Media News - Wednesday, July 02, 2008

FT launches magazine for China’s wealthy

The Financial Times Group has launched a Chinese-language magazine aimed at the country's growing business elite. Rui, a Chinese character that means 'wise' or 'farsighted', is available in China from Wednesday. The monthly title will be the first magazine in Chinese published by Pearson-owned group and distributed in China. Rui will be a quality lifestyle and wealth-management title that takes some of its inspiration from the FT's luxury goods magazine How to Spend It and the newspaper's quarterly supplement FT Wealth. It will feature both original articles and re-purposed content taken from the FT. The title will offer readers advice on smart investments and matters of style and taste. It will also look at the lives of those Chinese who travel the world and come back to their home country with fresh ideas and influences. By targeting China's swelling ranks of wealthy individuals, the FT hopes to attract plenty of lucrative high-end advertising. Rui is believed to be launching with a print run of around 80,000. It will be printed in Hong Kong and distributed on the mainland of China. Foreign media companies have generally formed joint ventures to break into the Chinese market, so securing agreement from the Chinese authorities to distribute its own start-up is something of a coup for the FT. The FT already runs a Chinese-language website, FTChinese.com, whose London-based editor, Zhang Lifen, will oversee the new magazine. (The Guardian)

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Dagestani newspaper founder in rare probe

Investigators in Dagestan have opened an unprecedented criminal investigation into allegations that the founder of a local newspaper was interfering in the work of his own journalists. Prosecutors suspect Rizvan Rizvanov, founder of the Nastoyashoye Vremya weekly, of illegally influencing newspaper policy, and he faces up to two years in prison if charged and convicted, a local investigator said Tuesday. One of the country's main organizations monitoring press freedoms said that while owners of media outlets often interfere with editorial policy, they don't end up being investigated. 'From October to March, Rizvanov forced journalists to publish information that he preferred and to remove from publication information that displeased him,' said Murad Aligalbatsev, a senior investigator in the Kirovsky district of the republic's capital, Makhachkala. In one concrete instance in October, Rizvanov gave editors a list of regional journalists whose articles he did not want in the paper, said Sergei Rasulov, a former editor at Nastoyashoye Vremya. The journalists finally took their complaints to regional investigators in early April, and the criminal investigation against Rizvanov was opened on June 16, investigator Aligalbatsev said. Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, called Rizvanov's case 'unique.' He said 'journalists often complain' of interference by the media outlet founders into the editors' policy, but 'they are not able to prove anything.' Panfilov said the media in Dagestan are controlled by a number of powerful ethnic clans, which present alternative perspectives of news, as opposed to other Russian regions where the regional administration often controls most media outlets. (Moscow Times)

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BBC in dispute with Norway’s TV2

The BBC is embroiled in a row with a Norwegian broadcaster over its Africa coverage and its willingness to provide material for a documentary about its news output. A documentary produced by Norway's largest commercial broadcaster, TV2, makes a series of allegations against BBC News over what it claims were mistaken reports about a famine in Niger. In an email seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk, a BBC Worldwide sales executive refused to give a Swedish broadcaster permission to re-use its archive footage in subsequent showings of the TV2 documentary because of their negative nature. TV2 executives have accused the BBC of withdrawing permission because they are embarrassed by the content of the documentary. TV2's documentary, entitled The Famine Scam, criticises the United Nations and the BBC for having allegedly jointly reported in 2005 that the west African state of Niger was suffering from a famine. Interviewees in the film argue that no such famine existed. They include Niger's prime minister, local residents, doctors working in the region, a US aid organisation spokesman and other journalists. The conclusion of the documentary raises the question of whether the aid that flooded into Niger in the wake of the BBC reports caused greater harm than the food shortages. Though the BBC originally gave the documentary's producers a licence to use its filmed reports from Niger, it later withdrew its permission after the programme had been screened in Norway earlier this year. The refusal meant that the programme had to be shortened when shown in Sweden in April. The omission of the BBC news clips also reduced the dramatic impact of the documentary and damaged its central arguments. In its original form, the TV2 documentary was awarded third prize in the Monte Carlo TV festival earlier this month. The BBC concedes that the footage was not being used out of context in the documentary, which carried a full statement from the BBC at its conclusion. Senior BBC News sources have indicated that they would allow TV2 to include the footage if they were to reapply. (The Guardian)

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Taiwan: Government eases rules on stationing of Chinese reporters

The Taiwanese government on Monday decided to lift the ban that prevented two of China's official media groups, the People's Daily and Xinhua news agency, from stationing reporters in the country. The period of stay granted to reporters with Chinese news outlets will be extended from a maximum of 30 days to three months, the same as the period China grants to Taiwanese reporters. 'We revoked the regulation to show our goodwill and to realize President Ma Ying-jeou's policy regarding the normalization of cross-strait press exchanges,' Government Information Office Minister Vanessa Shih said Monday. The former Democratic Progressive Party government (DPP) in April 2005 asked reporters of the two agencies to leave the country, saying 'The two media outlets only air opinions from the extreme side of Taiwan's political spectrum.' Despite the ban, journalists from the two news organizations were still permitted to visit the country, but were not granted the maximum one-month stay. Shih said that the government would further open the country to reporters from five Chinese local media outlets. Beijing allowed Taiwan media organizations to station reporters in China in 1993. (Taipei Times via Asia Media )

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Nokia signs up Warner Music Group

Nokia said Tuesday that the Warner Music Group had joined its music service, enabling customers to download and listen to tracks on Nokia cellphones. Nokia users will be able to gain access to tracks from major artists worldwide at Nokia's music stores or through the company's Comes With Music program, which is expected to be introduced this year. In April, Nokia said that Sony BMG had joined its music service, and in 2007 it signed Universal Music Group. The deal with Warner Music gives Nokia agreements with the three largest music labels. Nokia, the world's top cellphone maker, is increasingly turning to providing Internet services for its mobile customers. It estimates that the global online market will reach EUR100bn by 2010. Last year, the company introduced new Web-based services and gadgets to help customers download music and play games on their mobile devices, part of a strong push to challenge rivals, including Apple's iTunes and iPod. Nokia is the first cellphone maker to push heavily into media content offerings. Comes With Music would differ from other packages on the market as users can keep all the music they have downloaded for 12 months. (International Herald Tribune)

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Bayreuth’s Wagner festival will offer opera online

Germany's annual Bayreuth opera festival is going digital, streaming video and audio of its opening performance of 'Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg' live via the Internet. The catch is the price - USD 77 (EUR 49). Organizers hope the online screening will draw new fans to an annual event devoted entirely to the 10 mature stage works by Richard Wagner, where fans often wait seven years or more for the opportunity to buy tickets. While New York's Metropolitan Opera and Milan's Teatro alla Scala have offered high definition theatercasts in recent years, the price usually has been closer to USD 24. And many arts organizations have free audio streams of performances on their Web sites. Alexander Busche, Bayreuth's lead spokesman, said the price will offset the cost of filming and purchasing media rights. He said the live premiere at 4 p.m. on July 27 will also be shown for free at a public viewing in Bayreuth's town square. It will be the first video recording of a Bayreuth performance since 1991, and the first ever in front of a live audience. Dillmann said his company plans to re-edit the live footage for a DVD, due for release in November. United Motion will also produce a series of behind-the-scenes video podcasts - one for each day of the monthlong festival - that will be available as a free download on the festival's Web site through iTunes. Katharina Wagner said the live filming, public viewing and Web site overhaul are significant upgrades for the festival founded by her great-grandfather in 1872 - but she stopped short of calling it a change in direction. (AP)

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