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Sarkozy snaps
…TV chief snaps, too…
Is it the weather? Is it the water? French public broadcasting France Télévisions president Patrick de Carolis snapped at French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Monsieur Le Président snapped at a public TV technician.
President Sarkozy opined that French public television needs his personal attention, appointing its president, because it has become too much like the private channels. He liked State TV in the 1960’s, presumably. (Read about Sarkovision here)
Then, before an appearance on public channel France 3 Monday night (June 30), M. Sarkozy snapped at a technician for not saying a proper ‘bonjour’ by saying, essentially, "I'll fix your wagon."
M. de Carolis snapped back, calling M. Sarkozy’s remark “false, stupid and unfair.”(JMH)
Google in French WiMax deal; yes and no.
...better, faster, smarter...
Not just a few wags were twittering yesterday with the French business portal Les Echos reported that Google would be a partner with Belloré Telecom in the French rollout of WiMax. Mais non! said a spokesperson of ISP Free, part of Iliad, and partner of Bolloré Telecom, part of Bollore Group. Les Echos offered no source.
Bollore Telecom has 20 regional WiMax licenses in France. A spokesperson, quoted by AFP, said “no talks” were underway. Mais oui, “Google is an obvious partner for WiMax, so that is not to say we won't have talks with them one day.”
Two weeks ago Bellore Telecom bought 8 WiMax licenses from TDF, bring its total to 20. A week before that (July 12) communications regulator ARCEP made known its displeasure at the slow rollout of WiMax services. Licenses were awarded at auction in 2006. Bellore Telecom started testing in Paris last summer.
WiMax (“WiFi on steroids”) is touted as the next big thing in digital media platforms, offering wireless broadband over relatively large coverage areas, just perfect for fixed and mobile service, voice over IP, TV over IP, radio over IP. (See more on WiMax here) But, like every other new platform, it’s an expensive proposition. With venture capital and private equity in “bear market” mode, a strategic partner with mega-tons of cash and a yen for changing the world – like Google – is necessary.
Dutch licensee WorldMAX launched the first European WiMax service in Amsterdam’s city center (June 17). CEO Jeanine van der Vlist said the technical rollout will cost about €60 million (US$ 100 million). (JMH)
Big Job Cuts At L.A. Times
One reason the Los Angeles Times went through three editors in about two years is because they refused to fire any more news people. Seems new editor Russ Stanton has no such qualms and he has agreed to shrink the current editorial staff of 876 people by 17% -- around 150 – and there will be another 100 job losses spread among circulation, marketing and advertising.
In addition Stanton announced the paper would publish 15% fewer pages each week and would combine its print and Web departments. . He explained succinctly in a staff memo the problems the Times (and other papers) have to handle, “Thanks to the Internet, we have more readers for our great journalism than at any time in our history. But also thanks to the Internet, our advertisers have more choices, and we have less money."
It was only seven years ago that The Times’ newsroom had a staff near 1200.
Who Says There’s Not Big Money To Be Made In Radio?
Russ Limbaugh’s three-hour daily Premiere Radio Network radio talk program is broadcast on around 600 US radio stations and listened to by some 14 million listeners. How much do you think that’s worth?
How about $400 million to continue on-air until 2016. According to a New York Times interview to be published Sunday Limbaugh got a $100 million signing bonus and he gets $38 million a year.
Limbaugh is considered to be extremely influential with his political views. He prefers presumptive Republican nominee John McCain to presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, although back in January, before McClain had forged his Republican victory, Limbaugh had said that if McCain were nominated "it's going to destroy the Republican Party."
By the way, the manner in which this story broke says a lot about where the real power is today within the US media. The New York Times, wanting publicity for its Sunday interview, leaked the story to the Drudge Report. The rest, as they say, is history.
The France 3 Video Sarkozy Didn’t Want Broadcast
Public broadcaster France 3 Television has launched an investigation on how a video of President Nicolas Sarkozy berating a technician at the station has made it onto several French Web sites. Around 1 million viewers are said to have accessed the video.
The technician was preparing Sarkozy for an interview and was clipping a microphone to the President’s tie. Sarkozy said, “Hello sir.” No response from the employee, not even a hello. Sarkozy exploded, “It's a question of manners. I mean, when you're invited, you're entitled to have people say 'hello' to you." He further suggested he didn’t think the technician should not be working for state television.
"Incredible!" Sarkozy said. What he didn’t know was that temper tantrum was taped, and France 3 management officially says they want to know how it got leaked to the Internet.
France 3 staff are not pleased with Sarkozy these days after two recent announcements -- that he now intends to nominate the General Director of state TV directly rather than the commission that now does it, and he wants to ax advertising on public broadcast stations and make up for the resulting budget shortfalls via taxes on the advertising revenue of the commercial stations and taxes on the Internet.
