ITV

Category: News Broadcasting

  • CNN to invest in expanding newsgathering network

    MUMBAI: In the biggest expansion of international newsgathering resources in its 27-year history, CNN Worldwide has announced plans to significantly increase the number of correspondents worldwide, open a regional newsgathering hub in the United Arab Emirates, invest in a London-based digital-production unit, and make major investments in CNN’s International Newsource and CNN’s in-house wire operations.

    CNN International executive VP, MD Tony Maddox says, “This is all about owning more content; these new resources will have a huge impact across all of CNN’s networks and platforms. Owning the content we broadcast, publish and make available to affiliates and other platforms is the backbone of this business. This multi-million dollar investment in staff and resources bolster our world-class, award-winning journalism as well as give us the power to move swiftly into developing new business models.”

    New operations are also planned for India, Afghanistan, Belgium, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland and Vietnam. CNN will also appoint two new correspondents for the network’s Johannesburg bureau and add an additional correspondent at both its London and Istanbul bureaus.

    Investments are underway in CNN’s Asia Pacific newsgathering hub in Hong Kong to increase staffing, and the network plans to assign additional correspondents in Beijing, Jakarta and Pakistan.

    At the same time, CNN is also revitalizing its Tokyo bureau to encompass additional reporting duties in South Korea to work within the current structure.

    CNN will expand both its newsgathering and production facilities in the United Arab Emirates, bringing to bear more resources across the region in terms of programming and reporting, including more business coverage.

    CNN is also expanding its international online services with the creation of a digital production unit that will be primarily based in London, with additional staffing also in Hong Kong and Atlanta. This unit will produce and feed the rapidly growing number of new platforms that CNN services globally. This team will work alongside the television operation and will be responsible for providing content for CNN International, CNNArabic.com, CNNMobile and new CNN services on TV-to-broadband sites.

    CNN’s International Newsource operation will also expand to provide additional editorial, content and newsgathering services to CNN’s more than 1,000 affiliates worldwide. CNN’s in-house wire service is also being strengthened with additional staff to ensure swift and accurate dissemination of all of the additional material becoming available across all of CNN Worldwide services and networks.

    In Mexico, CNN en Español will strengthen its presence with the hiring of an anchor and correspondent and an additional editor working from the network’s Mexico City newsgathering bureau and production center. CNN en Español also will add to its editorial team in Atlanta to better service the increased volume of affiliate and stringer content and the development of new digital services.

  • CNN creates presence in Second Life

    MUMBAI: US news broadcaster CNN has opened a hub within Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual world entirely created by its residents. The network will look to those most familiar with the virtual world – the Second Life residents themselves – to determine what constitutes news “in-world.”

    Just as CNN asks its real-life audience to submit iReports – user-generated content submitted from cell phones, computers, cameras and other equipment for broadcast and online reports – the network invites the residents of Second Life to share their own “SL iReports” about events occurring within the virtual world.

    CNN News Services executive VP Susan Grant says, “The thing we most hope to gain by having a CNN presence in Second Life is to learn about virtual worlds and understand what news is most interesting and valuable to their residents. Our iReport initiative has generated a great response from CNN viewers and users who contribute a wide variety of news, events and perspectives every day; and we are genuinely excited about the opportunity to forge a similar relationship with Second Life residents, albeit recognizing the need to customize the process for the virtual world.”

    When Second Life residents observe an in-world event, they can take snapshots, shoot video, or write a report about the event and submit to CNN with a click. Submissions selected by CNN iReport producers will go back into Second Life as SL iReports for residents to view throughout the virtual world. SL iReports may also be viewed and discussed in the real world at CNN.com’s SL iReport Blog at www.CNN.com/secondlife, where users are invited to share comments and subscribe to daily e-mail updates sent via Real Simple Syndication (RSS).

    CNN’s in-world hub includes a news desk where weekly editorial discussions will be held and an amphitheater for in-world events, such as training sessions and appearances by CNN anchors and correspondents. During the weekly editorial discussions, held each Tuesday at 5 p.m. (ET), one of CNN’s SL iReport ambassadors, CNN producers and editors with experience in virtual worlds, will moderate a conversation with residents about the prior week’s SL iReports and upcoming in-world events that might be interesting to cover.

    At the network’s hub, residents also can meet SL iReport ambassadors and other resident reporters, as well as access iReport kiosks, free-standing terminals where residents can pick up free gear and tools for gathering and viewing in-world user-generated content.

    Kiosks offer a variety of free gear and tools including:

    • A “HUD” or “heads-up display. This is a small, collapsible window that resides on the user’s computer screen enabling them to view the latest photo and text SL iReports while they are in Second Life; 
    • A continuous stream of the latest video SL iReports; 
    • An instructional video on what an SL iReport is and how to submit one; 
    • Avatar-ready apparel, including hats, T -shirts and press badges; and 
    • A duplicate copy of the kiosk itself, which residents can place wherever they choose across Second Life.

