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Week ending September 8, 2007

Voices of Freedom: A Celebration of VOA Jazz & Willis Conover – September 7, 2007

from Leslie Jackson/VOA

CTC Media Expands into Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – September 4, 2007

from Konstantin Vorontsov/CTC Media

CTC Media, Russia’s leading independent television broadcaster, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a majority financial interest in Channel 31 group, one of the leading broadcasters in Kazakhstan, for approximately $65 million in cash, and registered a broadcasting company in Uzbekistan.

In Kazakhstan, following the closing of the transaction, which is expected to take several months, CTC Media will hold a 20% participation interest in Channel 31 and majority ownership positions in affiliate companies that will provide the advertising sales function and programming content for Channel 31. These interests will provide CTC Media with a right to 60% of the economic interest of the Channel 31 group and will enable it to consolidate the financial statements of Channel 31 group with its own.

Chief Executive Officer of CTC Media, Alexander Rodnyansky, said, “We are excited about the opportunity the Kazakhstan market presents. This is a country with a population of more than 15 million people and a fast-growing economy. It has significant potential for further growth in the television advertising market which industry experts estimated at approximately $200 million in 2006 and is the third largest among the countries of the former Soviet Union behind Russia and Ukraine. With younger viewers comprising an unusually high proportion of total audience in the country, CTC's focus on younger demographics provides us with an attractive opportunity to gain audience share. Together with our Kazakh partners, a prominent team of professionals led by journalist and executive Armanjan Baitasov, we aim to create a high quality entertainment television station in Kazakhstan while maintaining the channels' distinct local appeal.”

In addition to the Kazakhstan acquisition, CTC Media, in cooperation with Terra group, a leading independent Uzbek media holding company, has registered a television company in Uzbekistan, which is expected to commence operations in 2008 on Channel 30. CTC Media will own 51 percent of the company.

The population of Uzbekistan is more than 27 million people.

Alexander Rodnyansky further commented, “Together with our Terra group partners which possess a unique commercial TV and radio broadcasting experience in Uzbekistan, we will create the first national TV player with foreign ownership participation in a TV market that had been developing in isolation for quite a while. This allows us to bring together the concept of private entertainment television and our programming and operational expertise. In cooperation with our local partners, we are in a unique position to reshape and develop the Uzbek TV landscape.”

“We are pleased to announce that we are executing on our growth strategy and reaching out to over 40 million people in Central Asia. CTC Media will bring to the region its brands, operational competencies, advertising relationships and, most importantly, its marquee Russian content – a proven success with Russian-speaking audiences. We are hopeful that our resources combined with the local talent and programming expertise will result in a uniquely lucrative entertainment-focused television offering," concluded Alexander Rodnyansky.

ITU - Next-generation networks set to transform communications – September 4, 2007

from Sanjay Acharya/ITU

ITU has released a major publication, Trends in Telecommunication Reform:the Road to NGN. In its 8th edition, Trends reports on the evolution of circuit-switched telecommunication into "next-generation" networks, as operators around the world fight to remain competitive. The Report aims at enabling regulators and policy-makers in developing countries to better understand the changes transforming the ICT sector so they can evolve their policy and regulatory frameworks to leverage today’s technological and market developments.

Next-generation networks (NGN) herald the shift from a "one network, one service" approach, to the delivery of many services over a single network. Based on the Internet Protocol (IP), NGN migration builds on the expansion of broadband networks, the rise of Voice over IP (VoIP), fixed-mobile convergence and IP television (IPTV). These new networks are being developed using a number of technologies, including wireless and mobile, fibre and cable, or by upgrades to existing copper lines. While some operators are focused on upgrading their core — or transport — networks to NGN, others are tackling their access networks that reach the end user.

Fixed-line operators face increased competition from wireless telecommunication operators, providers of cable television networks and large Internet content providers with strong brands and deep pockets. The search for new revenue streams from the increasingly popular triple or quadruple play bundled package of IPTV, voice calls and ultra-high-speed broadband Internet access has accelerated the rolling out of fibre networks closer to homes and offices. In addition, operators increasingly seek to collect advertising revenue from the range of user-generated, social-networking and other content running on ever-higher speed broadband networks, dubbed "ultra broadband" or "broaderband" technology. At the same time, mobile operators are upgrading their networks to find new revenue streams fed by offers of seamless connectivity to bandwidth-intensive applications like mobile TV.

ICT sector in transition

The transitions underway are changing the way we communicate and the way in which the information and communication technology (ICT) sector conducts its business.

Developing countries seek to join the NGN bandwagon, motivated by the goal of making the Information Society a reality for their citizens and the concern about falling even deeper into the digital divide as developed countries roll out high-speed broadband networks. The bottom line for developing countries is not necessarily to adopt the same NGN experience as developed countries, but to harness the potential of new technologies to meet their ICT development goals.

The good news is that developing countries do not have to wait to meet their goals. Technological developments, such as broadband wireless access, are making ICT development a reality — provided their regulatory framework is designed to remove obstacles to innovation and investment.

