French entertainment giant Vivendi was one of the most active players on the global media market recently. After it took control  of GVT , the Brazilian broadband operator, earlier this month, Vivendi has just increased its share in Canal+ from 65 to 75 per cent, paying TF1 (Bouygues) €744m for its 9,9% stake. Further 20 % might be acquired from Lagardère, France’s largest publishing group, next year as it recently admitted the possibility of selling its stake as well.

On the other hand, Vivendi is planning to sell its 20 % from NBC Universal to General Electric and thus put an end to its Nord American venture, which turned out to be an investment flop.

For further information: Financial Times

The European deadline for the analogue-digital switchover of television transmission was set to 2012- approximately 10 years ago. And while other countries  like Finland, Germany, UK are already close to competing one of the major objectives of the European Information Society, new EU member Bulgaria- has not really started yet.

The former socialist government 2005-2009, was planning a public-private partnerhip for the build up of the necessary digital infrastructure- an aspiration that never really produced any results. A motive good enough for the new neoliberal government under Prime Minister Boiko Borissov  to cancel the previous privatisation restrictions and to  call a tender open only to fully private bidders. This  reform would most likely benefit  Austrian digital infrastructure provider ORS, that is expected to take over the whole digital transmission in Bulgaria, controlling not only the transmission networks, but also the single multiplex channels.

As a result the public service broadcasters in Bulgaria BNT (Television) and BNR (Radio) will be obliged to pay an annual transmission fee to a private network operator. A fee, that would be substracted from the annual budget of the Broadcasters. Every single year. The saddest thing is- that this market solution is the only way to meet the deadline.

For further information: capital bg and medianetwork

Axel Springer Verlag (Germany) has just increased its share in Dogan Media Holding from 9% to 29%. The German publishing house has to pay 160 Mio. € for the capital increase, a price that will enable Springer, to exert more influence in the long-term strategy of Dogan Media, as it be allowed to nominate 3 members for the Board of Governers and one for the Executive Committee of the Turkish holding.

Dogan Media Group is known to be the largest one in Turkey, operating national newspapers (Hürriyet, Milliyet),  television networks  (Kanal D, Star TV and CNN-Türk), digital plattforms, publishing houses and distribution companies. In the beginning of 2009, however, the holding had serious trouble with the government, being indirectly accused it of hiding taxes, receiving  a fine of 380 mio. €. Back then, most experts spoke about an open conflict between Dogan Media Holding and Prime Minister Erdogan, interpreting the fine as an instrument to put pressure upon the unconvenient media group.

Today, the deal between Dogan and Springer is still to be authorised by the liable media regulators and competition authorities- a formality that can easily turn into a major obstacle- as long as it suits the government.

Related articles: Media War in Turkey

For further information: meedia.de and ejc

Boston Consulting Group’s research results look pretty optimistic- more than half of the 5000 interviewed survey participants are willing to pay for online or mobile content. The percentage of  potential online news customers varies in the different countries, that took part in the survey:

1. Finnland: 66 %

2. Germany: 63 %

3. Italy 62 %

….

8. Great Britain 48 %

9. USA 48 %

Although the potential customers are willing to spend not more than an average of 4,5 $ per month ( 3 $ in the U.S. and 7$ in Italy), the survey results still boost some hopes on the successful introduction of online paid content  in Western Europe. At least in comparison to the sobering actual payment rates ( for the moment only 12% of the British readers pay for online content).

For further information: Boston Consulting Group, Guardian

81 years.

At least, that is the age of the newly appointed RTVE president- Alberto Oliart, former defence Minister of Spain. His assignment resulted as a compromise between the Socialist and the Popular parties in the country, after Luis Fernandez, former president of the broadcaster,  resigned on Friday.

Oliart’s nomination has been intensively disputed since then. Two major arguments  do not speak in his favour:

1) In 2007 RTVE introduced a restructuring plan to reduce its workforce by nearly 4,000 by forcing all employees over 52 to take early retirement. On this background, the appointment of a 81 year old president somehow loses plausibility.

2) The second argument regards a  recent statement of his, claiming to know “nothing about television”- a pretty contestable starting point for a future president of RTVE. Especially, when he is expected to conduct one of the most controversial reforms in Spain’s media policy,  by withdrawing RTVE from the advertising market- a measure that would deprive the broadcaster of more than 500 million euro per year.

This reform that already induced the resignation of Fernandez. He was almost 30 years younger…

Related articles:

TVE without advertisements from Wednesday

For further information: elpais

Austrian public service broadcaster will be launching its online video platform TVthek on Monday. More than a third of its programme will thus be available on a  video on demand principle for a week after the television transmission.Soccer coverage, however, would be accessible for only 24 hours after- programs of historical and cultural significance, on the other side, can remain online, without any further restrictions.

ORF’s online platform will be completely free of advertising, in order to appease the rivals from the Austrian commercial sector.

For further information: diepresse

Quality Content in Internet:

Can it be provided for free and how qualitative will it actually be?

or

Is paid content the only solution for quality journalism in the net?

All these dilemmas have been tormenting the journalism sector, since the emergence of Internet as a mass medium.  Different schools have been interpreting them in their different ways. The current advertising crisis made the divide even acuter:   While the classical media has been primarily focusing on introducing pay walls,  web 2.0 prophets, particularly in the blogosphere,  continue to insist on the right of free (quality) information.

A personalised escalation of this paradigmatic conflict took place at Monaco Media Forum yesterday, as Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post) and Mathias Döpfner (Springer, Germany) discussed sharply on the future of quality content online: Here the whole discussion panel:

In a half an hour interview for SKY, News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch spoke about the chances and dangers for paid content online. Unsurprisingly,  the media mogul described Google News as a threat to mass media  journalism and accused Google of “kleptomania”. Murdoch is even considering withdrawing his future paid content sites completely from the Google index, in order to restrict furhter theft of content.

