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If not exactly revelations, the coordinated publication and broadcast of the juicy SwissLeaks details at the beginning of last week caught many eyes and ears by surprise. Long sensitive to allegations of bank funny business, Swiss authorities quickly displayed that concern with an unannounced visit with investigators to the Geneva offices of HSBC private bank. "Based on information published in the press I decided to open a criminal investigation," said Geneva prosecutor Oliver Jornot to assembled journalists outside the bank's headquarters, quoted by Le Temps (February 18).
About 50 news organisations around the world published February 8th and 9th their pick of details gleaned from documents leaked by whistleblower Hervé Falciani, who Swiss authorities want to prosecute for data theft. Le Temps published SwissLeaks material in the Swiss-French region as did Le Matin Dimanche with Tages Anzeiger and SonntagsZeitung running the story on the Swiss-German side. Echoing the "nothing new here" sentiment of the Swiss Bankers Association, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), which did not participate in the SwissLeaks publication, said "amid all the outrage... all of the revelations are based on client data that was stolen in 2006 and 2007."
The SwissLeaks story certainly dominated, as intended, the news cycle as participating newspapers and broadcasters relished in out ting and commingling drug dealers, sports and pop stars, dictators as well as regular rich people. The Daily Telegraph in the UK was not part of the news media participants and, apparently, editors took lengths to minimize the exposure. "You needed a microscope to find the Telegraph coverage," wrote the newspaper's chief political correspondent Peter Oborne on the OpenDemocracy website (February 17) that included his resignation.
Fear of again losing the HSBC advertising account influenced editorial decisions, he said. HSBC stopped buying ads in the Telegraph for a year after rather unflattering coverage of the off-shore banking world. Telegraph Media Group is owned by the rather reclusive billionaire Barclay Brothers - David and Frederick - who also own and reside on one of the tax haven Channel Islands. "It has long been axiomatic in quality British journalism that the advertising department and editorial should be kept rigorously apart," wrote Mr. Oborne, perhaps rather naively. "There is a great deal of evidence that, at the Telegraph, this distinction has collapsed."
One day after SwissLeaks went global, a partner in Le Monde's ownership, Pierre Bergé, removed all doubt, as Mark Twain once observed. "It wasn't for this (the HSBC leaks) that I allowed them (Le Monde journalists) to gain their independence," he offered live on national radio channel RTL (February 10). Mark Twain, the nom de plume of Samuel Clemens, wrote for several newspapers.
Almost a year after the Russian Federation annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine the task of appropriating local media services is moving toward completion. Russian Federation media and telecom regulator Roskomnadzor put all Crimean privately owned radio broadcasting frequencies up for tender last December, closing applications at the end of January. Local radio broadcasters have protested, as much as they can, an "unfair" contest that benefits Russian companies.
"Crimean radio stations... consider unfair and wrong to hold a competition, which, in fact, will deprive us and our families of livelihoods," said five local Crimean radio broadcasters in a letter to Russian Federation president Vladimir Putin, quoted by Russian media portal lenizdat.ru (February 18). Under terms of the tender applicants must be registered to do business in the Russian Federation. The Roskomnadzor tender information referred to the frequencies as "vacant." (See more about media in Ukraine here)
Several Russian broadcasting companies, including European Media Group, express intention to operate or continue operation in the Crimea, incentive apparently beyond commercial consideration. "For us, it's not even an image project, but simply a patriotic duty," said Multimedia Holding (MMX) president Alexander Shkolnik. Ukrainian state radio and television channels were quickly appropriated by Russian state channels, including armed forces broadcasting service Star. (See more about media in Russia here)
The biggest privately owned Russian broadcasting company is, however, sitting this one out. "Development of regional broadcasting stations is conducted in accordance with business interests," said Gazprom-Media spokesperson Inna Moskaleva in a brief statement, quoted by RBC (February 18). Companies and individuals conducting business or having financial interests in the Crimea are subject to international sanctions.
