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Once UK public broadcaster BBC put their Radioplayer on the market, it was only a matter of time before broadcasters in other countries seized the moment. Actually, it took about four years. But digital transition doesn’t come quickly.
Irish public and private broadcasters joined radio compatriots in Germany, Norway and Belgium to license the Radioplayer, which offers front-end, back-end and search technology. “This is a big step forward by our mature industry; bringing simplicity and variety to digital listeners on a strong, robust platform with tons of potential,” said RTÉ Radio operations director JP Coakley, quoted by Radio Today Ireland (November 11). The Irish version, smartphone app only, will offer 43 radio stations starting in December.
Of course, web aggregators for radio channels on the web are plentiful and not new. What excites broadcasters about proprietary, more or less, technology is control over the look and feel of it all plus, naturally, the advertising. In Germany private broadcasters licensed Radioplayer, perhaps available in November, with a bigger capacity for video. German public broadcasters have been “invited,” said FFH Radio CEO Hans-Dieter Hillmoth to radiozene.de (November 3). (See more about digital radio here)
The phones (or something more modern) must be ringing off the hook at Radioplayer Worldwide, the marketing company owned by the BBC and UK commercial broadcasters Bauer Media and Global Radio. Austrian private radio broadcasters Life Radio, Kronehit and Antenne Steiermark are preparing their own Radioplayer version for launch next year, said Kronehit managing director Ernst Swoboda to APA (November 11). Austrian public broadcaster ORF launched its Radiothek player earlier this year.
Big French broadcasters have also joined the online player ranks, their Direct Radio app is now functional, the website will certainly follow. NRJ Group, RTL France, Next RadioTV and Lagardére Active Radio emphatically resisted DAB digital radio development in France, preferring to follow the web. They have been joined in the Direct Radio venture by public broadcaster Radio France. The collective radio marketing association Les Indés, representing mostly local stations in France, popped with their Mur Du Son app in 2012.
The iconic Paris landmark Maison de la Radio has reopened after five years of renovation. In celebration, French public radio channels are offering three days of live music mostly but not entirely classical music. Two weeks ago a fire broke out on the building’s eighth floor in the midst of last minute preparations.
Arts channel France Musique get most of the attention, with live concerts in the new auditorium by the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra and the French National Orchestra throughout the weekend. The building’s main venues have been redesigned in hopes of better acoustics. Youth channel Le Mouv’, itself under renovation, will offer live DJ sets in the new atrium venue and staff from news channel France Info will demonstrate to children the fine art of live broadcasting. (See more about media in France here)
Maison de la Radio opened in 1963, dedicated by President Charles De Gaulle, after five years of construction to centralize French state broadcasting operations. By the first of the 1990’s the building was sorely in need of rehabilitation, not to forget asbestos removal. In 2003 Paris authorities deemed parts of the building unsafe. The total renovation cost has been about €585 million, noted Le Monde (November 3), almost as much as the Radio France annual budget.
Dow Jones will unplug its German-language Wall Street Journal Deutschland website at the end of the year, said WSJ editor-in-chief Gerard Baker in an internal email, quoted by DPA (November 13). WSJ Deutschland first appeared in 2012, mostly tucked behind a paywall. WSJ publisher Dow Jones is wholly owned by News Corporation.
Subscriber figures have never been shared but basic web traffic peaked at about 1 million in January and trickled lower since. By contrast, business-oriented Handelsblatt gets about 18 million visits a month to its web portal. The Turkish-language WSJ website will also disappear.
“It will come as no surprise that in order to do even more, we must do fewer things that are not core to our business so that we can move faster in pursuit of our goals,” said a separate memo from Dow Jones CEO William Lewis, quoted by mediabistro.com (November 13). Other Dow Jones products not in that “core” include the Sunday Journal, closing “in the coming months,” and the WSJ Radio Network, closing “at the end of the calendar year.” (See more about News Corporation here)
UK pay-TV company BSkyB, principally controlled by 21st Century Fox, completed acquisition of Sky Deutschland with the buy-out of almost all minority shareholders, reported the WSJ (November 12). BSkyB previously bought Sky Italia from 21st Century Fox as the company pools European pay-TV operations. BSkyB will now change its name to simply Sky. The Murdoch family principally controls both News Corporation and 21st Century Fox.