Such a measure however could be pretty risky in a digital world where most experts agree on the thesis: “What Google does not find- does not exist”.

Here the whole interview:

Related articles: Murdoch’s Pay Walls Plans Will Have to Wait

For further information: guardian

Many people regard the German TV Market (biggest one in Europe) as one of the most problematic ones on the continent. The reason is simple: there is simply too many free tv providers, a fact that  leads to a decrease in the audience’s willingness to pay for television services. It is not a coincidence that until now, the German pay tv provider (formerly Premiere- now SKY) still hasn’t managed to attract even half of the subscribers  pay tv providers in other countries (France, Great Britain) have. The introduction of new digital transmission modes like (IPTV) has also been hesitating, because of the reluctancy of the German TV consumer to abandon his cable free tv viewing mode.

But according to the data of the latest DELPHI research (EICT, TNS, Deutsche Telekom) the perspectives of the IPTV Market in the country are to be more promising than expected. More than 550 experts were questioned on the future of IPTV in Germany and almost 70 % expect, that IPTV will have conquered the audiovisual market until 2014.

BITKOM’s (Germany’s telecommunications business association) numbers also point in the same direction, as they predict a total market of 1.8 billion subscribers for 2010. This prediction would mean a total growth of 50 % in comparison to 2009- a pretty significant boost for the “free tv cable-country”.

What’s worrying about the data of the survey however, is the fact that one of its major sponsors is the German Telecom- the company with the largest investments in  the new market. In such cases it is always difficult to differentiate between objective predictions and wishes.

For further information: handelsblatt

Half an year ago the worlds most popular media mogule- Rupert Murdoch (News Corp.) announced  his withdrawal from free content, by introducing pay walls for his online editions by the end of News Corp’s financial year (June 2010).

Last night he admitted that his plans might not make the deadline but refused to explain why. A fact that leaves free space for speculations.

Media analysts like Jeff Jarvis attribute this delay to Murdoch’s fear of being left stranded by the other media companies. Until now Guardian has clearly refused to join  Murdoch’s plans and charge for content.If more publishing house follow that example,  the only effect of Murdoch’s papers charging online would be to clear the path for competitors.

For further information:

Editors Weblog

Guardian

Securing and  protecting copyrights in our digital environment has turned into  one of the main objectives  of the European information society governors. The biggest question was HOW. In a landscape, where file sharing is regarded as a normal practice by most digital natives,  it seemed a bit unproportional to put a teenager into jail just because he downloaded the latest Lilly Allen single without paying for it.

It was French Prime Minister Nikolas Sarkozy,  who came up with a proposal to simply deprive the digital “wrongdoers” of the attribute they all take for granted: their internet connection. For this purpose, a special agency “Hadopi” was created in France, in order to disconnect illegal file sharers without a judicial decision.

Until now the adoption of this law on an European scale was legally problematic. The reason for that were the paneuropean aspirations to include internet connecitivity to the basic human rights of which no human being can be deprived of (or at least not without a court ruling).  A special Ammendment to EUs Telecom package was drafted for this purpose. A week ago however, the European Parliament dropped the amendment,  which would have made it hard for countries to cut off pirates without court authority.

So it was left to the single member states to decide whtether they can deprive illegal file sharers of their internet connection with or without a court ruling.  And now Great Britain is preparing to follow France’s example, as Peter Mandelson, UK’s business Minister and  former EU trade commissioner, intends to adopt the  British version of the Hadopi bill  by April next year. Unlike France however, the British government will not establish a separate internet police authority like HADOPI, bu plans on delegating this competence to allround media watchdog Ofcom.

British civil rights groups are already protesting against the implementation of the harsh measure.

For further information: EUobserver

More than 30% of the future revenues of the second biggest television company in Germany are supposed to be derived out of pay-tv services by 2014. For the moment, they constitute only 15 % of the general income, with the lion share, derived out of the advertising market.  ProSiebenSat1’s new strategy  is to be regarded as a direct response to the diminishing advertising income and a reorientation towards the audience market.

For further information: meedia.de

The digitization of the European television market advances with a remarkable pace. According to the latest data from e-Media Institute, more than 14 % of all European households have already switched to a digital reception mode since 2008 .

Most of them have been upgrading to digital terrestrial television (DTT), but the introduction of IPTV services has been also enjoying growing popularity across the continent. IPTV operations have turned into success stories into Central and Eastern Europe, with Croatian, Hungarian, Chech and Slovakian Telecoms almost doubling the number of IPTV subsribers.

The significant contribution of public service broadcasters to the digital growth in Europe has also been particularly stressed upon. According to the e-Media analysis, most free to air digital services on the leading European TV markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain)  are offered by public service broadcasters: a total amount of 45 channels.

Italian broadcaster RAI leads the chart by offering 13 digital channels, followed by ARD/ZDF (Germany) with 11 and BBC (UK) with 10.

The biggest digital TV-growth in the last year was marked by Portugal, with massive 48 % in comparison to 2008. Belgium and Greece are second and third on the list with respectively 40 and 38 % growth:

According to the digital switch-over plan of the European Commission, all EU countries are expected to abandon analogue services by the end of 2012. If they stick to that pace, this task will be more than possible.

Related articles:

Digital Europe Grows

Digital Europe Grows: Part II

For further information: e-Media Institute

Kosovo’s government has vehemently denied  EBU’s monday’s reproach, which criticized the political pressure being put upon local public service broadcaster RTK. Deputy Prime Minister Hajredin Kuci even invited EBU represantatives to monitor RTK news coverage before the coming elections and refused to admit any forms of political censorship in the broadcaster.

A certain suspicion of hidden censorship in the new country  however remains: the biggest problem, is that it is pretty difficult to prove. Journalistic autonomy can  easily be abandoned for the sake of a better salary or a higher position. And this unspoken relationship between  politicians in power and obedient journalists is namely the core problem of hidden censorship. Unfortunately, it is also a secret most peope know, but nobody’s willing to confess. Why should Kosovo’s deputy prime minister make an exception?

