From wood@stab.sr.seSun Mar 3 01:20:51 1996 Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 15:32:59 +0100 From: George Wood To: wood@rs.sr.se Subject: MediaScan/Sweden Calling DXers 2242 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :: MediaScan :: :: SWEDEN CALLING DXERS :: :: from Radio Sweden :: :: Number 2242--Feb. 20, 1996 :: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Satellite, shortwave and other electronic media news from Radio Sweden. This week's bulletin was written by George Wood. Packet Radio BID SCDX2242 All times UTC unless otherwise noted. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NORDIC MEDIA NEWS: NEW NEWS NEWS--Radio Sweden's weekday newscast in English is now available on our World Wide Web site. See: http://www.sr.se/rs/english/news.htm RADIO SWEDEN--Unfortunately, our medium wave transmitter on 1179 kHz is still being repaired. Hopefully it will be back at full power tomorrow, but in the mean time try shortwave 6065 kHz instead. Updates on our Web pages. And Swedish Telecom still doesn't know why our satellite signal sounds so bad. It's fine when it leaves Broadcast House, but sounds dreadful on Tele-X (and Astra). It may be the uplink station, or it may be the satellite. They may know by tomorrow, so keep an eye on our Web pages. Don't forget our special feature on the tenth anniversary of the death of Olof Palme, on February 28, 1996. We'll also be putting up the program in text and found files on our Web pages. KINNEVIK--An appeals court has ruled that Kinnevik has the right to call their radio network P6, which Radio Sweden also claims, at least until the court makes a final decision. ("Topp 40") Kinnevik's Z-TV channel has switched its location on the Sirius satellite to 11.862 GHz, and switched to D2-MAC. Kinnevik's remaining PAL channel, TV3 Sweden, will be following suit on the 5th of March. Kinnevik's switch to D2-MAC has upset at least 100,000 Swedes who bought cheap "Swedish dish" packages for the Sirius satellite that are PAL only. They've protested to the Public Merchandise Complaints Board, which in several cases has ordered retailers to give customers free decoders. Unfortunately the board is unable to enforce its decisions. Critics say Kinnevik should pay the 30 million dollars or so necessary to provide the now-necessary decoders. (Swedish Radio News, "Dagens Nyheter", "Aftonbladet") SPORTS--Kinnevik's new Sportkanalen begins broadcasts via Sirius on March 22. Rival FilmNet has changed strategy for its SuperSports channel. It is no longer to be a pay-channel, but will be included in cable network's basic tiers, like Sportkanalen. Stockholm's Stjaern-TV has already signed a contract and is now carrying SuperSports. Negotiations with the other major cable operators are said to be going forward in a "positive spirit". (Frank Oestergren, "Aftonbladet") DIGITAL TELEVISION--All this may be a moot point, with the impending introduction of digital television. Sweden's present terrestrial channels, two public service and one commercial, could be increased to 8 within a couple of years and 24 by the end of the decade. If today's analog channels are also converted to digital broadcasting, the total could reach 50. As Jim Downing reports in today's program, this has been proposed to the Minister of Culture by a special committee on the future of broadcasting in Sweden. The committee wants to take the planned fourth national analog network, and possibly the spectrum for a potential fifth analog channel, and use them instead for the new digital transmission. Here's Jim's report: If the government follows the committee's recommendations, it could strike a severe blow to commercial cable and satellite TV stations who's broadcasts originate from outside Swedish territory. For one thing, converting the country's present terrestial TV broadcasting network from analogue to digital would greatly increase the number of channels available to viewers free-of-charge, thereby making cable and satellite TV which require the purchase of dishes and decoders less attractive. Sponsors would also be more interested in buying advertising time on stations which can reach all of the country's viewers rather than on stations reaching only a limited number of viewers. But the main idea behind the committee's proposal is that by quickly converting terrestial broadcasting from analogue to digital, society would be able to keep control over broadcast content from falling into the hands of purely commercial, market interests. The state can only set up rules and codes of broadcasting ethics for stations who's broadcasts originate from within the country's borders - as is the case with Sweden's present 3 terrestial channels. In order to get a broadcasting license, all three of them have signed agreements with the state guaranteeing a certain amount of news coverage, documentaries, cultural