Digital Broadcasters | Japan Mobile ISDB-T Sales Off Y-O-Y

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia(DBVNA) notes that in Japan, mobile hand device sales to end users are on the slide. 1Q/2008 sales dropped to 13.2 million units a decrease of 10.1 per cent year-on-year, according to a report by Gartner, Inc (NYSE:IT) research findings. "There were no new phone features in the first quarter of 2008 that were strong enough to drive growth, unlike the first quarter of 2007. During that period a music player function was introduced as was an embedded digital broadcasting terrestrial ISDB-T tuner. These benefits persuaded users to replace their devices," said Nahoko Mitsuyama, principal analyst for mobile communications research at Gartner, based in Tokyo. The ISDB-T (HDTV type) Tuner contained integrated services. "The proportion of WCDMA devices sold in Japan decreased from 63.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 to less than 30 per cent in the first quarter of 2008. Conversely, the proportion of high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) devices rose sharply from 1.9 per cent to more than 35 per cent in the same period," Mr Mitsuyama added. 1Q/2008 Asia Pacific Mobile Device Sales Up 26.6% Y-o-Y. Overall in Asia-Pacific though in 1Q/2008 sales remained bouyant. Some 114.4 million mobile devices were sold in the region. This represented a 26.6 per cent increase over the first quarter of 2007. India remained a high-growth market, and South Korea became a high growth market as well during the quarter, as consumers upgraded their handsets before the new extended contracts are put in place by operators in the second quarter of 2008. "Growth in Asia-Pacific was driven by a high number of new subscribers, lower-priced phones based on wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) technology, as well as low-cost global system for mobile communications (GSM) phones and ultra-low-cost CDMA devices," said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst for mobile terminals at Gartner, based in Mumbai, India. The data Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia(DBVNA) shows here is taken from the latest report by Gartner Inc (NYSE: IT). "Dataquest Insight: Market Share for Mobile Devices, 1Q08"is available at www.gartner.com.

Digital Broadcasters | All Blacks, Face TV3 Commercials Ban on Home Turf

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News came across this "oh God, let me hold my head in my hands" broadcasting story from TV3 New Zealand. In reading it, bear in mind that New Zealanders just cannot get enough of their favourite boys in black shorts - the All Blacks. They are walking idols on and off the rugby turf. Canwest Mediaworks terrestrial TV network, TV3 paid a small fortune to outbid rival consortium of Sky TV - Television New Zealand for the New Zealand territorial TV rights to the 2007 Rugby World Cup games live, directly by satellite from France. But an archaic section of the New Zealand Broadcasting Act bans Sunday morning commercial advertising on the TV. Something the Government says it will NOT change. On a Sunday morning, if you are a New Zealander, you can wake up to radio commercials, and read your oversized Sunday newspaper full of special sections and related special print advertisements, view the Internet broadcasts - but no, watching the tele with ads, ain't on! And this is the information era where audiences drive the way their information should be distributed not some bureaucrat, pontificating on the consumers' behalf. Even at New Zealand's national TV - TVNZ, shows its programs with advertisement spots on Sunday mornings - not on its terrestrial transmitter network but via the Internet! A cat and mouse game is on between the Minister of Broadcasting, Steve Maharey and CanWest on, how on earth TV3 will carry ads in a banned time segment early on a Sunday morning. Oh yes that is when the best games take place, five out of seven in fact, allowing for the time difference between France and New Zealand! However, the Broadcasting Act states that the ban can be waived if the programme's signal originates outside New Zealand and is produced and transmitted simultaneously to New Zealand and overseas audiences. There is also something about a 5 second acknowledgement in recognition of a supporting commercial organisation. CanWest, PR front man, Roger Beaumont is quoted in New Zealand media as saying that TV3 has found the solution the TV network was keeping it under wraps. The International Rugby Board, licensor of the Rugby World Cup is expected to market and present its own World Cup packages on the Internet, through TV3 which will promote the games and revenue share. So it is wait and see when the tournament starts how CanWest MediaWorks make a commercial success of this huge project in terms of cost. After much searching on the official rugby world cup sites, Digital Broadcasters Vendor News found the dates of this year's Rugby World Cup (the 6th edition) Friday September 7, 2007 to Saturday October 20, 2007. The dates were buried deep in an FAQ section. The French like to keep these things quiet. www.rugbyworldcup.com www.france2007.fr