Related articles: Kosovo’s Public Television Loses Autonomy

For further information: SETimes

The European Parliament has just  dropped an amendment to its Telcoms Package which would have made it hard for countries to cut off pirates without court authority. This step was a result of the political pressure, some European countries have been  imposing upon Brussels, in order to be able to apply harsher and more effective penal laws against illegal file sharing.

The most emblematic case has been that of France, where a special agency was founded (HADOPI) with the purpose of combatting internet piracy.The main aim of the HADOPI law was to disconnect illegal file sharers up to a year without the necessity of a long lasting trial. The inclusion of internet access as a universal human right in EU Telecommunications policy turned out to be one of the major obstacles for this approach.

With the ammendment being dropped, the discussion, whether the deprivation of internet access should be judicially accounted fo, will be relocated on national level. A process that already produces pretty controversial perspectives on the matter. Just take a look at France, Great Britain and Finland.

Related articles:

Broadband Access: a Legal Right in Finnland

Hadopi Law in France- Legally Problematic

Welcome Hadopi!

For further information: bbcnews

RTK is supposed to be the independent public service broadcaster in Kosovo. It has been on air since 1999 and has benefited massively from European financial aid since then.  Unfortunately, the concept of an independent broadcasting is gradually losing ground, as Kosovo’s government seems to be misusing the broadcaster for own mass information purposes.

In an open letter to Hashim Tachi, Prime Minister of Kosovo, the European Broadcasting Union denounced the negative development in the young state:

“Pressure from your government transformed RTK from being a balanced supplier of news into a media arm of the ruling party and of yourself as prime minister. Critical or alternative voices have been suppressed” added Jean Reveillon, Secretary General of the EBU.

The EBU reproach refers primarily  to the newly issued Reporters Without Borders report on press freedom, which  downgrades Kosovo  from 58th to 75th place in less than an year. RTK’s contribution for the fall is obvious:  the broadcaster was to obtain a critical  role in the process of developing a stable and independent democracy in the new country- a process that is recently endangered by strong political and economical interests, governing RTK.

EBU requires urgent measures to restore the autonomy of the broadcaster. After all, autonomy and autonomy only,  is what distinguishes a public broadcsters from a state one.

For further information: balkaninsight

Related Articles: Eroding Press Freedom in Europe

The long awaited press freedom report of Reporters Without Borders was released this week. And the results are anything but flattering to the European countries. While north european states like Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Estonia and Norway still remain on top of the chart, southern and eastern countries like Bulgaria, Italy, Spain and Slovakia were radically downgraded.

While Berlusconi’s war with critical media  relegated Italy to 49th position, France lost eight points primarily because of judicial investigations, arrests of journalists, raids on media and meddling by prominent politicians, including President Nicolas Sarkozy.

37 places down: The biggest fall  was registered in Slovakia and is ascribed to  the adoption of a law imposing an automatic right of (governmental) response in the press.

The ranking is based on questionnaires with 40 criteria, including violence against journalists, imprisonment, physical attacks, censorship, confiscation of newspaper print runs, searches and harassment. The index also takes into account the degree of impunity enjoyed by those responsible for press freedom violations.

With Europe gradually loosing its status as a role model for press freedom, may be it is time to consider adopting EFFECTIVE measures for safeguarding press freedom on European scale. A newly drafted European Charter on Freedom of the Press has already been  signed in 28 states. Let’s hope that it harvests more practical results than similar diplomatic agreements usually do.

Related Articles:

European Charter on Freedom of the Press

For further information: EUobserver

Directing the information flow on the internet is the new aspiration of the Russian state. The government has most of russian television channels and newspapers in its power and is now aiming at penentrating social networks. as well.  Thus it should be finally be able to redirect the public opinion of the digital natives in the country.

For this purpose the ministry of Press and Communications is offering up to 5 million rubles (almost $166,000) to the company that could provide “effective mechanisms of promoting the interests of the federal bodies of the executive branch of power on specialized social networking sites.”

But is a software programme enough to penetrate the public discourse on critical topics? Manpower is definetely needed and the Russian authorities expect to find it in the beurocratic apparatus, engaging state clerks as virtual opinion leaders. An interesting aspiration, aiming to transform virtual discussion forums into plattforms for state announcements.

Another proof that technology alone, does not boost democracy- it’s all about what people make of it.

For further information: moscowtimes

One of the most popular and qualitative newspaper in Latvia – Diena-  is facing serious troubles lately. Most of its leading journalists and editors are leaving the paper, primarily because of intensive cost cuts and job uncertainty. The majority of them is already considering launching an alternative internet version.

Earlier this summer, Swedish media company Bonnier sold “Diena Mediji” to the British family Rowland (Blackfish), leaving the paper with a net loss of 2,7 million euros for 2009, primarily due to the Europe wide advertising crisis.  Everything the new British proprietors had to offer against  the current losses were massive cost cuts- reducing salaries with more than 40 %. This measure turned out to be pretty unpopular among the leading journalists, who systematically cancelled their contracts,  depriving “Diena” of  the better part of its  journalistic credibility.

The sad part of the story is that up to now Diena was regarded as a positive exception in the Latvian media landscape, full of corruption and revolver journalism. Direct, impartial and serious – all brandmarks of the quality paper. Their loss will affect the whole media system in the baltic country. Badly.

Related articles: Latvian PSB- off the air?

For further information: Frankfurter Rundschau

A serious blow to the anti corruption aspirations of the newly reformed government of Polish President Tusk took place on Saturday,  as a complicated  wiretapping operation, involving intelligence agents and journalists became public. It turned out that Polish intelligence has been bugging the journalists for more than 2 years already, recording not only their professional but also private conversations.