and educational programs along with pure entertainment programs such as soap operas, TV-series, game shows, etc. Sweden's sole terrestial commercial channel TV 4 also has to follow government-set guidelines on commercials, making sure they are both truthful and don't push products such as alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and the like. Nor can commercials be directly targeted towards children. Cable and satellite TV channels don't have to follow these guidelines if they don't want to, as they don't need a government license to broadcast. But if they begin losing viewers to an increasing number of cost-free terrestial channels, they'll also opt to go terrestrial and become subject to government programming rules and regulations. But converting to digital is costly - not only for viewers who are expected to have to spend as much as 2 billion dollars for new digital TV receivers, but for broadcasters as well. And while commercial interests are always able to whip up new investment capital, how will Public Service TV with it's already strained budget be able to buy all the equipment needed to enter the digital market? Sweden's Culture Minister Margot Wallstr”m says the government and parliament has thought of that...(and her comments can be heard on the air and on our Web site). Sweden could begin digital TV as early as 1997. Britain is to begin digital broadcasts this Summer. By 1997, there will be 18 terrestrial digital channels in Britain. Both Finland and the United States are also preparing digital TV. ("Svenska Dagbladet") The American decision has been delayed by Congress's insistance that digital spectrum be auctioned off, while the Federal Communications Commission wants to give already licenced stations free access to digital frequencies, to stimulate them to develop new digital services. Congress hopes to raise betwen 28 and 31 billion dollars by auctioning off digital TV spectrum. (AP) EUROPEAN MEDIA NEWS: CULTURAL QUOTAS--The European parliament has followed the American Congress in voting on the media future. But just about the only simularities are restrictions aimed at preventing children from seeing sex or violence on TV, as well as differing approaches to regulating the Internet and online services. Where the American legislation removes many restrictions on broadcasting, opening the door to the big media, cable, and telephone companies to move into each others' territory, the European version goes in a vastly different direction. Our EU correspondent, Joe Kirwin, reports from Brussels in today's program. TV advertisers are also upset about the attempt to extend restrictions on terrerstrial broadcasting to satellite stations. We also hear Bernard Adriano of the World Association of Advertisers objections to attempts spearheaded by Sweden's Minister of Culture to put this country's ban on commercials aimed at children on a European level. And Luciana Castellina of the EU parliament's Cultural Committee disagrees. In the end, the European parliament overwhelmingly passed the measure. But what happens now? As Joe Kirwin reported, if the European Commission refuses to go along with the new legislation, as is likely, the existing rules will continue to apply. Like the new American telecommunications law, the EU measure calls for the installation in new TV sets of "V-chips", circuits that turn off programs that broadcasters determine are have too much sex or violence for children. But representatives of Swedish Television and the private channels TV3 and TV4 have all said the V-chip solution is unncecessary in Sweden. ("Dagens Nyheter") Ironically the V-chip provision has been criticised for giving the United States a monopoly on critical technology, as the "chips" are only made in the U.S. "If you are making a proposal to prevent the Americans having a monopoly, and then you are going to give to the American industry this product, this is a contradiction. It is a monopoly" one EU official said. (Reuters) Then again, the "chip" doesn't really exist: From: Ed Ellers To: "'wood@rs.sr.se'" Subject: V-chip clarification Date sent: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 16:20:22 -0500 I wanted to pass along the word that, despite what so many people (including President Clinton) seem to think, there is no such thing as a separate circuit to meet the Telecommunications Act's requirement. The law requires this capability to use line 21 of the NTSC video signal -- the same line used for the CaptionVision closed captioning system -- and applies the requirement only to those TV sets (namely those with 33 cm diagonal, or larger, screens) that are now required to have caption decoders. As a result, the new parental blocking feature will simply be built into the same chip used for captioning. The Electronics Industries Association issued a standard (EIA-608) in 