Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Bush Clinton Appeal Video - Lessons Learned

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund PSA from White House on Vimeo.



I think the White House needs to look at the videos made by Charitywater.org to see how they can use the power of past presidents more effectively. Both are obviously reading from the autocue - and even though they may be genuine in their resolve, it doesn't come across to me. And why so pink? May be they hired the same camera crew that made those badly framed shots during the inauguration.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Move the Dish - BBC Persian Jammed in Iran




BBC Persian Service now advising viewers in Iran how to find their signal again on another satellite. They are continuing to broadcast into Iran despite attempts to jam the station's signal. The persistent interference began soon after BBC Persian began extended coverage of the death of leading reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri. Jamming began on Sunday 20 December and affected the Hotbird 6 satellite which carries the BBC's international television and radio services in various languages as well as services from other broadcasters like IBB/RFE/RL. BBC Persian television is also carried on other satellite networks including Telstar and Eutelsat W2M, the satellite they are promoting in the video above.

The interference comes from inside Iran.

BBC Persian is one of the oldest of the BBC's non-English language services. Launched on 28 December 1940, it started as a radio service evolving only recently into a TV service serving Persian speakers in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and across the world.

I get the impression that the BBC Persian service has actually been more successful that the launch of BBC Arabic TV, partly because they have much less competition, but also because they didn't try to go 24hrs.

Russia Today campaign

 

Interested to see several of these posters across tube stations in South London. They are from the Russian satellite network Russia Today. Can you imagine similar posters twenty years ago from Radio Moscow World Service? No, neither can I.
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Saturday, January 02, 2010

Princess Rania

 
 
 
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DAB Radios

 
 
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borders2

 
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Happy New Decade! Some personal thoughts

 
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Wow - managed to survive and prosper during the noughties. Said goodbye to shortwave radio - but also started a major documentation project examining the fundamental changes affecting broadcast media. Radio still remains an important medium - it is just shortwave radio that is no longer mainstream in all but a handful of markets. There were various attempts to launch a digital variant, DRM, but that window of opportunity has closed. No-one needs DRM as a stand-alone technology.

Despite the increasing "theatre of security", i.e. all kinds of performances at airports to make us feel more secure, I still enjoy travelling and meeting people in their own context. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting hundreds of fascinating people during my safaris into emerging technology. I have learned a lot about worlds I never knew existed - and been humbled by the willingness of great minds to answer my questions. It's my hope that many of the recent interviews I've compiled will materialize into a documentary on Radio's Near Future. Thanks for your patience.

I know the media business is tough for many. In the content business, we all have to work longer and harder to get the same financial results we enjoyed just a few years ago. But I feel the friendships I've made in the last couple of years are deeper, more robust and meaningful than in the boom years of business card collecting and "First Tuesdays". Those were the friendships made face-to-face, sometime triggered by social networks like Linked-In and Facebook. I find these networks are great to amplify or reactivate existing relationships, but not much use for starting new ones.

If you came to this website by design rather than by accident, it could be we work together or have done so in the past. I'm fortunate in being able to look back on a wide variety of commissions, - there were none that I didn't enjoy doing. Thanks for your confidence in what I do with Critical Distance and for collaborating on great ideas.

Let's make the next decade even more productive, starting with a successful 2010! I hope our paths cross often.

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