Such a disclosure will definetely have a  negative impact on the polish journalism as a whole, with the confidential relation between journalists and informants being massively obstructed. Because of the wiretapping danger, many informants will from now on only reluctantly, if at all,  confide secret information to the journalists.

Donald Tusk has just fired the Head of the Anti-Corruption-Agency signalling a strong will to fight against misuse of power and support for an independent journalism system. The image of his government, however, will need a lot more than that to recover.

For further information: nzz

One of the most connected countries in the world (96%) is writing history. Finland is to become the first nation to officially recognize the right of broadband internet access as a legal one, as  the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications in Helsinki just pushed through a law that will force telecommunications providers to offer high speed internet connections to all citizens.

Practically speaking, the law will oblige internet providers to connect distant rural areas, left out because of their economical unattractiveness. Similarly to the measures suggested by the Digital Britain Report in the United Kingdom the finish law tries to combat the digital divide and boost the online economy at the same time. Information Society in Practice…

Related Articles:

Digital Britain Report Against Internet Piracy

For further Information: guardian

In a country with a population of less than 10 million such figures are regarded as more than disturbing. This is the conclusion of the latest survey of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in which Swedish citizens were only asked about their file sharing habits regarding music. Other sensible areas like movies, books, computer games and ebook have been completely left out- their inclusion could make the number of illegal file-sharers in the Scandinavian country even larger.

Compared to  previous studies on that subject the IFPI’s figures are to be regarded as a bitter surprise, with the percent of illegal file sharing never been estimated so high. Of course, it should be noted that the study was conducted via Internet and not via telephone lines,  concentrating primarily on the digital natives in the country. But even so, the fact than more than a third of the internet users in a country shares and downloads copyrighted material without paying, makes the definition of this practice as illegal very  problematic.

The development of the European TV news sector in the last five years can be obviously defined as a boost.Today there are 162 national and international news channels available to viewers around Europe that generate a total revenue of about 1,5 billion euros.  According to Andrè Lange, head of markets and financing at the European Audiovisual Observatory, this expansion is due to  the growth of multi-channel platforms (satellite, cable, ADSL and television for mobile telephones etc.) around the continent.

The future of this market, however, turns out to be pretty uncertain. A general reorientation of the audience towards Internet as a primary news source redirects  advertising revenues out of broadcasting news market into the net. “In certain countries such as Germany and Denmark, advertising on the Internet is starting to overtake TV advertising even if television audiences remain much higher than Internet audiences,” argues Lange and expects a fierce competition among broadcasters and publishers for the distribution of  growing advertising revenues on the fledging digital news market.

Although mobile applications, that can adapt the distribution of news coverage on the fast growing cell phone market,  are anticipated with hope by the news industry many  news broadcasters, especially  the independent ones, are expected to go bust in the coming years.

For further information: medianetwork

And is there any better place to introduce Amazon’s  digital reading device than on the book fair in Frankfurt? From today on, Kindle will be officcially available on the German market, generating revenue hopes not only for Amazon but also for the publishing industry as a whole.

The lack of german books and publications tailored specially for the 2GB digital reader, however,  could easily turn into a major obstacle for Kindle’s future market success. Up to now most Germans are not familiar with the device (less than 50 %) and the impossibility to read in their mother tongue will not exactly boost Kindle’s popularity.

Future users will thus have to settle for  e-books in English. At least for the coming months. After that, the publishing industry in the country is  expected to soon provide enough German content, to satisfy the demand of the emerging market. Accross the whole publishing industry Kindle is regarder as one of the most perspective developments in the field of digital publishing.

For further information: manager magazin

Related articles:

Amazon’s Kindle to rescue newspaper industry?

Spanish Newspapers Indroduce Amazon’s Kindle

The London Evening Standard is one of the oldest newspapers in Great Britain, publishing since 1827. On 12.10.2009 it is about to become the first quality newspaper to be turned into a free-sheet. In these turbulent times, when many media publishers like Figaro and Murdoch,  have been intensively  working on business models to charge for their online contents, the newspaper proprietor Lebedev has just announced  that from October 12 it will become  the first quality newspaper in the world to cease charging readers for its print edition.

A reform like that seems pretty brave for a newspaper with more than 150 years of publishing tradition. Most experts refer this measure,however,to the pluralisation of free news sources available to the readers, which automatically reduce  their willingness to pay for a special afternoon edition. The new funding model will boost the circulation from 250 to 600 thousand copies daily and thus try to attract some stable advertising, in order to compensate the revenue losses.

Newspaper owner Lebedev claims that this reform will neither lead to a loss of quality nor to any significant job cuts. However, it is still somehow difficult to believe him.

For further information: pressgazzette

Related Articles:

Le Figaro Introduces Paid Content Online. Any Volunteers to Pay?

Digital Publishers in the U.K to Charge for Content

According to the rulings of the TWF Directive from 1997 events of general public significance are to be broadcasted free for the public. The member states were then allowed to publish lists with such events that were supposed to be accessible to the general public. Most countries included olympic games and world cup football games with national participation.

The transmission of this week’s world cup qualifier between the teams of England and Ukraine, however, will be restricted to a limited amount of internet users willing to pay a pay per view fee between 5 and 12 pounds. With none of the major free to air broadcasters in the country showing  any significant interest in broadcasting the game, the qualifier will be transmitted exclusively in Internet: for the first time ever. So far so good- but  here we refer back to the list of events of  general public significance: How come is a world cup qualifier not on this list? After all, this is a game of the national team of a country, known as the birthplace of football.

For further information: medianetwork

Complaining about the lack of press freedom in Italy has gradually developed into a leisure activity for many of its citizens. On Saturday this tendency took  particular form as thousands of people gathered together in the centre of Rome. They protested against the disturbing concentration procedures in the Italian media landscape and their reflection on the the political arena of the mediterranean country, all of which can be named by a common denominator: the local hero and villain Silvio Berlusconi.

