf.
LEADING SPANISH MEDIA COMPANY SUES NIELSEN OVER A DOWNGRADE FOR NEWSPAPER WEBSITE AUDIENCE
Spain's top media company Prisa has taken legal action against US-based media firm Nielsen due to an ‘unjustified’ downgrade of its audience figures for the website of its newspaper, El Pais.
Prisa said, “The lawsuit argues that due to the serious negligence on the part of Nielson in its measurement of audience figures for ELPAIS.COM, El Pais and Prisa suffered serious damages due to lost advertisement this year.”
AFP reports Prisa's assets include El Pais, Spain's top-selling newspaper, business paper Cinco Dias, television channel Cuatro, Cadena Ser as well as numerous interests in Latin America.
THE WORD ‘WEBLOG’ CELEBRATES ITS TENTH BIRTHDAY
The word ‘weblog’ was first coined ten years ago, on December 17 1997, by Jorn Barger to describe what he was doing with his pioneering Robot Wisdom web page.
BBC News reports that the word was an abbreviation for the logging of interesting web sites that Barger featured on his regularly updated journal.
A decade on and blog-watching firm Technorati reports it is tracking more than 70 million web logs.
Official numbers are hard to find but some estimate that the size of the blogosphere in late 1998 encompassed only 23 sites. In 1999 the phenomenon took off as easy to use tools started to appear which made it much easier to write and maintain these sorts of websites. Also in 1999 the word ‘blog’ was coined as a shortened form of the original term.
Technorati estimates that there are now 120,000 new blogs being created every day. Posts are being added to blogs at a rate of 17 per second - a total of 1.5 million per day.
CONRAD BLACKS NUMBER TWO MAN GETS TWO YEARS AND A BIT MORE IN PRISON
Conrad Black’s numero two man, David Radler, was sentenced today to 29 months in prison for his role in stealing millions of dollars from Hollinger shareholders.
“I'm sorry for what I've done,” said Radler, 65, the former publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times and number two man in the once powerful Hollinger newspaper empire, according to News Ltd’s new online venture, The Australian Business Newsletter.
He had pleaded guilty to fraud and testified against his long time business partner and head of Hollinger, Conrad Black, in return for a lenient sentence.
Radler, who already has paid millions in restitution, also was fined $US250, 000 (A$291,000).
Black was sentenced last week to six-and-a-half years in prison for swindling Hollinger shareholders out of $US6 million.
RUSSIAN JOURNALIST GETS ONE WAY TICKET TO MOLDOVA FOR WRITING ABOUT CORRUPTION
A journalist who had written a string of articles about high-level corruption in Russia was barred from entering the country in another apparent sign of tightening Kremlin control, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Natalia Morar, of Russia's New Times magazine, one of the last remaining opposition publications, said she was pulled aside at a Moscow airport as she tried to return to Russia early yesterday from a reporting trip in Israel.
Her documents were in order, but she was told she wasn't allowed into the country because she posed a threat to national security.
She has been out on a plane back to her original home, the former Soviet republic of Moldova, after living and working in Russia for the past six years.
The Kremlin declined to comment.
NEWSPAPERS CHANGE THEIR WAY OF WOOING LOCAL ADVERTISERS TO STAVE OFF WEB ENCROACHMENT
Web companies now beginning to dominate the US market for local ads online, and newspaper publishers are scrambling to change the way they sell ads, hiring sales teams that specialise in the digital market and creating new editorial packages to sell to compete with web companies.
The Wall Street Journal reports that companies like McClatchy, which publishes 31 daily newspapers in the US, is revamping its commission and incentive plans to better reward staff for online sales.
Gannet operates 50 mom-centric social-networking sites around the US as part of a broader strategy to boost online revenue through hyper-localised, and other publishers are talking steps to improve the way they sell online ads.
"Newspapers are tied too closely to defending their print products and have not seen the Internet as an innovative and competitive tool to go out and compete," Gordon Borrell, chief executive of Borrell Associates, told the Wall Street Journal.
In Australia, some of the major metro newspapers, such as the Melbourne Age have already adjusted their ad sales force to go after local retail, pointing out that the changing nature of revenue accretion is not just down to the simplistic notion of exclusively online bleed, but also a change in the nature of the marketplace itself with metro communities turning inward and becoming more local, or indeed even hyper local.
The Melbourne Age advertising director, David Hoath, who joined the paper from the UK in July 2005, embarked on a forward-to-the-past strategy, of pulling his advertising department personnel out of the plush boardrooms of national advertising agencies and having them return to the old-fashioned notion of pounding the pavement in search of new business, and wooing the bottom end of town instead of exclusively pursuing the top end.
“The Age has had a very interesting year. We undoubtedly felt the cold breeze with a bit of downturn in our national numbers, but that’s not unique to us.”
INDIA’S GLOBAL BROADCAST NEWS BUYS MAURITIAN EQUITY COMPANY’S STAKE IN JAGRAN TV
Global Broadcast News, broadcasters of 24-hour English news and current affairs channel CNN-IBN, is buying out the 10.01 per cent stake the Mauritius-based New Vernon Private Equity Fund holds in Jagran TV.
Exchange4media said that according to a company release, the Global Broadcast News has approved the acquisition of 1,347,231 equity shares that New Vernon had in Jagran TV.
Last year Global Broadcast News acquired a 49 percent stake in BK Fincap, the holding company of Jagran TV, which owns Hindi news channel IBN 7.
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