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Week ending December 22, 2007

EBU - News Groups Appeal to UN Security Council on Safety of Journalists - December 19, 2007

from Katie de Noel/EBU

(Text of the letter below)

The International News Safety Institute, the International Federation of Journalists and the European Broadcasting Union on Tuesday appealed to the President of the UN Security Council to help persuade states to respect "in letter and spirit" a key Security Council resolution on the safety of journalists on its first anniversary.

In an open letter, the three organisations noted that in the year since the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1738 on the safety of journalists in conflict more news media personnel had died trying to cover the story than ever before.

INSI counts at least 173 dead -- the worst yearly death toll ever -- since passage of 1738, which expressed deep concern "at the frequency of acts of violence, including deliberate attacks .... against journalists, media professionals and associated personnel." The Security Council condemned such attacks and called on all parties to put an end to such practices and end impunity for the killers.

INSI, the IFJ and the EBU had campaigned for two years to get the resolution before the Security Council. It went through on 23 December, 2006.

The three organisations said in their letter to Ambassador Marcello Spatafora of Italy, current President of the Security Council : "We strongly believe that the rising death toll could be arrested effectively if States where journalists are killed were to apply their existing laws vigorously whenever a journalist is murdered."

After a two-year inquiry into journalist deaths around the world, INSI reported 1,000 fatalities between 1996 and 2006 and revealed that in fewer than two out of 10 cases of murder was anyone brought to justice.

"We appeal to you, Sir, to urge your colleagues on the Security Council to respect the letter and the spirit of Resolution 1738 so that we can begin to bring down the shocking level of casualties suffered by the news media on behalf of free societies everywhere," the letter said.

It noted that the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines freedom of expression, will be celebrated around the world next year.

"It should be remembered that journalists act on behalf of us all. They are our eyes and our ears, the means by which, in the words of Article 19 of the Declaration, we 'seek, receive and impart information and ideas'," the letter said.

"There can be no freedom of expression where journalists are murdered for doing their job," it stated.

The text of letter to Amb Marcello Spatafora from EBU, INSI and IFJ regarding journalists safety - December 18, 2007

provided by EBU

H.E. Mr. Marcello Spatafora

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary

Permanent Representative

Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations

Your Excellency,

We should like to draw your attention, as President of the Security Council, to the forthcoming first anniversary on 23 December, 2007, of Resolution 1738 on the protection of journalists in armed conflict.

The Resolution expresses deep concern "at the frequency of acts of violence, including deliberate attacks, in many parts of the world against journalists, media professionals and associated personnel". The Security Council "condemned such attacks and called on all parties to put an end to such practices".

The Resolution was widely welcomed by journalist support groups around the world, including our three organisations, which had presented a draft to the then Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the World Electronic Media Forum (WEMF2) in Tunisia in 2005 -- the International News Safety Institute (INSI), an NGO devoted to the safety of journalists and other news professionals, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the world's largest organisation of journalists, and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Yet since the Resolution was passed at least 170 more news media staff have died trying to cover the news in 35 countries, in wars and in peacetime. This is a record for any single year. Conflict continues to exact a high toll. More than 80 journalists and support staff have been killed in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka and DR Congo.

In the most comprehensive exercise of its kind, INSI spent two years conducting a global inquiry into news media deaths over a 10-year period. It counted more than 1,000 personnel who had died trying to cover the news between 1996 and 2006. Two-thirds were murdered, most of them in their own countries in peacetime, and in almost nine out of 10 of these cases no one was brought to justice. Hence the emphasis in Resolution 1738 for States to end impunity for the killers of journalists.

We strongly believe that the rising death toll could be arrested effectively if States where journalists are killed were to apply their existing laws vigorously whenever a journalist is murdered.

We appeal to you, Sir, to urge your colleagues on the Security Council to respect the letter and the spirit of Resolution 1738 so that we can begin to bring down the shocking level of casualties suffered by the news media on behalf of free societies everywhere. In this regard, we would like to draw your attention to the recommendations on journalist safety made to the UN Secretary-General and member States by WEMF3 in Malaysia on 11 December.

It is also worth recalling that 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which declares freedom of expression a fundamental right.

It should be remembered that journalists act on behalf of us all. They are our eyes and our ears, the means by which, in the words of Article 19 of the Declaration, we "seek, receive and impart information and ideas".

There can be no freedom of expression where journalists are murdered for doing their job.