According to the organisers, 300 000 citizens attended the Anti-Berlusconi demonstration, according to the police – 60 000. Whatever the number- this act is expected to put Italy’s prime minister under pressure and question the democratic legitimacy of his regime. Recently, Freedom House  downgraded Italy to the “partly free” category in its annual survey this year and placed it 73rd out of 195 counties. Media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders went even further by  categorizing the press in Italy is the least free in the European Union.

For further information: reppublica.it

On the basis of a petition signed by a group of private broadcasters, the Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) is considering a general permission for private media companies to broadcast in local dialects.Following the decision to launch TRT 6, a state-owned channel that broadcasts in Kurdish 24 hours a day, together with the introduction of an Armenian broadcasting service,  the government is now planning on granting private stations the right to broadcast in other languages as well.

An eventual positive decision on the matter, however, will  not be of universal character, since most multilingual permissions have to be accompanied by demographic surveys researching the audience composition in the relevant area. Pretty interesting is the case with languages like Armenian and Kurdish, because of their political relevance. In the case of the request for Armenian broadcasting- a precedent in turkish broadcasting regulation- the final decision was even  left over to the government itself.

Generally, the new orientation of the Turkish broadcasting regulation is to be regarded as a step towards a more democratic media system and  more tolerance towards minorities. All prerequisites for an eventual future membership in the European Union.

For further information: todayzaman

This is about to happen after the US network giant’s recent deal with Chellomedia (UK). The results of the successful negotiations are already on the way-  CBS Reality, CBS Drama and CBS Action- three thematic channels  sourced from CBS’s 70,000-hour library with original material including series like Star Trek, Dynasty and Dr. Phil.

This joint venture is the first one of its kind as we witness an American broadcasting cooperation expanding in Europe by the introduction of own channels. As such it could turn into a fruitful example of broadcasting globalization.

For further information: broadcastnow.co. uk

Charging for online content turns out to be the dominant business modell in the Britisch digital publishing industry.  This is the major conclusion of this year’s AOP survey (Association of Online Publishers), according to which more than 70% of the digital publishers in Great Britain are inclined to introduce content charging for their online services. In comparison to 2007, the number of the charging-volunteers grows by 24% which is primarily referred to the “concussion” of the advertising industry in the times of crisis.

According to  their business strategies most of the interviewed enterpreneurs (33%) will be focusing on models of micropayment by charging for separate articles instead of  whole subscriptions.

Mobile applications are undisputably  seen by all as the biggest hope for the future.One of the main reasons for that is the difference between internet and cell phone consumer culture. While internet services are primarily expected to be for free, the mobile ones have always been charged for- this would automatically increase the willingness to pay of the future content users using mobile applications.

For further information:   guardian.co.uk

Related articles:

“Copy/Payste”- Funding Model for Independent

Le Figaro Introduces Paid Content Online. Any Volunteers to Pay?

Voxnews will become the third national TV Channel in Romania  after receiving a broadcasting license from the National Audiovisual Council. It will be launched  by year’s end and will focus primarily on news and social reports. The broadcaster  is fully owned by Sport Channel and is expected to generate more than a million euros advertising revenues annually.

Will this be possible with information and education content in the time of advertising crisis?

Time will tell…

Related Articles: Government vs. Media in Romania

For further information: wall street journal

Public Service Funding has become a political scapegoat in the times of financial crisis. This development is pretty actual in Estonia  with just a month ahead of  the municipal elections.

The baltic state has a pretty innovative funding modell: ETV, the national public service broadcaster is completely free of advertising, the revenues of which have been left completely to the commercial broadcasters (Kanal 2 and TV3) in the country. In exchange they are annually  obliged to pay a licence fee of about 2 million euro- that should compensate ETV’s losses.

The ruling coalitition, however, is  planning to cancel the license fees, in favour of the commercial broadcasters, and thus drastically reduce the annual budget of the public service broadcaster. This measure is supposed to benefit primarily  Kanal 2 and TV3,  which  areEstonia’s most influential opinion makers.

It is somehow difficult to hope that the new proposal has nothing to do with the coming elections.

For further Information: medianetwork

Advertising  drugs, whose import is nationally prohibited,  is generally not allowed in Europe (§ 86 EU Directive 2001/83/EC). But how is advertising to be defined?

This question  won on relevance after  Frede Damgaard,a Danish journalist, published information on his website about Hyben Total in 2003, a medicine product deprived of  marketing authorisation in Denmark.

According to Danish prosecutors  his positive description of the medicament contravened Directive 2001/83/EC, although it could not be described as classical advertising. Mr. Damgaard appealed, by claiming that he was not doing advertising but  medical journalism. For him the action of the danish authorities constituted thus a severe injury of the freedom of expression.

Soon the case was forwarded to the European Court of Justice, which published its sentence last week. ECoJ’s ruling claims that Article 86 “is to be interpreted as meaning that dissemination by a third party of information about a medicinal product…may be regarded as advertising within the meaning of that article, even though the third party in question is acting on his own initiative and completely independently…of the manufacturer and the seller of such a medicinal product.”

Some critics look at this sentence as a disastrous way of imposing national censorship on medical journalism. And to some extent they’re right- why should medical journalists not be allowed to report on nationally banned drugs? After all banning opinions on prohibited drugs might be a serious blow to the EU Protections to the  freedom  of expression

May be, instead  of banning all kinds of opinions on particular product, one should think of a better way to distinguish independent journalism from mere marketing strategies. The question is how?

For further information:EATG and AdAge

The German publishing house „Axel Springer“ owns the leading daily newspaper (circulation of about half a million) on the Polish yellow press market – „Fakt“. As a matter of fact and furthermore, in 2007 the company  introduced to the Polish quality newspaper market a flagship called “Dziennik”.

Winning a battle,…
Dziennik used the presidential election at the time to position itself between the main players on the market – “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita”. After developing an image of neutral reporting it successfully managed to win tens of thousands of the competitors’ readers for itself.

