ASIA

The broadcasting business environment has changed significantly because of the pandemic, the ABU President, Masagaki Satoru, has said.Speaking at the opening of the ABU General Assembly in New Delhi on 29 November, he said the pandemic had accelerated the digitalisation of society around the world and changed media consumption patterns.“As a result, competition among media platforms has intensified further and the broadcasting business environment has changed significantly.“This General Assembly will be a valuable opportunity to sum up our recent experiences. Now we must consider the way to face the post-COVID era, an era in which digitalisation has further deepened.”Masagaki, who is also Executive Vice President of Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, said the ABU itself had learned a great deal from the pandemic, with activities being held online for the past three years.This had enabled the ABU to broaden its participants, making activities more accessible to general staff members.“On the other hand, we were reminded once again that face-to-face meetings are essential for networking and deepening friendships among top management.“In the future, I believe we can organically combine physical and virtual means to create an efficient and effective way, suitable for the post-COVID era.” […]

The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union has appointed Ahmed Nadeem as its next Secretary-General.

The announcement was made by the ABU Administrative Council after a meeting in New Delhi on November 24, 2022.
Nadeem, who is from the Maldives, is currently Director, ABU Technology & Innovation.
He succeeds Dr Javad Mottaghi, who has been Secretary-General since May 2010 and completes his term at the end of March 2023. Mr Nadeem will take up the position on 1 April 2023.
An experienced electronic and ICT engineer, he has over 25 years of experience in the field of broadcasting and telecommunications. He has been working in the ABU Technology Department since 2008 and was appointed Director in May 2018.
He has previously worked as a Project Engineer at LSV Enterprises of Singapore from 2007 to 2008. Before that he was with Television Maldives, where he worked from 1996 to 2007 as Head of Engineering. […]

Radio Pakistan has launched Planet FM 87.6 – its first English language channel.It will broadcast programs on news, current affairs, entertainment, infotainment, education and interviews of renowned achievers from different walks of life.The transmission will initially air from Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi and will be be expanded nationwide later. It will also be available on all social media platforms for international listeners.Speaking to Radio Pakistan’s News and Current Affairs Channel today, founder of a social organization and entrepreneur Nouman Abbasi said: “It is a great initiative by Radio Pakistan which will provide an opportunity to engage and involve the English-speaking community and expats in Pakistan to have a flavour of the local perspective. It also is a great forum to share the narrative of Pakistan with the world through multi-dimensional broadcasting.“China Radio International (CRI) has also commended Radio Pakistan for the launch. A CRI team visited Planet FM 87.6 at the National Broadcasting House in Islamabad on Wednesday and expressed the desire to have a cooperative relationship with the channel.Planet FM 87.6 in-charge Imran Javed briefed the CRI team that the channel runs round the clock transmission to cater to the needs of the listeners of English language and the diplomatic community across the country.Radio Pakistan’s Director General Muhammad Tahir Hassan was also present on the occasion. […]

Content from BPRThe Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the US said the American economy gained 528,000 jobs in July. Consensus forecasts were for a gain of 258,000. This puts the unemployment rate at just 3.5%.By all accounts it was an incredible result. But as Joel Bowman, Managing Editor for Bonner Private Research, said:“Here’s the bad news. The real unemployment rate is 9.6%. Much of the gain in jobs came from people taking a SECOND or part-time job. The labor force participation rate is at the same level it was in March 1977. Don’t take it from me. The following facts come straight from the BLS report (emphasis added is mine):
The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job was 5.9 million in July, little changed over the month. This measure is above its February 2020 level of 5.0 million. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job.

