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Mikhail Voitenko, journalist, editor and publisher of a Russian language website specializing in ships and shipping Maritime Bulletin – Sovfracht jumped ship, so to speak, and left Moscow for Istanbul. Mr. Voitenko said he’d received a phone call from “serious guys” telling him to get out of town and “not return,” according to The Moscow Times (September 2), reported by the German language website russland.ru. He said he’d not be sticking around Istanbul, either.
The BBC picked up the story and tracked down Mr. Voitenko before he moved on.
Mr. Voitenko was widely quoted about the high-sea adventure known as the Artic Sea. Conspiracy theories notwithstanding – oh, there are plenty and keeping editors hopping – the Moscow Times article, indexed by Google, ‘disappeared.’ And, recent history well-known, Russian journalists receiving phone calls from those ‘serious guys’ hesitate leaving Moscow at their peril.
The Moscow Times article – maybe it will ‘appear’ again – quoted an Artic Sea crew member saying they had been to the Bermuda Triangle. (JMH)
Summer, particularly August, is never a major investment for broadcasters. When the days are sunny and nights are warm viewers simply don’t gather around the TV. The beach is better…unless sports are on the tube.
Médiamétrie released television audience figures for August (September 1). Clearly, French viewers had something else to do. Overall daily viewing time among persons 15 years and older dropped more than 5% to 178 minutes from 189 minutes in August 2008.
Big national nets in France suffered most viewer withdrawal. In aggregate, audience for the main channels dropped to 71% of all viewers from 77.1% year on year. In a trend stretching beyond the summer lull, TF1, France 2, France 3 and Canel + lost viewers. France 5, Arte and M6 made gains.
But it was the ‘other’ television channels attracting more viewers this August. All of them were up. M9 jumped to 2.6% from 1.5%, TMC to 2.6% from 2.0%.
The French may have tuned out in August but not the Germans. Sports seems to have kept Germans in front of the tube, notably the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Berlin. Public channels ARD and ZDF gained according to GfK; ARD1 to 13.1% from 11.% in July among persons over age 3 and ZDF to 12.6% from 11.9%.
Next came RTL1 at 10.9%, down 0.5%, and Sat.1 at 10.5%, down 0.2%. ProSieben ‘s share rose to 6.4%, up 0.5%. Kable 1 and RTL2 were unchanged at 4.2% and 4.0%, respectively. (JMH)
An Estonian court found cable operator Yuri Andreyev guilty of pirating Russian television signals for a cable TV system in Narva-Jõesuu, in north-east Estonia. According to Pohjarannik (September 1), Mr. Andreyev picked up the signals of NTV, RTR and Channel One with a basic antenna then transmitted them through his cable TV system, charging customers but not paying rights fees to the Russian broadcasters. He’ll spend 4 months in jail and pay €2100 compensation.
Narva-Jõesuu is a small, predominantly Russian speaking town. (JMH)
When an employer wants to save labor costs there is that awful choice between firing the older worker because that person likely gets paid more money, but in doing so a lot of experience leaves, too, or firing the younger one with less experience, but less wages, too, so perhaps more need to be fired to achieve objectives. Given a choice employers usually favor getting rid of the old.
But many US newspaper collective bargaining agreements have seniority clauses that basically says the last ones in are the first ones out. The Associated Press Managing Editors in August surveyed 95 editors who have fired at least 10% of their staff, and found that workers between the ages of 18 – 35 were the largest group to lose their jobs, probably because of union security protection. It would be nice to be able to compare the percentage in that group with the older workers, but regretfully the AP story on the findings posted on the APME site didn’t provide that information.
For newspapers trying to make their mark in the digital world one would think the younger employees could actually be of more “use” to the employee, but if you’re a 55-year old newsman working at your newspaper for some 30 years with mortgages, college tuition costs for the kids etc., you get on your knees every night and thank God for the seniority clause.
Remember back in 2005 when Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten ran those Prophet Muhammad cartoons and all hell broke loose around the world, riots and deaths in the streets of some Asian countries, Danish embassies attacked, Danish products boycotted and the like? Well, now in The Netherlands an Arab cultural group has run a cartoon on its web site suggesting 6 million Jews did not die in the Holocaust, and the Utrecht public prosecutor’s office says because the cartoon insults Jews as a group that cartoon violates Dutch discrimination laws.
The group distinction is important under Dutch law because Dutch officials had refused to prosecute filmmaker Geert Wilders for a film that Moslems found objectionable which included cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. But the prosecutors in that case said the insults were at the Prophet Muhammad directly and not aimed at Moslems in general, and thus did not come under discrimination laws.
The Dutch arm of the Arab European League says that it ran the cartoon as an act of civil disobedience for what it called Dutch double standards.
Serbia’s National Assembly closed its six-week emergency session (September 1) after passing two dozen laws and amendments including the Law on Public Information. Provisions in the amendments, several opposed by journalist associations, include mandatory registration of publishers and “penalties for violation of the presumption of innocence.” President Boris Tadic signed the legislation shortly after passage by the national Assembly (August 31).
“President Tadic believes the process of European standardization of domestic legislation is necessary to change the media sector in Serbia and bring it to the European level," said the official statement. “Because of different opinions regarding the act adopted, President Tadic will monitor the effects of application of that law, believing that media freedom is the assumption of a free society, as the citizens' right to objective and truthful information may never be questioned.”