…losing the war.
The flying start for Dziennik with circulation of 260.000 turned into agony in 2008 shrinking to 158.000, before it hit the bottom in February 2009 reaching a year-to-year fall of 44 per cent to 88.000.

The failure might have been caused by a weaker identity than the competitors – Rzeczpospolita being respected for business reporting and Gazeta Wyborcza having nationwide network providing local news reporting.

The Polish department of Axel Springer had to act. In spring 2009 it decided to merge Dziennik with another newspaper called Gazeta Prawna (49% ownership). The latter is specialised in business and law news and should strengthen and save Dziennik’s potential.

For further information: Süddeutsche Zeitung (11.08.2009)

“Single Copy Subscription” should be the new revoulutionary word for publishers in crisis. That’s at least  what Isaac Showman, marketing manager at Economist, dreams of. His dream develops into plan and there you have it:

Economist direct- online subscription for single print issues of the quality magazine. Readers will thus have the possiblity to order the print issue per short text messager or online, via Facebook and Twitter for example, and receive it per post  the day after. That’s all- no subscription contracts, no irrelevant issues, no further complications.

But how appropriate is such a waiting period for twitter users for example? A whole day of waiting can turn into eternity for internet users, used to simultaneous content acquisition. Some people argue that in the days of simultaneous actuality there aint no time to wait for issues. Let’s hope they’re wrong.

Related articles: “Copy/Payste”- Funding Model for Independent

For further Information: meedia.de and guardian.co.uk

The financial crisis in the advertising sector turns out to be a pretty productive context for new business models in the newspaper sector. After realising that advertising alone can not provide enough revenues for the production of quality content online,  many publishers started implementing new ideas for funding print/internet journalism: Rupert Murdoch already  announced a withdrawal from the advertising-financed free content provision, Figaro introduced a pay per article business model.

British Newspaper Independent, on the other side,  developed a pretty peculiar way of refunding quality content. Users who would like to print its articles, may do so but  only up to the limit of five copies. Every further copy should be respectively paid for.

Thus, professors who would like to print out articles for their students or managers who would like to keep their staff up to date will  have to pay about one pound per article printed. The price per copy varies depending on the sheer number of copies printed.

Of course, if one does not want to pay for the copies he/she can always find a technological way round the limitation. But that’s not Independent’s point- it is more about raising the users’ awareness that quality content is something one normally pays for. Normally…

Related articles:

Le Figaro Introduces Paid Content Online. Any Volunteers to Pay?

Editing Your Own Newspaper in Switzerland

Going Online is not Always the Way Out for Newspapers

For further information: Frankfurter Rundschau, Meedia.de

Such type of questions are legally prohibited in  modernTurkey. According to the Ataturk Law from 1951 every insult against the “Father of all Turkish people” is to be banned with up to five years imprisonment for its author. Up to now many authors were charged not only for slandering Ataturk but also for defaming Turkishness as a whole. Such has been  the case with Turkey’s most famous contemporary author Orhan Pamuk.

In the times of nationally operated mass media and publishing sector, safeguarding Turkishness (by censoring and sanctioning anti-turkishness) was not an easy task. In the times of globally uncentralised Internet- it becomes almost impossible. But the Turkish conservative government is least giving it a try.

An anti-Ataturk video on YouTube, that recently portrayed the Turkish Father as gay, is the best example for that. According to the Turkish authorities, the video was a product of Greek  instigation in the context of the ongoing conflict between the two states. The reaction was immediate- on the basis of the Ataturk law (1951) and the Internet Regulation law (2007)  a state court decided to BAN THE WHOLE ACCESS TO YOUTUBE in Turkey. All major internet providers in the country were thus constrained to block  their users from visiting the most popular user generated videosite in the world.

Technically speaking, it is of course  impossible to completely block all users out of YouTube. Implementing proxy servers has turned into common internet know-how for all turkish users, entering YouTube from “censoreship-free” European or American servers – a daily activity. Thus, the censorship-measure of the Turkish government is more spectacular than efficient.

This regulation spectacle, however, turned out to have a significant practical effect on Youtube, as Google’s  user-generated broadcasting service  removed immediately the controversial video from its plattform and wrote an official excuse to the Turkish authorities.

In the end, the ban-free access to the  advertising market of the 71 million country seems to be more important for  YouTube than safeguarding principles like freedom of expression.

In a commercial perspective, this decision makes somehow sense. The cost-benefit ratio for promoting democracy is not amongst the most profitable ones.

At least in our contemporary world.

Related Articles:

Media War in Turkey

No More Music Videos on YouTube

For further information:

Today’s Zaman ; The New York Times Blog; Times Online

The development of the European information society is accelerating with a significant pace. Not only the broadband access to internet, but also the digital reception of television in European households provide optimistic figures.

According to the data of the E-Media Institute the number of western European digital TV households has grown by more than 49% in the last two years  to more than 108 million—almost 64% of total TV households. The fastest growing digital TV platform was IPTV, which was up over 170% since March 2007, followed by DTT, growing by almost 76%.

As a matter of fact, the development of IPTV depends directly on the growth of the broadband internet access, since the IPTV-Offer is a part of the Triple Play business models of almost all European Telecoms…

Soon, television will have a completely different profile.. new providers, new business models, new recepients- we will just have to figure out a new name..

Related articles: Digital Europe Grows

For further information: e-media institute

According to Editors Weblog the newly produced content will be launched in the early 2010. It shall not interfere with the freely available content on the website, since it will be extra produced by  journalists, hired especially for that purpose.

After Luc de Barochez, chief editor of Lefigaro.fr., the new content will thus contribute to the thematic development of France’s most popular information site. It has not been decided yet, how to charge for the new service- on the basis of a subsciption or after the “pay per article” model.