1993 for extensions to the captioning system, including some service- and program-related features similar to those provided by teletext in Europe -- time and date, station and network identification and some PDC-like recording features. In an October 1992 draft the committee included features for program ratings that would allow these parental control features to work, not only with rating levels but with characterizations for the reason for possible objections (nudity, violence and language). I'm told that broadcasters objected strongly to these aspects of the system, for fear that the FCC might require them to follow a specified rating system, so these features were removed from the final standard. The Telecommunications Act will *not* require program producers to rate their shows, though it does require program distributors to pass the line-21 code if it is present; there are plans to establish an industry committee to develop standards for rating TV programs in order to figure out which code to apply. Also, since the line-21 codes work well with home VCRs because of the system's slow data rate, these decoders will also work with programs recorded off-air and with prerecorded tapes or laser discs. P.S. On the Disney-ABC merger story, the correct name for ABC's (former) parent company was Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. This is because the previous merger was structured as a takeover of ABC by Capital Cities. INTELSAT--There's been another major international media story that will also affect Scandinavia. On February 15th, a Chinese Long March rocket veered toward the ground and exploded 20 seconds after lift-off. A film clip of the crash is included on CNN's WorldWide Web site at: http://www-cgi.cnn.com/WORLD/Newsbriefs/9602/02-14/pm.html The crash is reported to have almost certainly caused casualties. In January, 1995 a Long March rocket carrying the Apstar-2 satellite crashed in flames 50 seconds after blast-off, killing six people. The new rocket was carrying the Intelsat 708 satellite, which was to have been placed at 50 degrees West, above the Atlantic. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and three partners were planing to use the satellite to provide signals for a 150 channel digital package of direct broadcasts to South and Central America. It would also have been used for voice, data, and video services across the Americas, Africa, and Europe. However, and here's the Scandinavian connection, Intelsat says it will deploy its upcoming 707 satellite, set to launch from French Guiana on March 2nd, to 50 degrees West instead. Intelsat 707 was to have replaced the Nordic Intelsat 702 satellite at 1 degree West. It's redeployment will greatly delay the expansion of satellite broadcasting to the Nordic region, as the next scheduled Intelsat launch after that isn't until September. INTELSAT--Comsat and the U.S. government have proposed that Intelsat be restructured by spinning off a new publicly traded, for-profit affiliate from the global satellite consortium. The plan must be approved by the membes of Intelsat, a consortium backed by 136 governments. The Washington-based group owns and operates the world's most extensive global communciations satellite system. Comsat is the largest owner. (Reuters) HOT BIRD--Yesterday Italy's RAI 3 joined the Eutelsat package at 13 degrees east on the Hot Bird satellite. It's now broadcasting in clear PAL on 11.530 GHz (V). (Eutelsat) BBC--The British Broadcasting Corporation has signed its first-ever TV sponsorship deal for a satellite channel, a move that may foreshadow commercial backing for its terrestrial programs. Air Canada signed up as sponsor for the "Naked Hollywood" series, shown on the Pan-European BBC World 24 hour news channel. (Reuters) INTERACTIVE TV--Interactive Television is coming to Europe in the second quarter of 1996 after a deal agreed by television group Nethold and a joint-venture of Thomson Multimedia and Sun Microsystems. Regis Saint Girons, vice president Marketing and Sales Europe for Thomson Sun Interactive, said on February 10 that Nethold Dutch, a South African group based in the Netherlands, as well as France Telecom had selected the joint-venture's Open TV system to offer interactive television. It was not clear which country would be the first to receive the service and those involved declined to give details of the deal. Many European broadcasters are currently preparing to launch digital television services, both terrestrial and via satellites, because it offers better quality, more channels and the possibility of additional services. One such additional service is interactivity. At the five-day MILIA multimedia market in Cannes, Thomson Sun of America showed how interactive television would work. A viewer watching a pop concert on television could get information about concert venues and