  • IBN7 to launch ‘Gujarat Chunav – Satta Nau Sangharsha’

    MUMBAI: IBN7 has tied up with Divya Bhaskar for a show ‘Gujarat Chunav – Satta Nau Sangharsha’ on Gujarat assembly elections. The month-long show, kicking off on 14 November, starts with findings of an opinion poll conducted by Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).

    As a part of the show, interactive live debate sessions, ‘Kyun Chune Aapko?’ will be conducted on a daily basis in 15 different towns and cities across Gujarat and aired on 5:30 pm election special shows. Featuring various party leaders and prominent authorities, the discussions will take up issues pertinent to the state.

    From 26 November to 13 December extensive programming run of half-hour shows daily will provide a comprehensive step-by-step account of the entire election process from the pre-polling phase, the actual ballot casting to the post-poll results.

    As a special segment in the 8:30 pm series, ‘5 Saal 5 Reporter’, five IBN 7 reporters will revisit the worst riot affected areas of Gujarat.

    The exit poll surveys will be conducted throughout Gujarat on the day the state goes to vote. IBN 7 will telecast special half-hour shows from 11 to 16 December at 8 pm to track and project the nature of voting in the state and the likely winner.

    On 23 December IBN 7 will have a one-hour special show in the evening. It will discuss and analyse the election results and the implications for the state and nation.

    IBN 7 managing editor Ashutosh said, “The Gujarat state elections are undeniably one of the most anticipated polls of the year. Therefore, with ‘ Gujarat Chunav – Satta Nau Sangharsha’ IBN 7 will be on location to provide its viewers the latest news from ground-zero, including in-depth analyses of all developments occurring during the electoral process. ”

    CNN-IBN and IBN 7 director marketing and online projects Dilip Venkatraman said, “Our editorial and marketing partnership with Divya Bhaskar for this extensive initiative will ensure maximum reach and visibility of our campaign by going beyond television to include print.”

  • CNN announces winners of Asia Pacific Screen Awards

    MUMBAI: News broadcaster CNN has announced the winners of the inaugural Asia Pacific Screen Awards at a ceremony on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Over 500 film industry personalities from the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the US attended the ceremony.

    Films from India, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey and Israel received Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Scene By Scene – Best Films Of Asia Pacific airs on CNN on 17 November 2007 at 12:30 pm and 8:30 pm and on 18 November at 12:30 pm. 

    The awards were determined by an International Jury headed by Indian actress Shabana Azmi.

    The best film award was won by Secret Sunshine from Korea. Jeon Do-yeon received the Best Performance by an Actress Award for her performance in the same film.

    The best achievement in directing was awarded to Iranian directors Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab for the film Mainline.

    Best screenplay was awarded to Feroz Abbas Khan for his screenplay for the Indian film Gandhi, My Father. Khan was on the Gold Coast to accept the Award.

    Best children’s film was Denias, Singing On The Cloud from Indonesia. The Award was accepted by producer Ari Sihasale.

    Best animated film was won by 5 Centimeers Per Second from Japan. Producer Noritaka Kawaguchi accepted the Award.

    Turkish actor Erkan Can won the Best Performance by an Actor Award for his performance in Takva.

    Asia Pacific Screen Awards chairman Des Power thanked Azmi and her jury colleagues, founding Director of Korea’s Pusan International Film Festival Kim Dong-ho, Iranian director Jafar Panahi, UK producer Nik Powell and Chinese filmmaker Tian Zhuangzhuang for their deliberations over the past week.

    “I am very grateful to the members of the Jury. They have been extraordinarily dedicated to the challenging task of determining the Awards and I am inspired by their commitment to the aims of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards to recognise cultural diversity and acclaim filmmaking excellence across the Asia-Pacific region.

    “I congratulate the winners of the inaugural Asia Pacific Screen Awards announced tonight who also inspire with their courage and creative brilliance.”

  • Star News ropes in Afridi and Zaheer for ‘Wah! Cricket’

    MUMBAI: Star News has launched a show ‘Wah! Cricket’ for the on-going Indo-Pak cricket series. It provides updated happenings on and off the ground and forecasts right through the series under its umbrella program ‘Wah! Cricket’.

    The Hindi news channel has signed exclusive contract with Pakistani batsman Shahid Afridi and Indian pacer Zaheer Khan along with Sandeep Patil, Saba Karim and Arun Lal to be part of the show.