This idea is not new but it remains a pretty risky business model in the times of the information economy. First of all, the copyrights of all information products in the digital world are still pretty shaky and thus difficult to protect. Secondly, the willingness to pay online of internet users is not as high as expected. According to the latest EU report on the topic, only one third of the 16-24 year olds are prepared to pay for content online. This group is pretty important because it constitutes more than 60 % of all internet users.

We ll be looking forward to the development of Figaro’s project, but we can be sure that changing consumer habits  might result tougher than it seems.

For further Information: Editors Weblog- here and here

According to the results of the current report of the European Commission the broadband service penetration and the usage of internet services has grown with more than one third since the last report from 2004.   Today more than 70 % of all Europeans use the internet regularly (at least once a week),  while the European market has turned into the largest market in the world for fixed broadband access with ca.114 million subscribers.

According to the European Commission  this rapid development grounds on the pro-competition policy supported by Brussels. Due to the supraeuropean measures safeguarding fair competition and pricing, the broadband services have become more accessible for all EU citizens. 

The digital development, however, does not seem to to follow the same pace in all areas. A “digital divide” exists not only between the internet penetration in northern and southern Europe, but also between the different layers of society. On the one hand we can speak of “digital natives”- the most active and creative internet users, primarily good educated and wealthy youngsters, on the other of “digital aliens”- mostly elderly persons, but also people with lower level of education and income, who still do not make use of the benefits of the net. 

Will the pan-european competition doctrine be able to smooth out this sociogeographical differences? Or will we have to adopt a more social approach in the formation of the European Information Society? 

For further information: EU Observer 

These bittercynical lines were printed on the t-shirt of Ivan Crvin, a Croatian cameramen, with which he went to a press- conference of….his government. The newly appointed Croatian Prime Minister -Jadranka Kosor noticed the message and interpreted it pretty personally by defining it  “outrageous”.

So far so good: different people- different tastes.

But the consequence of this misunderstanding is pretty perplexing: RTL Croatia,which his production company was working for, cancelled  immediately  the contract with Crvin’s production company. One of most reasonable explanations could be RTL’s fear of entering into conflict with the local government.

Just because of a lousy t-shirt…

For further information: FAZ (04.08.2009)

This could be a new milestone in the history of olympic broadcasting: On this tuesday IOC rejected EBU’s bid for the transmission rights of the olympic games in 2014 and 2016.This comes as some surprise because since 1956 common european rigths-contracts between IOC and EBU seemed to be the rule. Why?

The European Broadcasting Union represents 75 national broadcasters in and around Europe in the negotiations with the IOC and could as such enjoy stronger influence on the price for the olympic games. It was often accused of cartel practices by the Competition Directorate of the  European Commission, but still it always managed to defend the common interests of the European free-to-air broadcasters on the tough sports rights market.

IOC on the other side preferred to handle with EBU because the union could guarantee the  largest possible audience for the olympic games and complete coverage of the sport events between the olypmic cycles, inclusive paraolympics. As long as olympic games were regarded as a global event of enormous social and political importance- this was also the most reasonable decision.

After tuesday’s rejection this status quo seems to be in danger. Sports rights have gradually turned into a precious globally convertrable economic good with a possibility for lucrative revenues. The olympic games do not seem to make the exception- for the next two Games periods of 2010 and 2012 IOC expects to get close to $4 billion from broadcastin rights.

The fiercer the competition- the larger the revenues.

In this spirit IOC  is this time planning to auction the olympic broadcasting rights nationally and thus get a larger revenue in Europe  ($ 200 million more)- than from EBU’s general offer. The implementation of this market logic could however be pretty risky in the times of advertising crisis and economic unsecurity of the commercial broadcasters. Till now only pay-tv providers (SKY Britain,Italy and Germany and CANAL+ France) have expressed their interest in acquiring the broadcasting rights- a tendency that can lead to an eventual exclusion of a large part of the European audience. And the olympic games are still an event of significant social importance that can be easily included in national lists of free public access and thus be politically “moved” to free-to-air broadcasters  (EU AVMS 2007).

IOC should consider this strong non-economic argument in its future European broadcasting rights poker…

For further Information: FAZ (30.07.2009) and worldsportslawblog

Italy’s public Broadcaster RAI is planning to withdraw its 5 satelite channels from SKY’s broadcasting plattform. This is the result of failed negotiations between both corporations about an eventual contract extension. Murdoch’s company offered 425 million euro for seven years which was apparently not enogh for RAI. One of the most reasonable expalanations for RAIs withdrawal is its cooperation with Mediaset in launching their own sattelite plattform- TIVU, which turns out to be a direct rival of SKY on the satelite market.

In comparison to other pubic service broadcasters in Europe however (BBC, ARD) RAI’s attitude seems to be more competitive than necessary. After all the purpose of a public broadcaster is to provide useful contents for its publics regardless of the channel. Excluding potential viewers from the public channels (SKY subsribers for example) does not really seem to match one of the major objectives of  the public remit RAI is obliged to and namely- Universal Access. But Italy is a strange countries, where public service broadcasters do not always have to serve the interests of the public.

Related articles: Mediaset and RAI vs. SKY Italia

For further information: medianetwork

The media landscape in Great Britain is on the verge of an important paradigmatic change. Till now there existed an axiomatic rivalry between the public and commercial sectors of audiovisual communication. The digital convergence brought a new rivalry in the media sector: Publishing houses also entered into direct competition with BBC  for  the conquest of the  internet space. In the same spirit of fierce competition “Auntie” was often accused of misusing public funding for its “www-expansion”- these accusations resulted in the introduction of Public Value Tests for all new BBC digital services that had to analyse their “negative” impact on the media market: competition distortion was to be impeded, public value- proven. The PVTs turned gradually into a symbolic battlefield for public and commercial interests in the British media landscape: The highlight of the rivalry paradigm.