make bookings by using the remote control. At a game show, the viewer could compete with the real players. Saint Girons said that the system would use either a telephone line or a cable network for the return signal. With the technical issues solved, the real test of interactive television is now in gaining market acceptance. Saint Girons said that tests had shown that people liked the extra features of interactive television but were not willing to pay much for it. That is why Thomson Sun is talking to manufacturers of televisions and decoders to get its Open TV system included and make the market potential as big as possible. He said that the Open TV software could easily be combined with such features as access control to subscription channels. Asked whether viewers would be willing to buy yet another set-top box for their television, he said that eventually the system would be included in digital television sets. Meanwhile, people will have to buy a box which in the United States will sell at USD 500 to 800. (Reuters) Thomson Sun Interactive is also talking to France's Canal Plus and British Sky Broadcasting to get the two stations to licence its Open TV technology. Canal Plus is expected to launch its digital TV service this Spring. Saint Girons says BSkyB will use the same technology. But the two are still far from launching commercial interactive services. (Curt Swinehart) Representatives of major German telecommunciations and media groups on February 12 signed a declaration of intent to establish the television set-top box distributor MMBG, but without Bavarian media mogul Leo Kirch. Led by Deutsche Telekom, MMBG is being set up by a group of European broadcasters and telecoms groups with the goal of setting up the standard for the set-top box, or decoder, that decodes signals and allows for filling on interactive digital television. The plan was nearly foiled last year by Kirch, who decided to develop and market his own decoder. But Kirch backed down and called a truce with Bertelsmann and Canal Plus. (Reuters) NORTH AMERICAN MEDIA NEWS: TECH TALK--TheTech Talk Radio Network is back on satellite on Anik E2, transponder 18, sound 5.8 MHz (wideband). (Curt Swinehart) ASIAN MEDIA NEWS: APSTAR--The inquiry into the Long March crash will indefinately delay the planned March launch of Apstar 1A for APT Satellite of Hong Kong, says China's launch contractor. Apstar 1A is needed to complement Apstar 1, which was launched by China in July, 1994. It will also make up for the January, 1995 loss of Apstar 2, which blew up 50 seconds after launch. (Reuters) Insurance rates for launches by China's Long March rockets are set to rise after the latest explosion. INDONESIA--Indonesian telecommunications firm PT Telkom plans to launch a Palapa B-5 satellite in 1999. (Reuters) JAPAN--Japan's Ministry of Post and Telecommunications is preparing the authorize the C-band for broadcasting. This will allow NHK and NTV to air programs beyond national boundaries using the C-band JC-Sat 3 satellite. Currently, domestic Japanese satellite TV uses the KU-band. JC-Sat 3, which was launched last summer, is Japan's first satellite equipped for C-band, which is widely used in other parts of Asia. (Curt Swinehart) The Japanese seem to be taking a step backwards. The rest of the world is moving from C-band to Ku-band. AFRICAN MEDIA NEWS: BURUNDI--A new independent raido station has been licensed in Burundi to counteract the effects of "hate media" and to work for peace in the country divided by ethnic hatred. Radio Amwizero (Hope) is funded by the European Commission. It is intended to counter Radio Democracy, a hardline Hutu station which is broadcast from mobile transmitters. (Reuters) GLOBAL MEDIA: SPORTS--In the United States, Rupert Murdoch grabbed the rights for American football for his upstart Fox TV network. In Britain, Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting and Sky Sports captured British soccer from the BBC and Independent Television. But concern about major sports events leaving public service broadcasters and moving to satellite pay channels is causing a backlash. As we reported last time, the International Olympics Committee turned down a bigger bid from Murdoch and granted European rights to the next several Olympics to the European Broadcasting Union. Some more developments: On February 6 Britain's House of Lords struck a blow for the rights of millions of sports fans to see key events on regular TV channels when it amended a government bill by a huge majority. The amendment places a duty on the Independent Television Commission to ensure a number of listed events were not shown exclusively on satellite television. (Reuters) South Africa's Sports Minister vowed on February 13 to block any bid by Rupert Murdoch to buy up the country's soccer TV viewing rights. Murdoch's News Corp concluded a