    Shahid and Zaheer will give viewers a hawk eye view on the feelings and temperament prevailing on the ground during post match analysis from the cricketers. The viewers will see an exclusive interview with the cricketers which will encapsulate behind the scenes, anecdotes, and trivia.

  • BBC, Discovery charter new territories with two new ‘Expedition’ series

    MUMBAI: UK pubcaster The BBC’s Natural History unit, in partnership with Discovery, is venturing into remote rainforests, high mountains and raging underground rivers to uncover the mysterious landscapes of Guyana and Papua New Guinea, in two epic Expedition series.

    It will be shown on BBC One in 2008.

    Expedition Guyana: Hidden on the northern coast of South America, the forgotten country of Guyana holds some of the most extraordinary jungle on Earth. With the forest currently under threat from loggers and their chainsaws, the Expedition Guyana team aims to discover new species in order to help Guyana protect its environment.

    Living rough in a jungle camp alongside local conservationists, the team will track the animals from high in the canopy to deep within the rivers. They are in search of the giants of Guyana including the anaconda, jaguar, giant anteaters, giant turtles and the enormous Harpy eagle. Working in a pristine jungle, which has been earmarked for logging or oil exploration, the cameras will be rolling every step of the way.

    The series producer Steve Greenwood says, “This incredible habitat is completely unspoilt and we’re sure it is home to some remarkable creatures. We’ll be spending a month tracking them down and capturing them on HD. We’ve got all the latest camera technology to help us: thermal cameras, remote cameras, micro and underwater cameras – but in the end it will be old fashioned field skills that are most needed to survive and find the animals in this tough jungle.”

    Expedition New Guinea: New Guinea is the most species-rich island on the planet but its landscape is so inaccessible that much of the wildlife is barely known. Recent exploration has hinted at new and utterly unique species with strange adaptations thriving in the dense forests, in the depths of the impenetrable swamps and perched on the edges of the active volcanoes.

    Hidden deep within this island is the deepest mystery in the whole of the tropics. A series of colossal caves pepper the hillside, most of them completely unexplored. Joined by world experts in extreme caving, the Expedition team take on this stern and drastic environment providing true and original exploration, captured on camera as it happens.

    Running in parallel, other members of the expedition team will explore the rugged rainforests that drape the mountains. These missions include journeying up the Sepik River to meet the Crocodile People and the 26-foot crocodiles they share the river with; searching for strange birds of paradise, capturing on camera their bizarre rituals and mating behaviours; and exploring for Queen Alexandra birdwing butterflies, the largest butterfly in the world and one that is rapidly declining towards extinction.

    The show’s executive producer Tim Martin says, “New Guinea will be our toughest expedition yet. Sheer mountains and tangled forests make its interior hard to navigate and disputes between rival tribes are an added complication we’ll have to cope with. But the rewards should be great – birds of paradise, tree kangaroos and whole forests that scientists have yet to investigate. And beneath the ground lies a vast system of caves, much of which has never been explored.

    “The observational style of our Expedition brand, as seen on Expedition Borneo, Amazon Abyss and Pacific Abyss, captures the dramas of expedition life and gives a real sense of what it’s like to explore some of the world’s last great wildernesses. Tourists and film crews tend to visit the same well known National Parks and our approach is to go much deeper into the wilds, to places that haven’t yet felt the impact of humans.”

  • BBC World to launch ‘The Real Cities’

    MUMBAI: BBC World in association with InterContinental Hotels and Resorts will launch a five-part series called The Real Cities. Starting on 17 November, the first episode will feature London.

    The travelogue will provide an insider’s guide to places that include London, Sydney, New York, Tokyo and Paris through the eyes of their residents. Three locals from each city will take viewers on a tour of individual favourite spots.

    The programmes will feature Serpentine Gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones in London, model and handbag designer Alek Wek in New York, fashion designer Colette Dinnigan in Sydney and Olivier Picasso in Paris.

    BBC World vice president, sales EMEA and North America Carolyn Gibson said, “So many travel programmes simply show the clichéd tourist sights, and neglect to go behind the scenes to find the hidden treasures of a city that the locals enjoy. The Real Cities is a groundbreaking new series for BBC World, which interviews the famous residents from five major international cities to truly give our viewers an insider’s point of view. We are very proud of this series and hope that our viewers enjoy the insights it offers.”

    InterContinental Hotels & Resorts senior vice president, global brand management Jenifer Zeigler said, “We’re thrilled to partner with BBC World to bring The Real Cities to life. The InterContinental brand has always believed in providing our guests with authentic and enriching experiences when they visit one of our destinations. The interviews and insider content provided by The Real Cities is a perfect fit for our customers who live to travel.”

  • BBC Arabic launches interactive media workshops

    MUMBAI: BBC Arabic has announced that it will host a series of interactive workshops called The World As You See It for aspiring broadcasters across the Arab world.