But times change- paradigms also…

The advertising crisis last year hit both commercial publishers and broadcasters in the Kingdom hard.  This  brought significant  political pressure on BBC, with leading Labour politicians constraining “Auntie” to share public funding with commercial broadcasters in need, by thus helping them to fullfil  broadcasting requirements like regional news supply and educational programmes (Digital Britain Report).At one point we were not talking about rivalry anymore- but solidarity and cooperation. A paradigm shift par excellence!

In this spirit appears today’s proposal to share BBC’s video content with commercially organised publishers. According to the new deal BBC video content will be soon available on the websites of Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph and Independent. Thus the publishers will be able to market their commercial websites by using publically funded video material. The  shared BBC videos will be covering topics of public concern like UK politics, economy, health and science and will be available only to Internet users in Britain (geoblocking)

Both commercial publishers and BBC seem to be pretty happy with the deal and more commercial news-websites are soon to join. The public broadcaster will be satisfied to transmit its content regardless of channel and internet publishers will be delighted to attract advertising money to their channels regardless of content.

It will be however interesting to see how much advertising the commercial broadcasters will be allowed to insert into or around publically funded “ad free” content.

Related Artlicles: Digital Britain Report Against Internet Piracy

For further information: guardian.co.uk

According to the latest plans of the Swiss broadcaster both institutions are to be put together and thus manage multimedia content production more efficiently. The idea bases on the assumption that this melting measure can both cut costs and improve branding in the digital age.

But how advanced is the media convergence actually?

In a pretty sceptical article in NZZ, Roy Oppenheim- former SRG manager- argues that media convergence is not as self explanatory as some media planners want it to be. He differentiates between production, dissemination and reception convergence and claims that the process has not yet reached the necessary dimensions required for the proposed SRG institutional reform. Journalists working equally well for radio and television do not exist and the media usage of these channels remains also worlds apart.

So, before merging  whole institutional departments together by hoping that things should work out- one should maybe give it a try in local units and check how ripe media convergence (in all its facets) really is.

For further Information: nzz.ch

Spain’s biggest publisher PRISA has just signed a contract with Amazon stipulating the dispersion of the company’s newspapers via Amazon’s electronic reader Kindle. Customers in the United States will thus be able to subscribe to the electronic editions of “El Pais”, “AS” and “Cinco Dias”- the european market is to follow.

The publishing group is the first one in Europe to start a business experiment with Amazon’s Kindle. As you know- the electronic reading device is regarded as the great white hope of the newspaper industry accross the ocean.

Related articles: Amazon’s Kindle to rescue newspaper industry?

For further Information: FAZ (23.07.09)

Classical broadcasting regulation will be expanded on internet services by December this year, according to a decision of Slovakia’s Government. This is a result of the application of the EU Directive on Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS 2007- former “Television Without Frontiers”, which foresees the regulation of audiovisual content regardless of transmission art.

The Slovak amendment provoked controversial reactions in the East European country with most internet tv providers fearing overregulation in a developing  business sector. According to the government, however, the new rules will be less strict than those for the broadcasting area by treating internet providers preferentially and subduing them only to some basic regulations (protecting minors,encouraging cultural diversity, ensuring essential consumer protection and preventing incitement to hatred) . What is interesting however is the fact that the EU Directive does not foresee a regulative difference between internet and classical broadcasting but between linear and non-linear services. The Slovak interpretation will thus overregulate TV- based video on demand and  underregulate internet based linear television (streaming). We will be looking forward to the application of the AVMS in the rest of  the member states. This will have to happen till the end of the year.

For further information:

European Commission and MediaNetwork

Spain’s socialist government has proposed a controversial reform of the country’s public broadcaster which will ban the transmission of advertisements on its channels. This will lead to a shortage of about 500 million euro.  Of course the ruling has foreseen a compensation for the advertising revenues being lost-  it will be up to the commercial broadcasters to fill TVE’s financial gaps by submitting annually about 3 % of their turnover.

Critics of the reform doubt that these 3 % in the time of crisis will be enough to compensate the TVE’s losses and fear that more costcuts are to be expected. Another obstacle for Spain’s public service broadcaster will be the ban to acquire rights on  sport events with public money. After wednesday’s reform TVE will, however,  rely solely on public money, so it will thus  completely be “switched off” the market for mass attractive sport events and will have to concentrate on less popular quality contents in order to serve the public.

The bill will be voted upon on wednesday.

Related articles:

Commercial Television Carrying PSB’s Costs in Spain

Spain Reduces Advertising Volume

For further information:

deutschlandfunk

Only one year has passed, since Rupert Murdoch bought his first Premiere-shares – many things have already changed: In the beginning there was the big scandal with the false customer numbers of the old management- they had  claimed to have more customers than they actually did. The result of the disclosures was disastrous- in one singular day Premiere lost more than 50 % of its market value.

The newly appointed Mark Williams, ex-CEO of SKY Italia, was brought from Murdoch in order to find a cure for the lousy pay-tv business in the country and to clean the image of the only German pay-tv provider. For the first task he worked out a capital increase of 411 million euro and initiated a large scale investment programme.  For the second one he decided to kiss Premiere’s past goodbye and start clean- the change of names speaks for itself.

We offer you the first SKY spot- if you find a big difference to Premiere’s contents please inform us  – we will be glad to know.

This is the new idea of Media Minister Ronald Plasterk and it aims at keeping public service broadcasters social institutions. The maximum sum a PSB journalist or presenter may earn will thus be limited to 181 ooo € per year,  which makes 15 000 per month.

The severity of this rule, however,  did not appeal to PSB directors who got scared of loosing their best talents to private competitors offering higher salaries. A compromise in this direction was reached with a special exception for unique talents and TV stars, whose contracts wont be subdued to the”Balkenende salary norm”.

But who can judge if a moderator is a unique talent or an average social workers? The broadcasters themselves? In this case it might be useful to limit the number of high-paid stars to 10 per broadcster for example, because it is really not in the interest of the public to fund the development of TV Stars and to finance their high paid contracts, in order to keep them away from the commercial broadcasters.

For further information: nisnews