The Independent Association of Serbian Journalists (NUNS) objects to what it calls a lack of transparency in adopting the amendments. Journalist associations protested the amendments as “anti-European and unconstitutional” say the stringent financial requirements would force the closure of some media outlets. (JMH)
The European Commission (EC) Directorate General for Competition (DG Comp) has begun a formal investigation of the French government’s funding plan for public television. The procedure is expected will require about four months for completion. At the same time DG Comp approved €450 million State funding for cash-strapped France Télévisions. (More here)
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s restructuring plan for French public broadcasting began in controversy and it continues. During the formal investigation, referred to in the DG Comp statement as routine “in cases involving major public intervention of this complexity,” various stakeholders will be invited to have their say. Commercial television operators TF1 and M6 have already submitted briefs.
The EC is dutifully wary of upsetting M. Sarkozy as support for the EC, the European Presidency, structure of the EC executive and the Treaty of Lisbon looms large. Wholesale restructuring of France Télévisions has been a corner-stone of M. Sarkozy’s reform measures. The French Minister of State for European Affairs Pierre Lellouche is in Portugal (September 2) to “reaffirm France’s support for José Manuel Barroso’s candidacy for the Presidency of the European commission and France’s desire for the prompt entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon,” said a Ministry statement. (JMH)
Everyone is looking for the slightest signs that marketing spends will increase during the rest of the year, but a rather sober assessment by Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the US Association of National Advertisers (ANA) seems to pour cold water on that.
“Marketing has been dramatically altered by the current economic conditions,” he said. “Our ongoing series of recession surveys show that while marketers are consistently hopeful, the reality is that more tempered spending has become the new norm.”
The ANA reported that in July and August 62% of marketer respondents said they had experienced budget cuts in the first half of the year although they felt more confident for the rest of the year. On the other hand, when they were surveyed at the beginning of the year they way underestimated how many of their budgets would get cut, so no telling what is really in store.
It sounds awful to say, but magazines like Time and Newsweek are making big money from Senator Edward Kennedy’s death. Both produced commemorative editions expected to do real well at the newsstands.
How well? According to Ad Age, magazines pounced on Michael Jackson’s death in June and by the time the counting was done for all of the special issues and the like sold on newsstands the industry as a whole took in some $55 million.
Kennedy’s death probably won’t do near as well as Jackson’s, but with American consumer magazine sales dropping 12% for the first half of the year publishers will do almost anything to recoup lost revenues and it seems that death is one of the few positives they have going for them right now.
Ah, the summer holidays have ended. Motorists need reminding to watch their speed. Czech radio station Radio Jihlava is doing its part this week, as a public service of course.
Radio Jihlava, in central Czech Republic, has enlisted bikini-clad models holding 50 km/h speed signs by several main roads during morning and afternoon rush-hours.
“Some gentlemen have nearly broken their necks,” said promotion manager Zuzana Moravská to iDNES.cz (August 31).
Local authorities also raised their eyes. "I do not know if the drivers are not distracted from driving," suggested police spokesperson Jany Kroutilové. (JMH)
BBM Canada, the joint industry committee (JIC) providing radio and TV measurement in Canada, is putting all its marbles - so to speak - in one basket. Arbitron's PPM system will measure both radio and television, discarding diaries altogether. (See Arbitron presser here)
Arbitron's PPM measures radio in most of Canada's southern neighbor. So, this makes sense. BBM Canada has been using the PPM system since 2004 in Quebec. (JMH)
James – The Younger – Murdoch presented the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh television festival (August 28), a 20 year reprise of The Elder’s famous address. According to all sources, The Younger dutifully repeated to company line; regulation is evil, the BBC is too big. Anybody expecting anything different – far be it to suggest enlightened – hasn’t been paying attention.
Clan Murdoch is of one voice. So long as the BBC offers ‘free’ news on its websites, competition is distorted because the punters won’t pay to access the websites of Murdoch-owned newspapers. Of course, those punters are paying in the form of the license fee.
Twenty years ago, The Elder – scowling and ranting – gave public broadcasters and the general public an enduring poster of Murdochian fear. The Younger evoked “creationism” in defense of free markets in media. Regulators shouldn’t go poking around BSkyB, market dominance not being equal; “astonishing” that they might. It was a “chilling” moment, knowing what we now know about unfettered markets.
We’ve been told, since time immemorial, that the apple doesn’t fall far from its roots. The Murdochian worldview has passed from reality. (JMH)
Stories emerged through August that Azerbaijanis who voted for Armenia’s entry by tele-poll in the 2009 Moscow Eurovision Song Contest had been interviewed by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of National Security. The Financial Times – among others – carried the story, quoting Radio Liberty. RFE/RL, which operates Radio Liberty, reported (August 26) a 25 year old Azerbaijani was called (August 12) to “explain why he voted for an Armenian song” and was told it “was a matter of national security.”
The story is now embarrassing and Azeri officials are not pleased. “Any insinuations about the so-called ‘list of 43’ are nothing but a figment of the imagination of some unscrupulous journalists,” said Azeri Youth and Sports Minister Azad Rahimov to the APA news agency (August 21). “We are saddened by the fact that some news agencies, in particular Radio Liberty, are actively pursuing a unilateral line on the issue, trying to politicize the issue and present it in a politically biased manner.”
Armenian Public Television asked the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to intervene in a letter from special projects director Diana Mnatsakanian (August 18), reported PanArmenian.
The EBU is not pleased. One of the tenets of the Eurovision Song Contest is no politics. The EBU bounced the entry from Georgia this year for inappropriate lyrics.
Ictimai, the Azeri EBU member participating in the 2009 event, responded to questions from EBU, saying the Ministry of National Security had not questioned anybody about their voting.
“Any breach of privacy regarding voting, or interrogation of individuals, is totally unacceptable,” said EBU Director General Jean Réveillon in a statement (August 28) (Read here) The Eurovision Song Contest committee is meeting September 11 in Oslo with this on the agenda. (JMH)
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