Media News - Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE to join forces with commercial companies

The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) has decided to embark on close cooperation with commercial companies. Negotiations have been held at least with the commercial TV channel MTV3, the internet service provider Elisa, and many other companies, discussing collective purchasing of sports programmes, high definition television broadcasts, and internet services, among other topics. YLE is also willing to let commercial companies - for example potential mobile television companies - have free access to those programmes for which the broadcaster has a copyright. The condition is that no advertisements may be placed into these programmes. Even YLE’s substantial audio archives will soon be available free of charge to all citizens and establishments. According to YLE Managing Director Mikael Jungner, the aim of the planned cooperation is to achieve a win-win situation: citizens get access to more programmes, companies increase their supply, and YLE’s programmes get more viewers. Jungner notes further that citizens have already paid for YLE’s TV contents once in the form of licence fees, which is why the company is not interested in making more money out of the same programmes. Jungner’s term at YLE has been a continuous passion play: walk-outs, sudden collapses of licence fee revenue, problems with its digitalisation project, annoyed audiences, a tightened working pace, and layoffs of employees. At present, a parliamentary committee that was set up in February is considering the future funding of YLE. The working party is to present its proposal by the end of the current year. The current budget of Finland’s national broadcaster approximately EUR 370m. (Helsingin Sanomat)

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Egypt TV boss to be tried after attacks on Mubarak posters

An Egyptian television agency boss was charged by a Cairo court on Monday over helping to broadcast images of protesters tearing down portraits of President Hosni Mubarak during deadly food riots in April. Nader Gohar, who owns the Cairo News Company, was charged with not having a licence to provide satellite feed facilities to foreign channels following a complaint by the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, a judicial official said. Gohar, who is currently in Paris, said Monday he has been falsely accused of the broadcasting breach, which carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. The court, which ordered Gohar's arrest ahead of the next hearing on May 26, has already ordered the agency's offices searched and impounded five satellite dishes used for broadcasting and a vehicle. Gohar admitted that his licence had expired and said his request to the judge that he be given a few days grace to sort out the paperwork had been rejected. (AFP)

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Fiji government threatens media crackdown after expelling publisher

Fiji's military ruler has threatened to close down media outlets in the South Pacific country after deporting a publisher for allegedly threatening national security, a newspaper editor said Tuesday. However, an official in the government of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who seized power in a 2006 coup and installed himself as prime minister, said his comments to media executives had been exaggerated. The exchange deepens a rift between Bainimarama and media outlets he accuses of bias against his government. Critics say he is waging a campaign of intimidation that threatens free speech. Netani Rika, editor of the Fiji Times newspaper, said Bainimarama called a meeting of senior media executives on Monday and told them he would have ‘no qualms’ about closing them down in ‘a worst-case scenario.’ Bainimarama said Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah, expelled last Friday as a threat to national security and for breaching work permit conditions, would not be the last expatriate to be deported, Rika said. Fiji Times owner News Corp. said Tuesday that Bainimarama had banned Hannah permanently from Fiji. (AP via International Herald Tribune)

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Arab broadcasters criticise media charter

Media companies in the Middle East say a controversial charter adopted by many countries in the region needs to be rewritten because it has become another tool of censorship by authoritarian governments. At a conference of the Arab Broadcast Forum in Abu Dhabi, several broadcasters complained about the charter, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Adopted by 22 Arab League countries in February, the charter was created to govern satellite television. Only Qatar and Lebanon refused to sign it. The most controversial clause states that broadcasters should ‘not offend leaders or national and religious symbols in the Arab world’. Ahmed Sheikh, the Managing Editor of Al-Jazeera, a leading news channel, said the clause had already been used for censorship. ‘It's clear it's just to shut mouths and hide the truth,’ he said. He and other broadcasters said the wording was too vague, giving governments permission to shut down broadcasters at will because certain clauses allowed for this if a transmission threatened damage to social harmony, national unity or traditional values. (Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union)

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Some foreign media offered Kremlin trips

The Kremlin is planning to give foreign news agencies greater access in covering the new president, Dmitry Medvedev, a Kremlin spokesman said Monday. Under the plan, reporters representing foreign news wires such as The Associated Press and Reuters will be allowed the same travel opportunities as their Russian counterparts, but they will have to be Russian citizens, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Peskov did not elaborate on why Russian citizenship is required, saying only that the condition was a result of ‘infrastructure restrictions.’ Journalists from foreign newswires have been prohibited from accompanying President Vladimir Putin on his foreign and domestic trips as part of the Kremlin pool, Peskov said. Instead, they traveled separately, he said. ‘Foreign newswires will actually become permanent and full members of the Kremlin pool,’ Peskov said. He declined to name an exact date for when the new rules would take effect, but said it would happen in the near future. (Moscow Times)

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Monster.com founder starts social networking site for the dead

Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor helped you find a job, and helped ease you into middle age. Now he wants to help you build the last web page you'll ever need. Tributes.com is scheduled for a soft launch in June. It aims to provide a central location to house online memorials for those who have passed on. It's starting with USD 4.3 million in funding, with The Wall Street Journal as a lead investor. The site comes as the funeral industry is learning to target the public's desire to grieve online for the dearly departed. On social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, online memorials are springing up organically to give friends, family members and strangers a place to mourn, and even small, family-owned funeral homes have begin offering web-based memorials for their customers. Tributes will allow people to verify deaths, get memorial service information, and leave tributes and messages - the first such site that works by searching on an individual's name. By harvesting the U.S. Death Index, Tributes will automatically have a listing for everyone who dies, or who has died since 1936. Tributes plans to sell its service to funeral homes that will then package an online tribute with the other services offered to the bereaved. Obits will stay up indefinitely, while condolences may come down after five to 10 years. (Wired.com)

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