ASIA

Chinese Folk Tales won the Best Children’s Entertainment Podcast award at the Asia Podcast Awards 2024.It won in the Major category, which was open to registered businesses that publish more than 10 podcasts and have more than five staff.Classical tales, rich with timeless wisdom, always resonate with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Chinese Folk Tales aims to creatively connect global audiences with these stories, to foster better understanding and more effective communication.It is a multimedia series which targets children audiences and the global story-lovers. The series presents more than one hundred traditional Chinese stories such as “The tale of China’s Valentine’s Day,” “Brave heroine Mulan,” “The extraordinary inventor Lu Ban,” all imbued with traditional philosophy and wisdom with universal human values.To help children have a better understanding of the stories, the team ventured into creating animated videos using cutting-edge AI technologies. This innovation allows global audiences to experience these timeless stories in both audio and video formats.The series has attracted over 50 million views on social media through AIGC animated videos, podcasts and beyond. In Apple Podcasts market, it has entered the top 20 Art podcasts charts in Malaysia, Chile, Türkiye and many other countries. Moreover, Chinese Folk Tales is enthusiastically recommended by listeners worldwide as a must-listen for its universal themes of conveying moral lessons in a simple yet profound manner. […]

Ghost Maps: True Southeast Asian Horror Stories won the Best Fictional Podcast award at the Asia Podcast Awards 2024.It won in the Indie category, which was open to individuals, sole traders and registered not-for-profit organisations, with a staff of less than 5 people.Ghost Maps follows a mysterious narrator as he chronicles the supernatural in Singapore and around Southeast Asia. Inspired by stories shared by real people, the podcast is a classic and well produced true crime podcast focused specifically on horror stories in Southeast Asia.The podcast features two formats: longer episodes (around 1h45min) called Dead Air where they interview people around their supernatural experiences and shorter formats (around 13min) where a horror story is told by a narrator, often in several parts.The release schedule varies but it is released on average weekly. The audience averagesaround 33k per month. […]

Big Take Asia won the Best News Podcast award at the Asia Podcast Awards 2024.It won in the Major category, which was open to registered businesses that publish more than 10 podcasts and have more than five staff.Every week, the Big Take Asia podcast from Bloomberg News brings listeners the most important story from the region. With a team of award-winning producers and editors, it takes the audience inside some of the world’s biggest and most powerful economies, and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive this ever-shifting region.Each 15-minute episode gives an in-depth look at what happened, how we got here, and why it has financial and business ramifications across the globe. It draws on Bloomberg’s unparalleled network of reporters, from Beijing to Bangalore, Seoul to Singapore and Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur, to deliver original reporting and give context to stories that can move markets.Asia is key to understanding how the global economy and the worlds of business and finance tick. It’s at the centre of increasingly fraught geopolitical tensions and is where the only real threat to the US superpower status will rise and is rising. With this in mind, The Big Take Asia launched in May, to help international listeners make sense of the diverse, dynamic and complex issues in Asia.Within several months of the launch, the show has netted over 200,000 downloads in less than three months, demonstrating our broad reach and ability to provide valuable insight to help decode this vast region covering some 40 countries and more than 2,000 languages.Our launch episode, “The Rise of Modi, Part 1: Why India’s leader Is So Popular – And Polarizing,” is the first episode in a two-part deep-dive series into the life and motivations of India’s divisive leader, Narendra Modi.The episodes, released ahead of the world’s largest election, have been downloaded more than 65,000 times so far. […]