Big tech and big advertising are swimming closer and closer. Search and tech company Yahoo is acquiring programmatic ad platform BrightRoll for about US$ 640 million (about €515 million), reported Bloomberg and others (November 12). Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is using some of that cash on hand from the sale of part of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. BrightRoll moves video ads on web and mobile platforms and it’s profitable.
Big ad holding company Publicis Group took a 20% stake in Israeli ad tech company Matomy Media in mid-October for about US$ 68 million then followed up by dropping a whopping US$ 3.7 billion for geeky tech solutions provider Sapient. Both deals were all-cash, Publicis Group having an unused pile after its merger attempt with Omnicom crashed. Digital advertising has never been hotter. (See more about digital advertising here)
Media buyers love programmatic ad platforms, big media buyers love them even more. Coupling the joys of big, smart data with clever ad placement, all accessible from a tablet or smartphone, media buyers can move ads all over the world in seconds, nanoseconds actually. In just one example, internet advertising for the first ten months in Sweden rose 22.9%, according to IRM data. The whole ad market rose 2.5%.
“This is most probably because of automated programmatic buying, which streamlines and targets digital communications,” said Swedish ad agency IUM COO Jochum Forsell, quoted by medievarlden.se (November 11). “Consequently, media buyer’s clients capitalize on automated buying greater than the rest of the market.”
Berlin radio station Star FM and morning show host Martin Kesici have parted ways culminating a “long conversation,” reported radiowoche.de (November 10). Last week his appearance on the station’s morning show was suspended after a particular Facebook post appearing to encourage civil disobedience of the neo-Nazi kind grabbed plenty of attention. The parties “agreed to an amicable termination.”
“Star FM distances itself from any kind of extremist and criminal thought, xenophobia, violence and glorification of violence,” said the station’s statement. “We think these statements are wrong. The private opinions of Martin Kesici on his Facebook page are his responsibility alone and do not reflect the attitude of Star FM.” Kescic posted an apology and removed the offending remarks; too little, too late it seems. (See more about media in Germany here)
Before turning his talents to radio broadcasting Kesici won the Star Search TV talent show on Sat.1 in 2003 and was a one-hit-wonder with a heavy metal band. His conversion to radio DJ came later. Star FM has gone through several programming iterations in its long history, originally sharing the Berlin FM frequency with Voice of America (VOA) and more recently settling into a hard rock music format. The Berlin license is up for renewal in 2020.
Turner Broadcasting will cease distribution of news channel CNN in the Russian Federation at the end of the year. Cable companies VimpleCom and Akado confirmed receiving notice from Turner Broadcasting System Europe, reported Vedomosti (November 10). CNN has been available in Russia since founder Ted Turner negotiated an agreement in the late 1980’s with Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev.
“Turner International is assessing its distribution options for CNN in Russia in light of recent changes in Russian media legislation,” said the official company statement posted on its website. “We are bringing our existing distribution relationships to an end while we do that. We hope to re-enter the market in due course, and will notify our partners of any update about resuming these services." It noted that CNN’s Moscow news bureau is not affected. Turner International and Turner Broadcasting are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Time Warner. (See more about CNN here)
Few surprises in the Russian media sector are conceivable but this one may have, very so slightly, caught the Russians off guard. “Existing Russian legislation does not prevent their distribution on cable and satellite networks in the Russian Federation,” said the Ministry of Mass Communication in a statement, quoted by lenizdat.ru (November 11). “The law allows foreign news channels to broadcast in Russia, provided legal forms and methods are followed. The Ministry favors Russian citizens access to a variety of information sources, including foreign.” In mid October the Russian Ministry of Communications called representatives of foreign media outlets to a meeting, presumably to explain newly signed laws on foreign ownership. (See more about media in Russia here)
CNN was originally broadcast on satellite Channel 24, which became part of CTC Media. Eventually cable systems began carrying CNN. In 2010 Russian law began requiring distribution licenses for program originators after which several foreign government-sponsored radio broadcasters – VOA, BBC, RFI, et.al – left the Russian airwaves. In addition to reducing the allowable share for foreign ownership in Russian media outlets, the most recent media law requires editorial control to be ceded to Russian nationals, presumably officially approved.
Separately, Norwegian investment fund Skagen Global has exited its shareholding in CTC Media. “The stock no longer offers an attractive risk-reward profile in light of the heightened political risk and we therefore chose to exit the asset,” said the Skagen quarterly report that noted those new media laws, quoted by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS (November 11). CTC Media shares are traded on the NASDAQ exchange and Skagen’s stake is believed quite small.
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