Bonaire Relay Station enters a new era

Until October, Radio Netherlands Bonaire relay station will continue with a one hour programme in Spanish and a programme for the Caribbean. After that, the station will be dismantled and the site returned to its natural state. This report from Eric Beauchemin of RNW.

Radio Netherlands Signoff in Style

Radio Netherlands Signoff, a photo by Jonathan Marks on Flickr.

Just got back from watching the very last hour of broadcasting in English from Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Holland's external broadcasting service which signed off today on shortwave, satellite, and the live audio webstream. Holland has no external broadcasting service as from July 1st 2012. International broadcasting is being taken out of the public mandate, made to create international and national public broadcasting. 

Dheera Sujan presented this final show, which was a farewell and thank you to listeners worldwide. Grabbed a copy from the Dalet machine as it was playing out and put it here. 

Also thought it might be nice to do a couple of interviews and run an audio recorder in the booth while the sign-off happened. So I did. UPDATE: Kai Ludwig in Germany sent me a capture from the satellite on Saturday so I mixed that in too. The results are posted on the Media Network vintage site here. 

Message at the gate of Radio Netherlands tonight

eery empty newsroom

Continuity centre - also empty

Last trasmnission in English is scheduled from the playout system

The RN Madagascar Relay Station calendar. Rather ominous date is ringed

Shortwave radio tuned to a special frequency for Europe (from Germany). Actually not for the last  English broadcast that was 6065 kHz

Let's head for the newsroom

Rob Kievit, producer for the final day in English from Radio Netherlands

Almost the end. 5 minutes to go.

waiting for Dheera Sujan to sign-off before adding a live ending

Jonathan Groubert closes the station for the last time

fader closes for the last time

one quick last toast of champagne

then its scrambling through the empty car park for the last train

RNW earlier this year

The RNW building has come in to land (looks like an aircraft from the air).

I thought they might video the event, but apparently the public relations department didn't think it was worth it. Oh well. There are photos on Flickr instead. 

RCI Shuts down after 67 years of shortwave service

The closedown on June 22nd was rather a flood of tears in Montreal.

Google Glasses Stunt at Google Developers Conference

I see that Google managed to get developers to get in line to pre-order Google Glasses for delivery next year. They did it by organising a spectacular relay of Sky Divers and Bikers to show off the glasses from an airship above the conference centre. Who knows what the glasses look like when you wear them?

Carts at WPLJ-FM!

Jim Cutler discovers that New York radio station WPLJ-FM still has music carts in the studio - last seen around here in the late 80's. Surprised they survived into the new millennium....

Great 208 remembered again

BBC Radio 2. Noel Edmonds narrates a two part tribute to the English service of Radio Luxembourg. Won't be up for long, so this link will expire.

Made some shows about Radio Luxembourg myself which are also on line. Like the last day of English programmes in 1992 and memories from former DJ's then working in the UK. The great 208 on 1440 kHz came from this transmitter site in Marnach, Luxembourg.

Jamie Anstey buys CBC Vancouver's record collection

Jamie Anstey buys CBC Vancouver's record collection: "Jamie Anstey has just purchased the mother of all Vancouver record collections - CBC Vancouver's record library. And that's records, not compact discs. About 50,000, in fact: 37,913 LPs, 11,780 45s, 492 78s and 462 records that are listed as "miscellaneous."

The collection had been built up since 1958, but was put up for sale when the CBC decided to centralize its music archives at a "virtual music library" in Toronto.The purchase price was not disclosed, but was probably in the $10,000 range.The library also included 31,000 CDs, which the CBC is donating to two unnamed public institutions. The CBC tried to give away the records, but found no takers, so sold them. "Nobody had enough room to store the vinyl and keep it as a complete collection," said the CBC's Ken Golemba.
The irony is, the really rare stuff is in the record collection, not the CDs."

Are News Reading Apps Game Changers?

Nic Newman, formerly of the BBC and now working with British government and Reuters Institute on how people discover news. Their five country survey tobe published next month shows that around 20% of the population are now getting their news through social networks. Nic's presentation begins at 11'32.

Storyful 2.0 in Paris, France

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The Storyful story has progressed beyond the dreams of many in this Irish Start-Up. On Friday June 1st, CEO Mark Little gave an update on how far they've got with social Journalism. Surprised to hear him say that the curation aspect is soon to be a term of the past. I'm concerned that a lot of social media feedback to radio, TV and online stations is being chucked out as soon as the story is over.

Videos from NewsWorld GEN

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HyperLocal - will it work?

ejcnet on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

It is fascinating to contrast the relatively rich Hamburg evening newspaper's work using 7 citizen reporters from its regions with that of MarsActu, Marseilles, Southern France where they have much less cash for hyperlocal sites. The French presentation (translated into English) starts at 38'43. Launched as an Internet only site in January 2010 they serve Marseilles (1 million inhabitants). The large cities have been dominated by newspaper monopolies. MarsActu employ 5 journalists and get around 100,000 unique visitors a month. They have five editions a day. They have also invested in a small digital studio for on-demand videos. Next step is go live with a chat room. Pierre Boucard recommends that people start small. Revenue is projected to be 150,000 Euro from local advertising in 2012. 350,000 Euro expected next year when they will break even. They focus on higher level discussion, business and culture leaving local sports coverage to a local daily newspaper. Their aim is to add value. They want to expand to other cities, aiming to reach 9 other cities where they believe the model will work. Pierre also noted that Huffington Post launched in France with 8 journalists. 

Performing During a Moment of Crisis

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How do we maintain ethnic standards when we live in the gale force wind of change? This panel at the Global Editors Network conference today in Paris was one of the last during an intense two and half day exchange. But it was also one of the most moving.

Niklas Lysvag is the News Editor for TV-2, the popular commercial TV network in Norway. He described the challenges facing their journalists on Friday afternoon July 22 2011. A massive fertilizer bomb went off next door to their offices in central Oslo and while they were trying to understand what just happened, reports started to come in that a massacre was also happening in Norway. TV-2 has compiled a film for internal use which they shared with the journalists in Paris for the first time. Very powerful. Very important that this analysis was made.