WorldDAB’s conference session at IBC 20204 takes place on Sunday, 15 September.The theme is Energising radio: global advances and innovations in DAB+, moderated by WorldDAB’s Project Director, Bernie O’Neill.Bernie O’Neillis Project Director of WorldDAB and has headed the organisation since 2011, with overall responsibility for the direction and management of WorldDAB activities, she works to further the adoption and implementation of DAB+.Jacqueline Bierhorst is the newly appointed President of WorldDAB and brings a wealth of experience from broadcasting in the Netherlands. She passionately supports global collaboration to advance the uptake of DAB+.Matthieu Rawolle is a Senior Media Analyst at EBU (European Broadcasting Union) since 2021.  As part of the Media Intelligence Service, he writes reports and helps EBU Members anticipate the industry’s evolution and defend public service media’s value and uniqueness..Lindsay Cornell has worked for the BBC in a variety of engineering, editorial and leadership roles spanning radio, TV, and spectrum regulation. He has considerable experience in leading collaborative projects through his roles as Chairman of CEPT FM PT51, dealing with spectrum issues for programme-making, and as Chairman of the WorldDAB Technical Committee, managing the stability and development of the respective standards.Will Jackson is Communications Manager with extensive experience of UK audio and radio, including regulation, network operation and production.To register for a free visitor pass to IBC2024, click here and use the WordDAB Customer Code IBC4581. This includes access to the WorldDAB session on Sunday. […]

Money Talks won the Best Money and Business Podcast award at the Asia Podcast Awards 2024.It won in the Major category, which was open to registered businesses that publish more than 10 podcasts and have more than five staff.Channel News Asia’s (CAN) weekly podcast simplifies personal money management.Since its launch in July 2022, it has quickly become a top performing podcast for CNA, clocking in an average of 60,000 listeners a month.The podcast landscape is replete with financial advice shows. They run the gamut from “finfluencers” to corporate financial advisors who give specific advice on how to make money. From the start, CNA’s offering was rooted in one key idea: To cater to our broad-church audience with sound financial information, but given in an accessible, personal way.Each episode takes a simple approach: What do listeners need to know  so that they can make informed decisions about their money? And we keep the episodes to under 30 minutes, with fun elements like “Questions out of a hat”.The current host, Andrea Heng’s easy hosting style, coupled with topical issues has kept listeners – growth on Spotify and Apple have been steadily increasing. Andrea also won the Investor Education Journalist of the Year last year for her work on Money Talks. This is an award given by Securities Investors Association Singapore. […]

The Ministry of Information, Kuwait National Radio has awarded the contract for Radio Archive Project to Al Rashed Group and chosen NOA GmbH, a leading AV digitizing and archiving specialist, to modernize its radio repertoire. The comprehensive project includes the digitization of the broadcaster’s entire repertoire and disaster recovery backup.
As per the seven-year agreement, finalized at the end of June, a complete NOA mediARC archive management system will be integrated into Kuwait Radio’s existing Dalet playout. Concurrently, the organization’s complete radio archive using NOA’s ingestLINE will be digitized.
The first year of the project will focus on the delivery and ramp-up phase, followed by a three to four-year period during which the entire archive will be digitized. The mediARC Archive Asset Management system will be installed at the radio broadcaster’s main site in Kuwait City, with the disaster recovery site located in Magwa. All framework modules will support the storage system, holding four copies.
Dr. Nidal Fawaz, Director of the Technology Solutions Division at Al Rashed Group, said: “While the organization’s radio archive has been partially digitized for production purposes,  the re-digitization of the entire inventory  is yet to be completed. The MOI tender amounts to approximately €10 million. The goal is to digitize some 260,000 archival audio carriers dating back to the 1950s, including quality control, inventory, and enrichment of metadata.”
NOA’s mediARC solution provides a flexible framework for Archive Asset Management, enhancing efficiency for broadcasters and archives of all sizes. The NOA ingestLINE offers professional, purpose-built digitization tools for archive preservation projects, ensuring flawless quality and outstanding cost-effectiveness.
“After a thorough analysis of this prominent tender, we’re excited to finally start this project with our contractor Al RashedGroup and their International technical partner NOA,” added Eng. Dalal Alhindal, Project Manager of MOI – Kuwait Radio. “This initiative will preserve our unique radio archive heritage, one of the oldest in the Arab world.”
The installation represents the first of its kind in Kuwait, adding to NOA’s significant installations for AV archiving at Abu Dhabi Media Corp. and Sharjah Broadcasting Authority in the region.
Jean-Christophe Kummer, managing partner of NOA, added: “We’re thrilled to expand our footprint in this region by winning this prestigious seven-year project with our partner AL Rashed Group. Our enterprise framework, based on NOA mediARC and ingestLINE, combined with our experience in delivering archive technology for over 5 million hours of AV material worldwide, positions us well for success in this endeavor.” […]