Transition from analogue to digital television has been accomplished and now, save discussions of SVoD (think Netflix), uncontroversial. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) set June of this year as a final final final deadline. After that truly ugly things could happen.
Three privately held TV broadcasters in Kenya - Citizen TV, NTV and KTN - held out shutting down analogue service until the last minute. Or, it seems, they held out a minute too long. Last Saturday night the country's media regulator shut-down analogue transmissions of three TV channels that own digital multiplex, Africa Digital Network (ADN), reported news portal theeastafrican.co.ke (February 17). The broadcasters, thereafter, cut transmission through the digital multiplex.
Kenya's Communications Authority (CAK) originally fixed the end of June 2013 as a digital transition deadline. Several broadcaster groups went to court complaining of a number of issues from the government's awarding a digital multiplex license to a Chinese company to the high relative cost of set-top boxes that private broadcasters would be required to provide. Kenya's Supreme Court gave the broadcasters a one year plus three month rolling extension. Last Friday the Supreme Court told the broadcasters to get on with it or truly ugly things would happen. (See more about media in Africa here)
If the errant broadcasters fail to get with the digital program they could be forced to re-apply for licenses, said CAK director general Francis Wangusi to Capital FM (February 17). "When we move in to permanently shut them out then the country will know that we were not doing it in bad faith." The regulator suggests the broadcasters of trying to mount popular opinion after this week's analogue shut-down to gain even more time to comply with the deadline.
"Now they are inconsequential because Kenyans are continuing to watch TV, Kenyans are buying set-top boxes and therefore they have only one option, to come back to the digital platform," added Mr. Wangusi.
Czech public radio is a step closer to a fourth national FM channel, CRo Plus. A Ministry of Culture proposal was approved last week by the Chamber of Deputies, lower house of Parliament, with a few amendments, reported Czech legal portal ipravnik.cz (February 16), changing the Czech Radio Act and Law on Radio and Television Broadcasting. The bill now travels to the Czech Senate and, if passed, to the desk of President Milos Zeman.
CRo Plus is currently available on digital platforms with morning transmissions on CRo Regina. Czech MPs stipulated the channel's FM nationwide distribution be accomplished by "optimizing" frequencies. CRo Plus will, if all this goes forward, be limited to news, public affairs and cultural programming, and carry no advertising unless "such commercial communication is a necessary condition to obtain rights to radio broadcasts of cultural or sporting events." CRo Plus could also be allowed spot announcements to promote other public radio programs and channels as well as "goods and services derived from those programs" so long as they are free of charge and in the public service or benefit of charities. (See more about media in the Czech Republic here)
Private sector broadcasters, seeing this coming for several months, insisted CRo Plus be ad-free and continue to lobby for specific language preventing a future format change. The Deputies also would like clear definitions of public service from the Culture Ministry. President Zeman and Czech public radio had something of a falling out over colorful language in live interviews, which now are only prepared as pre-recorded.
Big Swedish broadcaster Modern Times Group (MTG) is pulling back from non-core investments, noted by two recent transactions. The company sold its 50% stake in Swedish cable and IPTV pay-TV provider Sappa to Finnish telco Anvia, which acquired 100% of the company. MTG has held the Sappa stake for 15 years and will report a SEK 70 million (roughly €7.3 million) capital gain in the first quarter.
"The TV distribution market has changed substantially during this time and we are focused on the provision of entertainment rather than the development of network infrastructure," noted MTG CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann in the requisite stock market statement (February 16). Sappa offers 150 TV channels plus, of course, broadband. Turnover last year was about €24 million.
Last week MTG exited the Hungarian TV market, selling Viasat3 and Viasat6 free-to-air movie channels plus the Viacom Play catch-up service to Sony Pictures Television (SPT), which already offers three channels under the AXN broad. MTG's pay-TV channels are not part of the transaction. "Our Hungarian channels were our first free-TV operations to be launched outside Scandinavia and the Baltics," said Mr. Lindemann in an earlier statement.
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