The labor force participation rate, at 62.1 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 60.0 percent, were little changed over the month. Both measures remain below their February 2020 values(63.4 percent and 61.2 percent, respectively).”
So the US unemployment rate isn’t 3.5% but 9.6%? Maybe …maybe not…..it’s all in the way governments, bureaucrats and economists around the world slice and dice the numbers.Radio is no different. You have a great survey result so you don’t really want to dig too deep unless you find out that there were was a massive anomaly in the data that benefitted your station.You had a bad result so you spend hours trolling through the data, going down rabbit holes to come up with “but we did increase cume with 18-24’s!”… even though that demo is way outside your target.Every station gets a bad bounce occasionally. Equally, some will get a favourable spike that really doesn’t make sense. Therefore, don’t just look at two surveys back to back. Look at trends overtime. Don’t panic about one bad survey when your station is on an otherwise upward trend and don’t start popping the champagne corks over one up survey on what really is a downward trend.The important thing is that as a program director, you need to be honest with yourself about the numbers…. whether they are good or bad. Let the sales team polish up the less than optimum results for client presentations if they need to but as a programmer you must always look at the data objectively without bias or emotion. This applies to both the good news and the bad news.That is the only way correct strategic decisions are made.By David Kidd, BPR […]

Jacqueline Bierhorst, Project Director of Digital Radio Netherlands has been given this year’s WorldDAB Award for Outstanding Service.The Award recognises an individual for an exceptional contribution to the roll-out of DAB digital radio and is made annually at the WorldDAB General Assembly.It is offered in memory of Per-Erik Selemark of Swedish Radio, former vice president and chair of the Technical Committee, who died in January 1999.Bierhorst has been a pioneer in commercial radio since 1987, specialising in distribution, marketing and content. She was project leader on the rollout of the DAB+ network in The Netherlands for all commercial broadcasters, launched in 2013.In 2015, she became Project Director for Digital Radio Netherlands, a collaboration between public and commercial broadcasters and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, coordinating stakeholder involvement, and joint marketing of DAB+ in the Netherlands.Bierhorst is vice president and a member of the Steering Board of WorldDAB, and a consultant for the Flemish government Department of Culture, Youth and Media on the introduction of DAB+ in Flanders.Presenting the Award at the General Assembly, WorldDAB’s President, Patrick Hannon, said: “She’s launched DAB not once, but twice – in the Netherlands and then in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. She’s been an absolute star in galvanising both of those countries – the Netherlands has been the gold standard of how to launch DAB+. Not only has she been an advocate for DAB+, she’s also passionate about spreading good practice and enthusiasm for DAB+ right across the organisation and in many different countries. The phrase that springs to mind is ‘a breath of fresh air’, and I have been very grateful for her support.” […]

The only live Bollywood platform across South East Asia, Masti Media Network Singapore’s flagship brand Radio Masti 24×7 established its first ever international collaboration by expanding formally to Malaysia. The station is now available exclusively on SYOK, the Astro Radio digital platform.Radio Masti 24×7 was initially launched in 2009 as a three-hour live Bollywood Radio station on MediaCorp’s Expat Radio frequency, XFM963. It was also winner at the Mediacorp Radio Awards.In 2016, with the change of media policies leading to existence of only four national languages on the airwaves in Singapore, Radio Masti 24×7 was re-established as the first and only live 24-hours digital Bollywood radio across south east Asia.As a part of the collaboration, SYOK and Radio Masti 24×7 will cater to Malaysian fans of Bollywood music while also offering digital content, gossip, news and updates from across the world, notably from India, Singapore and Malaysia.During the pandemic, Radio Masti 24×7 was appointed exclusively by the Ministry of Communication & Information (MCI) in Singapore, leading to the launch of special Bangla programming that gained immense popularity with the Bangladeshi migrant community in Singapore as well as Malaysia.Kenny Ong, CEO, Astro Radio and Rocketfuel Entertainment, said: “We are delighted to announce our collaboration with Masti Media Network, our first partner from Singapore and we welcome Radio Masti 24×7 on board SYOK, which will now offer Malaysians access to more popular Bollywood music, digital content and updates to enjoy. This addition will bolster our current offering on SYOK for radio, music and podcasts and we look forward to working with more local and international partners as we further define our footprint in the local audio landscape.”Renuka Arora Bhagat, Founder Director, Masti Media Network, said: “We are pleased to confirm Astro Radio as our First ever International collaboration in the region. Together we hope to blend communities across Singapore and Malaysia together with the Indian Bollywood content as the foundation. Our clients continue to remain our focus as they advertise to reach out to our vast audience base. We are confident that Malaysia will love our content as we go local and bring along the much-loved Khans of Bollywood closer to our neighbouring country” […]