France 3 staff are convinced at the end of the day that won’t be enough and jobs will be lost, thus the opportunity to personally stick it to Sarkozy couldn’t be passed over.
Ottaway Newspapers Taken Off The Market
News Corp. said back in November that it would explore selling the Ottaway newspapers that it got in the Dow Jones deal. But in this economic climate who wants to buy a chain of eight daily and 14 weekly newspapers at a respectable decent price? Apparently nobody and Ottaway publishers told their staffs Tuesday that the newspapers have been taken off the market.
The chain had announced in May a staff cutback that was reported to be less than 5% of the total workforce.
Ottaway publishes 8 daily and 14 weekly in seven states: Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, California, Oregon and Pennsylvania. At least they’re not in Florida!
Comments on contests
...the secret is paying attention...
I've received several interesting comments on the "Secret Sound" radio contest. (See the article here) Yes, contests and competitions are as big as ever for broadcasters. And, yes, rules are changing as regulators are paying more attention.
David Daggelinckx of Be One radio said rules have recently been changed in Flemish Belgium and the Netherlands. I'd like to hear from more regulators on this.
Every broadcaster that has commented so far has mentioned zero tolerance for error, competition being what it is other media will pounce on any mistake, real or imagined.
A consultant who has been working with both radio and new media offered an interesting thought: contests and competitions seem only to succeed on radio. It's a marketing device that doesn't seem to migrate to the web or, for that matter, other media.
Send me your thoughts on radio contests and competitons, OK? (JMH)
There are a lot of FM radios in Bavaria
…and they’re all turned on at 8 in the morning…
Media time use studies offer either a surprise or alarm. The Bavarian media authority (BLM) has published an analysis of radio and internet time use in the southern German State. Not a real surprise that peak radio listening for Germans aged 14 years and older in Bavaria is 8 in the morning. And, too, peak home internet use is 8 to 9 in the evening. (See the BLM release here – in German)
Radio listening is highest between 5 in the morning and 8:30 in the evening, when the internet takes over until 10 at night. Then, the radio is back on.
The report also estimates the number of radio receiving devices. Bavarian households have on average 4.5 FM radios, 24.4 million in total. There are 5.4 million car FM radios, 2.16 million mobile phones with FM radio and – most important – 3.8 million alarm clock radios.
Compare those numbers to the estimate of 58,000 DAB receivers in Bavaria.
Have you seen similar figures for other regions? Would you send them to me? (JMH)
Olympics as media lab
…where the real geeks compete…
The Beijing Olympics – coming up in just 7 weeks – will be many things. The European Union, Fraunhofer Institute IAIS and others, including the University of Bradford (UK) and Austrian public broadcasting (ORF) will be experimenting with TV production techniques. The idea is to merge live TV production with on-demand processing. (See University of Bradford presser here)
It’s all a bit beyond me but it sounds like very cool next-generation production techniques. (JMH)
Maradona Sues The Sun
Ace footballer Diego Maradona could well be the most disliked international football star in the UK for what he called the “Hand of God” incident in the Argentina -England quarter-finals of the 1986 Mexico World Cup. Maradona punched in a goal with his fist which everyone in the stadium except for the referee seemed to see and the goal stood. Later in the match Maradona scored another goal that was subsequently voted the goal of the century by a FIFA poll at the 2002 World but the result was England lost 2-1 and was out of the tourney.
At the time Maradona would not admit that he had handled the ball for his first goal, despite the photographic and video evidence, claiming instead it was scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”. And so “Hand of God” passed into UK tabloid folklore.
Maradona now says in a court writ issued against News Group Newspapers that he agreed to a £75,000 fee for an interview with the tabloid Sun and the interview was spread over three pages on January 31.He said in the interview he was sorry for what happened, but he’s even sorrier now because he says the Sun had yet to pay him. He said the newspaper tried to change the financial terms after the interview but he refused.
News Corp gives up control
…don’t get excited…
With the help of private equity Permira Advisors, News Corp is taking pay TV encryption developer NDS Group private, just weeks after a messy trial in the US featuring charges of industrial espionage and high tech hacking. Permira Advisors will buy out the outside investors and News Corps share will be reduced from 72% to 49%. NDS provides conditional access systems and makes smartcards for News Corps pay TV operations in several countries. That deal was announced Thursday (June 26).
A day earlier European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes approved News Corp’s bid to take control of German pay TV operator Premiere with the condition that other operators would be allowed to use Premiere’s satellite platform. Premiere recently announced it would begin using conditional access technology provided by NDS. News Corp holds a 25.01% stake in Premiere.
Permira and Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts (KKR) own ProSiebenSat.1, another German TV operator.
The Wall Street Journal reported (June 26) News Corp looking at both Premiere and Spanish pay TV Digital+. (JMH)
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