multi-million dollar deal earlier this year to buy the rights to South African rugby union matches for the next five years with an option to extend for another five. Pay TV station M-Net has secured the rights from News Corp to all major rugby union matches involving South African sides, except for two home tests against New Zealand and Australia, which it says it will leave to the state broadcaster SABC. (Reuters) In New Zealand, rugby union bosses have defended a controversial deal that means New Zealanders will have to subscribe to pay-TV if they want to watch live tests matches for the next three years. The pay-TV network Sky Television, which bought the rights to the matches from News Corp announced a compromise deal with state-owned Television New Zealand. Test matches in New Zealand will be screened live on Sky and broadcast with a one-hour delay by TVNZ. Tests outside of New Zealand will also be live on Sky, but delayed up to four hours on TVNZ. (Reuters) MURDOCH--News Corp says its profits fell almost 24 percent in the final three months of last year, and dropped almost 15 percent for the last half of 1995. The "New York Times" has reported that News Corp may scale back its online service Delphi, and focus instead on the Internet. (Reuters and AP) HOBBY NEWS: It's time for our annual MediaScan survey of references for the satellite and shortwave hobbyist in the Online Edition of today's program. Things are expanding, and besides books, now we have CD-ROMs and WorldWide Web pages to talk about. WRTH--This year's "World Radio TV Handbook" is the 50th anniversary edition. This is the standard reference of the world's broadcast stations, and is warmly recommended. Besides the excellent reviews of current receivers, prepared by Jonathan Marks of Radio Netherlands, along with Willem Bos, Thomas Sundstrom and others, there are the usual interesting articles. For the first time, this year's edition carries Internet addresses. Tom Sundstrom's article on the Internet is excellent, and the only objection we have is that he doesn't mention these MediaScan bulletins or the MediaScan pages on the World Wide Web. (But since you're reading this, you know all about that anyway.) But just like last year, satellite radio listings are lacking. In fact, while last year's book had a section called "World Satellite Broadcasts" that section is missing this time. Of course there's also the WRTH's excellent "Satellite Broadcasting Guide", which tells you just about everything you need to know about satellites.....except -- neither book actually tells readers anything about the satellite schedules from stations like Radio Sweden, the BBC, or Radio Netherlands. All there is are World Radio Network schedules in the satellite book, but this is just a small portion of the satellite radio broadcasts available. There is room for improvement here! The WRTH is also finally getting closer to its goal of releasing its material on a CD-ROM and putting up a Worldwide Web page. Keep an eye on: http://www.wrth.com As we point out every year, in many countries, for economic (and perhaps still some for political) reasons, it's difficult to obtain the WRTH. If you buy a new handbook, you might consider donating your old book to a Third World DX club. There's a list starting on page 590 in the new WRTH. PASSPORT TO WORLD BAND RADIO--The WRTH's main rival is Larry Magne's "Passport to World Band Radio". This serves a somewhat different purpose. It's not a standard reference of the world's broadcast stations, instead it's a good guide (especially for beginners) to shortwave broadcasting. There are chapters on easy catches and various popular stations, as well as the usual excellent review of current receivers. But the core of the book is a database listing of shortwave frequencies, showing what stations are on through the day. As we've said before, this goes out of date quickly, and it would be far better if there the book was slimmer and came out more often. Unfortunately, last year Larry Magne explained to us that that approach doesn't work economically, which is a shame. Some kind of CD-ROM or Web site with updates for book purchasers would be nice, if there was a way to implement it. INTERNATIONAL LISTENING GUIDE--Bernd Friedewald's "International Listening Guide" has provided that which both the WRTH and "Passport" have lacked, regular updates on shortwave frequencies. Now he's created a database for DOS or Windows on just one diskette. Knowing Bernd's previous work, this is probably a very useful guide. Unfortunately our review disk was damaged in the mail. For more information, contact: 100523.3714@compuserve.com KLINGENFUSS UTILITY GUIDE 1996--Then there are utility stations, all the shortwave stations that aren't broadcast outlets or radio amateurs, like ships, airplanes, RTTY news and FAX pictures from news agencies, etc. The best guide