Digital Broadcasters | Bangladesh Maverick Ekushey TV Returns

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News notes that Ekushey Television (ETV) in Bangladesh is still on air terrestrially and via satellite two weeks after getting its license back after a four year hiatus. A maverick broadcaster if ever there was one.

Staying on air terrestrially seems no mean feat in a Bangladesh where ETV was forced off air in Aug, 2002 by then-prime minister, Begum Khaleda Zia for apparently favouring her rivals in the Awami League in its programming. The broadcasting authority, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Board (BTRC) seized ETV's transmission equipment.

ETV, the country's first private TV station was awarded its original license by the Awami League government in April 2000.

Although the high court ordered the Khaleda Zia government to return transmission equipment to ETV in 2005 it never did. Yet in the meantime, a further six local, private TV networks were allowed to start broadcasting - but only via satellite distribution.

ETV's break came after Khaleda handed power to an interim government in October 2006, on completion of a five-year term in office. Just a few weeks ago the BDTC under the temporary administration government gave ETV the green light to resume transmissions.

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News is still puzzled why ETV along with the state-owned Bangladesh Television are the only terrestrial (as well as satellite TV network) operators in the country.

Digital Broadcasters | India | Bhubaneswar Adds Two FM stations

Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa state, and popularly known as the
"Temple City of India" adds two 24/7 private FM radio stations from
this month. Adlabs' BIG 92.7 FM will have an effective radiated
power that distributes its signal for a 60 kilometre radius that also
takes in the city of Cuttack with a program diet of entertainment and
"serious" information. Serious means updates to the supply of
vegetables in the markets, where there are power cuts, other utility
problems and government announcements. Music content is being split
in a ratio of 70% Hindi to 30% Oriya.

The second station is Eastern Media Ltd's Choklate 104 FM Superhit
Music. Its broadcast area includes Cuttack and Rourkela and areas
smaller cities of Athagarh, Chandaka, Gopinathpur, Raghunathpur,
Salepur,Jagatpur, Tangi, Deogaon, Gondia, Dhenkanal, Barhachara,
Haridashpur, Manda, Khurdha, Balipatna, Kapilespur, Pipli,
Jagatsinghpur, Patkura, Ratnagari, Udaigiri, Jenapur and Bhuban.

The two broadcasting network stations were issued the licences in the
second batch of 250 stations issued last year.

The introduction of the commercial FM stations is prompting All India
Radio's AIR Cuttack to upgrade its FM Rainbow Channel locally.

Digital Broadcasters | PRC | CRI Awarded Phone for TV Licence

Sometimes decisions coming out of China's digital broadcasting set up seem quirky. The latest in mobile handheld licenses is no exception. The state arm in charge of propaganda in Beijing, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has awarded to China Radio International (CRI) the overseas radio broadcasting division, the third license on offer for mobile phone "TV" services. Shanghai Media Group and CCTV were awarded the other two.

It does seem somewhat odd that the international and radio oriented division is granted the right to domestic mobile phone/handheld devices. The reasoning may be the fact that some CRI programming is carried domestically by AM and FM regional and local stations and networks around the country. Or just keeping it within the close knit ranks of the broadcasting power base in Beijing.

CRI has set up a subsidiary to link up with China Unicom (0762.HK) (the world's third largest mobile phone operator).

CRI is also in talks with China Mobile (0941.HK) for mobile broadcast cooperation, according to a People's Daily report.

