Media News - Tuesday, August 14, 2012

2012 Olympics the most watched event ever for NBC

NBC announced that its coverage of the London Olympics was the most watched entertainment or sporting event ever on American television, the New York Times reports. That achievement reflects the total reach of the 17-day event across all the networks of NBC Universal that carried Olympics programming in the US. NBC said 219.4 million viewers — approaching two-thirds of the population of the country — caught at least some segment of the Games on some channel. That number surpasses the figure for the Beijing Olympics, which NBC set at 215 million. NBC topped off what had been an above-all-expectations performance with an audience of 31 million for the closing ceremony on Sunday night. That was the largest audience for an Olympics held outside the United States in 36 years. It topped the audience for the Beijing closing by 12 percent. Over all, NBC’s prime-time coverage, had a nightly average of 31.1 million viewers, a figure rarely attained by any current television show in the country. (Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union)

CCTV Africa begins live broadcast to China

China Central Television (CCTV) has started airing Africa Live, an hour-long flagship programme broadcast from Nairobi, billed as a “new voice” for African news and Sino-African relations, rapidtvnews.com reports. "We want to keep a balance," Pang Xinhua, CCTV's managing editor, who runs a network of correspondents in a dozen African countries, told AFP. "We are not only talking about war, diseases or poverty, we also focus on economic development." Africa Live is put together by a team of 60 or so people in Nairobi - about 50 of them Kenyans. It holds a prime time slot in east Africa but is also televised worldwide. "We opened this bureau in order to be able to tell the real Africa story, the real story of China and the real story of Sino-African relations," CCTV Africa chief Song Jianing said, echoing remarks by China's ambassador to Kenya when the switchover started in January. Nairobi was CCTV's first regional bureau to produce and broadcast its own hour-long news programme. Its cousin CCTV America soon followed suit. (Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union)

YouTube’s online coverage of Olympics portends new style of live news coverage

YouTube’s partnership with NBC to provide live-streaming video from the 2012 Olympics marks the latest phase in the video-sharing company’s development as a platform for visual journalism, according to Mashable. YouTube streamed the games online on behalf of the International Olympic Committee to 64 countries across Africa and Asia, reported GigaOM. YouTube’s Olympic video platform included up to 100 simultaneous high-definition feeds to cover several events from multiple angles. Jason Gaedtke, YouTube’s director of software engineering, said the company is “intentionally blurring the line between live and video-on-demand,” with real-time video instantly becoming available for replay as soon as the event is over. According to Mashable, 1.5 million viewers tuned in online to watch the U.S. women’s gymnastics team win a gold medal. YouTube’s gravitas as a news source has been rising, blending citizen-produced content with traditional news sources in what the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism heralded as a “new kind of visual journalism.” Driven by strong participation from citizen journalists and bystanders, the new style is epitomized by a “complex, symbiotic relationship [that] has developed between citizensand news organizations.” (Knight Center)

Egypt TV boss, journalist to be tried for insulting Morsi

Television boss Tawfiq Okasha and newspaper journalist Islam Afifi will be tried for "incitement" and insulting Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, the prosecutor's office said on Monday. Okasha, owner of the private channel Al-Faraeen, is accused of "incitement to murder" of the Islamist president, said Adel Saeed, a spokesman for the prosecutor general. Afifi, editor-in-chief of Al-Dustour newspaper, is accused of having published "false information" deemed insulting to Morsi and which could also "undermine and destabilise" Egypt, he added. Okasha and Afifi must appear before the Cairo criminal court, he said. On Sunday, the prosecution imposed a travel ban on the pair, prohibiting them from travelling outside Egypt while they are being investigated for anti-Morsi remarks after complaints were lodged against them. Okasha hosts a controversial talk show on his private television channel and is known to be staunchly anti-Islamist and opposed to Morsi, who was fielded by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in the May-June presidential election. Last week, authorities ordered the show off the air for a month for "incitement to murder of President Morsi and to overthrow of the government." And on Saturday, they ordered copies of Al-Dustour seized after complaints that they contained remarks deemed insulting to Morsi. (AFP)

AP compiles U.S. elections style guide

The Associated Press has compiled a list of U.S. political terms, phrases and definitions to assist in coverage of the 2012 national elections. The guidance encompasses the Democratic and Republican conventions to nominate presidential candidates; terminology for presidential races; campaign rhetoric; and elections for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Many of the terms are from the AP Stylebook. Others include writing with context and avoiding clichés. (AP)

Burma media council formed without professional input: journalists’ groups

Widespread criticism and disappointment greeted the Burmese government’s formation of the Myanmar Core Press Council (MCPC), which was announced in state-run media on Friday. Critics faulted the government for forming the council without the input of professional journalists' groups, which had consistently asked for a role in the formation of the state-appointed body. The government announced a 20-member core press council that it said was charged with protecting media workers, establishing ethics and settling press disputes. Comments by EMG and other journalists do not bode well for the government’s announcement that it is rewriting the media laws of the country and will submit the new law to Parliament during the current session, which ends in August. A petition by the newly formed Press Freedom Committee called for an end to all “oppressive” media laws, and the promotion of free speech and a free press in Burma. News media in Burma is still subject to prior-censorship laws, which require new media to pass all stories through government censors prior to publication. (Mizzima)

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