Growth in the ICT sector has been nothing short of buoyant in the past year. By the end of 2006, there were a total of nearly 4 billion mobile and fixed line subscribers and over 1 billion Internet users worldwide. This included 1.27 billion fixed line subscribers and 2.68 billion mobile subscribers. These numbers are even more impressive when updated to include two of the fastest growing markets: China and India, which in the first quarter of 2007 had reported nearly 200 million more subscribers between them — 87 million in China, and about 110 million more in India. Some 61 per cent of the world’s mobile subscribers are in developing countries, fuelled by countries like Brazil, China, India and Russia. Mobile penetration rates in developing countries, excluding the least developed countries (LDCs), grew from 26 per cent in 2005 to nearly 34 per cent in 2006. While there is still considerable potential for Internet growth in developing countries, where the average level of Internet usage in 2006 was only 10 per cent, an increasing number of developing and emerging countries have joined the ranks of the list of top broadband subscribers (ranked by total number of subscribers rather than penetration rates), including Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Turkey.

But the least developed countries still lag behind. Only 22 out of 50 LDCs offered broadband service in 2006, and users in these countries often pay extortionate rates for relatively low-speed broadband.

New regulatory frameworks to the rescue

Policy-makers recognize the need to abandon regulatory practices designed for an earlier era — such as those based on providing only one service on a dedicated network — that can stifle innovation and investment and lead to arbitrage opportunities. It makes more sense to embrace new regulatory practices that are pro-growth and pro-end user. With a growing range of wireless technologies that offer ever-increasing broadband capabilities, many countries seek to upgrade their regulatory frameworks to match today’s technological developments. So while wealthier countries test the business case for NGN services like IPTV and mobile TV, developing countries can already exploit today’s technological developments, leapfrogging their way to meet the pent-up demand for communications services — both basic and advanced.

What about the needs of end-users? NGN is regarded as an effective tool to achieve the goals of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), especially to provide universal access to ICT. By enabling new businesses to flourish in rural and urban areas in both developed and developing countries, NGN helps achieve the broader development goals, promising socio-economic growth, reducing poverty and integrating citizens into the global economy, while preserving and promoting local content and culture. Associated with Internet access at higher transmission speeds than ADSL, NGN will facilitate a full range of public services such as e-government and e-health. For this reason, government policy makers and regulators increasingly question not whether they should promote this relentless evolution, but rather how they can hasten it.

This year’s Trends in Telecommunication Reform contains ten chapters each addressing different NGN-related challenges and opportunities to enable regulators to harness the potential of NGN to build an Information Society for all. It includes an ICT market and regulatory overview to set the stage for the following chapters; an NGN overview, to introduce the more detailed discussion in the later chapters; an analysis of NGN technology in an effort to demystify the plethora of NGN terms under discussion; a look at fixed-mobile convergence as one of the trends leading to NGN deployments; interconnection and access in an NGN environment; international Internet interconnection, which will take on greater importance as networks become increasingly IP-based; universal access and NGN; Quality of Service (QoS), consumer protection and cybersecurity in an NGN environment; the enabling environment for NGN; a conclusion and a look ahead.

Central European Media Enterprises Secures 60% Ownership in Studio 1+1 in Ukraine – September 4, 2007

from Romana Tomasová/CME

Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. (CME) announced today that it has secured a 60% ownership in Studio 1+1 by completing the registration of a 42% direct ownership interest in Studio 1+1 LLC via a Ukrainian subsidiary company. Studio 1+1 LLC is the license company of the Studio 1+1 Group. With its existing 18% indirect ownership, CME now has secured control over the Studio 1+1 broadcasting licenses.

Michael Garin, CME’s Chief Executive Officer, commented: “Today’s announcement marks the successful completion of a process that CME initiated nearly two years ago. We believe that this change should allow us to exercise greater influence over the station management, allow CME to create stronger synergies among CME media assets in Ukraine and further improve our overall Ukrainian operations.”

Ukraine is CME’s largest market with a population of 46.7 million people. Per capita GDP was estimated to be US$ 2,027 in 2006 with a GDP growth rate in 2006 of six percent. According to CME estimates, the Ukrainian television advertising market grew by 25 – 30 percent in 2006 and was worth US$ 240 - 250 million.

HD Radio - REQUEST FOR HD RADIO ALLIANCE OFFICER NOMINATION – September 3, 2007

from Perry Priestley/iBiquity

Please take this opportunity to nominate the following officer positions for the HD Radio European Alliance.

1 – Chairman

2 – Vice Chairman

3 – Secretary and Treasurer

Summary of Rules for Nominations and Voting

It is not necessary to make a nomination for all positions.

Nominations must be sent by e-mail to priestley@ibiquity.com or maybe delivered by hand at the beginning of the meeting during IBC.

You may nominate yourself.

You may only make one nomination per person per position.

It is not restricted but it is preferred that representatives from manufacturers were not nominated.