    The workshops are announced as the BBC prepares to launch its integrated Arabic-language multimedia offering, a first for the region incorporating radio, TV and online.

    Aimed at developing talented future broadcasters in the Arab world, The World As You See It workshops will be held at universities in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Egypt and Morocco.

    Experienced BBC journalists will share their knowledge and experience with media students, encouraging them to complete short video packages of stories they believe will be of wide interest. The best work will be featured on the BBC.

    BBC Arabic head Hosam El Sokkari said, “The BBC wants to support and develop talent in the region and these workshops will be a first step in building relationships with the multimedia broadcasters of the future.

    “I have no doubt that audiences to BBC Arabic in the years ahead will be enjoying some of the talent that emerges from The World As You See It. The initiative will also give us the opportunity to see a different young perspective on today’s world.”

    The tutorials with BBC journalists will encourage individuals or teams to create video footage using on-campus facilities and guidance from their tutors. The BBC will provide additional support via online Q&As and downloadable tutorials.

    All submissions will be evaluated by BBC journalists. All The World As You See It submissions will be in Arabic and a maximum of three minutes long. Full credit will be given to students and their university.

  • I&B mulls sending reminder to NBA over Content Code

    NEW DELHI: Upset over News Broadcasters Association’s (NBA) silence on the Content Code almost a month after sending a letter, the Information and Broadcasting ministry (I&B) is now planning to send a reminder.

    Meanwhile, the government-drafted Code remains in place till a regulator comes up.

    “We have no word from them and it may be they have not taken this seriously,” an official told Indiantelevision.com, despite the fact that during a meeting with the minister for Information and Broadcasting, journalists had said they would draft their own Code and send it to the government.

    “We are considering sending a letter to remind them on this soon,” the official said, and added that the government was looking at getting the Broadcast Bill out as soon as possible.

    However, though the Bill was termed as a priority, the official was unable to give a definite deadline for it to be in place. The Bill has to be passed early, the official said, as that would be the only route of setting up the regulator.

    It may be recalled that while most broadcasters are agreeable to having a regulation, they had vehemently fought the idea of a government-drafted Code of Content, terming that as infringement of free speech.

    In the context of the Bill, when asked whether the ministry officials had interacted with the chairperson of Ofcom, the British media regulatory body, the official said they had “a lot of interaction.”

    So, is the Indian ministry taking points from the Ofcom system?

    “They have an interesting system of setting up the Commission, which is basically that the old body of the Commission gets the new body in and this gives them autonomy. We are looking at this and studying it, and may be some parts could be considered,” added the official.

    The system of setting regulatory bodies and Commission is different from that in British media affairs, the official said, and this merits study.

    However, the ministry could not give a deadline of getting the Bill on the house of the Parliament, saying that there is need for more guidance. That guidance would come from within the ministry itself “as we are pretty much aware of who has to say what on the issue”.

    Meanwhile, the Code of Content drafted by the government has not been scrapped and will be there as a referral point as and when the regulator is set up. The government might scrap some provisions obnoxious to the industry and put it for more healthy debate, the official said.

  • BBC Hindi’s radio documentary wins ABU award

    MUMBAI: BBC Hindi has won an award at the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU).

    Its radio documentary – Rising Mercury, Deepening Crisis – won the Best Radio Documentary Award at the 44th ABU General Assembly in Tehran, Iran, on 3 November.

    It was produced by BBC Hindi Radio editor Shivkant Sharma and presented by Mukesh Sharma. Shivkant Sharma said, “The objective of Rising Mercury, Deepening Crisis was to report how climate change is impacting lives of millions of people in north India, how economic development and changing lifestyle are speeding up climate change and what people could do individually and collectively to tackle climate change.

    “We had a very encouraging feedback from our audience, and now the ABU Award proves that we have been quite successful in our mission.”

    India accounts for just 4.5 per cent of the global emission of green-house gases but the picture is likely to change dramatically within a generation. India’s share of global emission is likely to soar as urbanisation accelerates, fuelled by the rapidly growing economy.

    In Rising Mercury, Deepening Crisis, BBC Hindi examines the effect of human activity on climate change, and the affect of climate change on the lives of millions of people in India. The documentary takes listeners to places where the impact of climate change is already visible and looks at the evidence on the ground.

    Starting in a busy street of Kanpur, one of the most polluted cities of India, the programme moves on to Gangotri, the largest glacier in the Himalayas, and Sunderbans, the largest mangroves in the world, tracing the natural path of the carbon-cycle.

    Along with explaining and highlighting the imminent and visible dangers of climate change, the BBC Hindi documentary examines the practical steps that governments and individuals can take to address the issue.