Sincerely,

Rodney Pinder

Director, INSI

Jean Reveillon

Director General, EBU

Aidan White

General Secretary, IFJ

ITU announces first global set of standards for IPTV – December 18, 2007

Specifications will fuel market for next-generation services

The International Telecommunication Union announced the first set of global standards for Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) today. The standards were built with technical contributions from leading service providers and manufacturers from the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and cement ITU’s role as the global leader in IPTV standards development.

IPTV is one of the most highly visible services to emerge as part of the development of next-generation networks (NGN). Indeed, it is seen as both the business case and principal driver for accelerating deployment of NGN.

The new standards were developed by the Focus Group on IPTV (FG IPTV) in ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).

Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau said, "Standards are crucial for IPTV to reach its market potential and global audience. They are necessary in order to give service providers — whether traditional broadcasters, ISPs, cable operators or telecoms service providers — control over their platforms and their offerings. Standards here will encourage innovation, help mask the complexity of services, guarantee quality of service, ensure interoperability and, ultimately, help players remain competitive."

This announcement follows the seventh and final meeting of FG IPTV hosted in Malta by the Maltese Ministry for Competitiveness and Communications. Censu Galea, Minister for Competitiveness and Communications said, "The stage of work that sees completion this week lays the groundwork for an area of ICT that some predict could attract up to 100 million subscribers in the next three years. It’s easy to see why so many of the world’s key ICT companies have been keen to progress this work in ITU. Malta is proud to host this event and play a part in advancing this important technology."

Contained within the documents produced by the Focus Group are the high-level architecture and frameworks needed by service providers in order to rollout IPTV services. ITU’s next phase of IPTV work — IPTV-GSI (global standards initiative) — will centre on the speedy preparation of standards based on documents produced by FG IPTV as well as on the detailed protocols required.

The 2006−2007 period has seen numerous physical and electronic meetings and workshops progressing work on IPTV around the world. Twenty-one documents covering IPTV requirements, architecture, quality of service (QoS), security, digital rights management (DRM), unicast and multicast, protocols, metadata, middleware and home networks will be submitted to the ITU-T Study Group charged with progressing and distributing the work. The IPTV-GSI will build on the momentum generated over the past 20 months, and it is foreseen that contributions and participation will continue to increase.

Operators consider IPTV a key element of a triple-play package of voice, video and data services. Standardization is imperative if service providers are to offer high quality products with value-additions, such as video-on-demand services that will inevitably drive the market. A combination of voice, Internet and video services over a single broadband link and from a single provider is foreseen as the ultimate goal of the broadband revolution.

FG IPTV benefited from collaboration with all ITU-T Study Groups and other forums and regional standards bodies, including ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF), DSL Forum, the DVB project, ETSI TISPAN and the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI).

The first meeting of IPTV-GSI will convene in Seoul, Republic of Korea from 15 to 22 January 2008.

TNS Wins BARB TV Meter Panel & Recruitment Contracts in UK – December 18, 2007

Via TNS Emor

New six year contract will address evolving needs of TV audience measurement

London, 18 December 2007 - BARB (Broadcasters Audience Research Board) announced today that TNS, a world leader in market insight and information, has won two major contracts to measure UK TV audiences starting in 2010.

TNS will provide the BARB industry currency for TV audience measurement in the UK. Under the terms of the contracts, TNS will be responsible for the establishment and the operation of a 5,100 home meter panel. The panel will be recruited in 2008, allowing TNS to trial its service, starting in early 2009 in parallel with the current service. The current contract, running to 31 December 2009 is held by AGB Nielsen. The full switch-over to the new service will take place in January 2010.

TNS will provide BARB with a fixed TV-meter system using TNS’s successful TNS 5000 Series Modular PeopleMeter™. The 5000 Series is a proven audience measurement tool; TNS has provided 52,000 of this latest model of People Meter for use in 30,000 homes in 15 countries.

BARB’s Chief Executive, Bjarne Thelin, said: “BARB has considered numerous innovative proposals over a rigorous 15-month tendering process. Only a handful are sufficiently proven to be accepted by the industry at present. BARB is committing to a system (based around TNS’ fixed TV-meter system) which is state of the art, but with potential to be further developed to incorporate new techniques and keep pace with a rapidly changing industry.”