to these stations comes from Joerg Klingenfuss, and he's just published his "1996 Guide to Utility Radio Stations". At 604 pages, this includes 14,500 frequencies, 2000 stations, and 11,100 changes since the last edition. New for 1996 is the Aeronautical Mobile Service frequency allotment plan. A good solid work. THE 1996 SUPER FREQUENCY LIST--This is the CD-ROM version of the utility guide. It's all here, including broadcasting stations as well as utilities. Our main criticism of last year's first edition was that it didn't do more: there was no multimedia, such as recordings of stations or typical signal modes, or photo material. Also we pointed out that you couldn't do incremental searches. You could find all the stations in Sweden, for example, but couldn't narrow the search down to just the RTTY stations there. The 1996 book has a better interface, but our objections remain. It says on the Klingenfuss WWW page that would can do incremental searches, but if you can, the method is not very obvious, and we never succeeded. In addition, while you can search by country, this seems to be by some unknown abbreviation rather than the actual name of the country in question. Sweden seems to be "S". A search in the broadcast section for "Sweden" gets you the schedule for All India Radio, while "Swedish" leads to Radiuo Yugoslavia in German, and "Radio Sweden" winds up with Radio Liberty. We get the feeling this is probably a great tool, if the interface was just a little more understandable. An interesting further development would be if the CD-ROM could be used with receiver interface programs as a database. Some freeware or shrareware programs to decode digital signals might be included, or even an interface program for the most common receivers. For more information write to: 101550.514@compuserve.com or see: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/klingefuss WWW--There's a new page for Short Wave Listeners at: http://www.innotts.co.uk/~asperges/ Thorsten Koch, editor of the Internet Guide to Shortwave Broadcasters, reports that Polskie Radio in Poland has a Web site at: http://www.radio.com.pl/ The External Service is Polskie Radio 5 at: http://www.goblin.radio.com.pl/radio/pr-5.html Thorsten has restyled his excellent guide: http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~thkoch ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sweden Calling DXers/MediaScan is the world's oldest radio program about international broadcasting. Radio Sweden has presented this round-up of radio news, features, and interviews on Tuesdays since 1948. It's currently broadcast on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. Radio Sweden broadcasts in English: To Europe: 17:15 hrs 1179 and 6065 kHz 18:30 1179, 6065, 7240, and 9655 kHz (also Africa/Middle East) 21:30 1179, 6065, and 7230 kHz (also Africa/Middle East) 22:30 1179 and 6065 kHz (also Africa/Middle East) 23:30 1179 kHz Asia/Pacific: 12:30 hrs 9835, 13740, and 15240 kHz 01:30 hrs 7120 kHz North America: 13:30 hrs on 11650 and 15240 kHz 14:30 hrs on 11650 and 15245 kHz 02:30 and 03:30 hrs on 7120 kHz Latin America: 00:30 hrs on 6065 and 9850 kHz The broadcasts at 17:15 and 18:30 hrs are also relayed to Europe by satellite: Astra 1C on ZDF's transponder 33 at 10.964 GHz, audio subcarrier at 7.38 MHz Tele-X via TV5 Nordic/Femman's transponder at 12.475 GHz, audio subcarrier 7.38 MHz Radio Sweden is also relayed to Europe via the World Radio Network on VH-1's transponder 22 on Astra 1C, audio 7.38 MHz, daily at 22:00 hrs CET. Radio Sweden can also be heard on WRN's North American service on Galaxy-5, on WTBS's transponder 6, audio 6.8 MHz, daily at 21:30 and 00:00 hrs Eastern time. Our new World Wide Web page is at: http://www.sr.se/rs A multimedia version of this bulletin can be found at: http://www.sr.se/rs/english/media/scdx.htm Sound recordings of interviews from previous programs can be found at: http://www.sr.se/rs/english/media/media2.htm Sound files of Mediascan are archived at: ftp.funet.fi:pub/sounds/RadioSweden/Mediascan. You can also find the programs among the offerings of Internet Talk Radio at various sites, including: ftp://town.hall.org/radio/Mirrors/RadioSweden/MediaScan Radio Sweden news (recorded at 01:30 hrs UTC daily) as well recordings of MediaScan are available in the Real Audio format via the World Radio Network, at: http://www.wrn.org WRN programming is carried live over the Internet in the Streamworks format. The WRN server is at Internet Multicasting at: town.hall.org Contributions can be sent to DX Editor George Wood by fax to +468-667-6283 or by e-mail to: wood@rs.sr.se Reports can also be sent to: Radio Sweden S-105 10 Stockholm Sweden ************************ George Wood wood@rs.sr.se Radio Sweden http://www.sr.se/rs S-105 10 Stockholm tel: +468-784-7239 Sweden fax: +468-667-6283 ************************