Digital Broadcasters | ABC Brisbane To Relocate

News from ABC Brisbane is that it is at long last to get a new unified home for its regional digital radio and television broadcasting complex and headquarters for Queensland. Digital Broadcasters Vendor News received the announcement from ABC in Sydney directly.

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott said that the present 280 employees based in Queensland's capital city and housed in seven different buildings are to be housed at one site. Mr Scott made it clear the matter now being treated urgently.

The ABC Board recognises the fact and has approved a Project Control Group to take immediate control.

All the options and alternatives though have not been investigated yet. These include whether the future site of a broadcast complex would be leasehold or purchased, or a present building to be bought and converted.

Mr Scott also pointed out that specialist consultants will need to be appointed to make such assessments in a two stage process.

From now until the end of April, the first stage gets under way with the ABC Project Group calling for initial proposals.

Presently, the main Brisbane location is at ABC Toowong. ABC informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News that it is not going to redevelop that site.

Digital Broadcasters | Australia | Saving Water by Radio

ABC Local Radio network in Australia, known as "The Backyard" informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News of how a simple radio program idea helped most program participants cut their water consumption at home by a staggering 91 per cent in a 40 hour "drought" period. The program was part of an effort to build awareness of water conservation in a country suffering its worst drought this century.

And another outcome from "The 40 Hour Drought" radio project is that many Australians want their bosses to cut water usage too. Some 2000 participants registered across Australia. Of those, 80 per cent met the challenge: to limit water use to just 40 litres in the 40 hour period.

Normally, Australians use some 230 litres a day each, in their home - saving 630 000 litres of water. Compare that to an Olympic size swimming pool that holds one megalitre of water (one million litres).

The 40 Hour Drought ran from 7am on Wednesday March 21 to 11pm on Thursday March 22 March. It was the brainchild of four youngsters who attended the ABC Heywire (Haywire?) Youth Issues Forum. Saving water at work proved more of a challenge.

Dual flush toilets and awareness of water in daily life, where saving water as a talked over topic were matters that came out of the project noted Tony Rasmussen, Manager Network Development for Local Radio at http://www.abc.net.au/water.

Of all the messages to the ABC Local Radio message board, the ones that stand out relate to how much water is required to make something. Wayne Meyer is Professor of Natural Resource Science at the University of Adelaide. He's made it his business to know how much water is used in the production of food and fibre. 1kg of beef uses 50,000 ltrs of water, Wayne tells us. So a typical serving of around 200g would use 10,000 ltrs. That's the amount used by the grass and grains that the beast consumes. A kilo of clean wool takes 100 to 140,000 ltr simply to grow the fibre, without calculating the amount needed to clean it then manufacture cloth. Sheep are very efficient water harvesters, says Wayne. "The major amount of water which is involved, particularly in animal products, is associated with the evaporation in growing vegetation."

The best statistics in the Australian context though is beer versus wine making.

With beer, water is used to grow barley, the malting and then fermentation of beer. There isn't a lot of grain in beer so 100 ltrs ought to do it for a bottle of beer, Wayne feels. Add to that the volume in the beer itself.

Wine will use 270ltrs of water per bottle.

Beer is better in terms of use and as well, while Wayne notes a lot of grapes are grown under irrigation.

The ABC news release would have been so more meaningful if it had included something about the ABC Local Radio Network and its contribution to Australian national issues at a local level. (referred to as a boiler plate in PR jargon).

So here it is courtesy of Digital Broadcasters Vendor News. ABC Local Radio, known as "The Backyard" on the Internet, links ABC Radio's 60 local and regional radio stations and program websites around Australia. The Backyard reflects and extends the ABC's commitment to localism through the development of a web site for every ABC region in the country. It provides customised local access to ABC Online. The Backyard is focussed on the requirements of local ABC audiences all over Australia, who can now use their own web site to access a complete range of ABC broadcasting and community information in their region. Saving water is one such subject currently in focus.