Meanwhile, TNS and BARB will together consider for potential future implementation TNS’s innovative TotalMeter™ solution as a single-source fixed and portable metering panel. The system integrates Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM) system (licensed by TNS) with TNS’s existing fixed metering within the same panel homes. TotalMeter is designed to provide audience measurement for conventional TV viewing as well new platforms such as PCs, portable devices and out-of-home TV viewing. If BARB choose to progress with the new system, it could be phased into the initial measurement system, but only after completion of extensive testing and parallel tracking, and only following full industry consultation.

David Lowden, Chief Executive of TNS, said: “We welcome BARB’s decision to switch to TNS with enthusiasm and excitement. The return of the BARB contract to TNS is recognition both of our many years of experience in the media industry, and of our ability to address the future audience measurement needs of the world of TV. Media fragmentation calls for the ability to deliver a total picture of viewing habits, and TNS demonstrated to BARB that we have the expertise to do that in the next decade. TNS delivered a unique, fully integrated future-ready solution that demonstrated our understanding of the changing TV industry.”

Richard Marks, Global Director of Research at TNS Media Research, who headed the BARB pitch, said: “The digital revolution is presenting a continuing measurement challenge and the UK is one of the most technologically complex markets in the world. TNS will build on its existing proven technology for current TV viewing platforms whilst working in partnership with BARB to meet new requirements for newer PC-based, portable or out-of-home forms of TV viewing. TNS’s BARB solution meets the audience measurement needs of today and charts a stable path to tomorrow. I am delighted that the BARB Service is returning to TNS.”

John Gill, Global Client Support Director of TNS’s Media Research sector, said: “Over the past six years we have maintained our commitment to the UK broadcast industry with our successful BARB Bureau operation, the innovative SkyView panel, and the joint RAJAR BARB PPM panel. We are now delighted to be asked to renew our association with BARB’s key audience measurement service.”

The panel will be recruited by TNS’s extensive CAPI field force, which has a long established reputation for high quality sampling and interviewing. Jennie Beck, TNS Head of Media in the UK Custom division commented: “TNS’s UK media research team has built a strong reputation for high quality custom research and innovation in techniques and methodologies – gained through ground-breaking projects like BBC Daily Life, TouchPoints and Semiometrie. This has given us a deep understanding of the complex issues involved in producing robust and representative media use information in the digital age. The team is thrilled that the approach we proposed for BARB, to address these issues, has won their support, and we look forward to getting started.”

Nokia Nseries helps MTV with climate change campaign by capturing Cannes Young Advertising Creatives in action – December 17, 2007

During the prestigious 2007 Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, camera crews using video-optimized Nokia N93i devices tagged along with the Young Creative Film Competitors on their 48 hour mission to shoot a 30 second commercial, also using the Nokia N93i, for MTV SWITCH, a new campaign from MTV Networks International designed to educate and encourage alternative options to help save the planet. This marks the first time such extensive access has ever been granted to a camera crew during the two year history of the Cannes Lions Advertising festival.

Recognizing the unique opportunity to capture aspiring young creatives in action and aid in the education of environmental issues, Nokia Nseries recorded the trials and tribulations of the 20 teams representing 20 countries in their race for first place. With 40 hours of content filmed on the Nokia N93i, the footage was edited into an exclusive behind the scenes documentary, "Short Film Shootout: Cannes", which will be available for broadcast on MTV's 61 TV channels across 161 countries starting on December 20, 2007.

"Nokia Nseries was thrilled to be a part of this project to arm filmmakers with this exciting new medium of mobile video through which the students could create commercials and the film crew could capture the experience for all the world to see," said Tapio Hedman, Senior Vice President, Multimedia Marketing, Nokia. "The Nokia N93i devices that were used in this project are a perfect example of how Nokia constantly pushes the frontiers of technology forward to provide innovative new media for everyone to leverage as they create and share their works."

"We are extremely thankful for the generosity and creativity that Nokia has demonstrated, as well as the talent of these young filmmakers in showing millions of young people around the world how doing small things can make a massive difference to the world's carbon emissions," said Bill Roedy, MTV Networks Vice Chairman. "MTV SWITCH is harnessing the power of these creative minds to make climate conscious behaviour an every day reality. Everyone, no matter what age or where they live, can take simple actions to reduce their carbon footprint."

With the release of the special behind the scenes documentary "Short Film Shooutout: Cannes", all Young Creative Film Competitors participants were able to contribute to this important environmental campaign. The documentary, as well as additional content, will be available for viewing online after December 20 on www.MTVswitch.org and www.nseries.com/cannes.