Al Jazeera - a continuing target

Events in Egypt have been unfolding on the TV screens of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world - although if you watch domestic Egyptian TV you will get a picture that contrasts with what every other news organisation in the world is depicting.

Here in the AIB offices, we're monitoring regional Arabic-language channels and the output of Nile TV's domestic and international channels. While stations such as Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera show live pictures of the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, Nile TV shows locked off cameras trained on all but deserted streets and bridges near the ERTU headquarters building. As I write this blog, Nile TV domestic is running another of its patriotic "life is great in Egypt" fillers, with smiling children, teachers, business people and shopkeepers, all with the Egyptian flag in shot. It's like turning the clock back to the days of the Soviet Union when Radio Moscow broadcast propaganda saying how wonderful life was in the country - no mention of bread shop queues, four year waits to buy a car and so on.

The international news media has been working extremely hard to bring the real news about what's happening across Egypt to viewers and listeners throughout the world. And Al Jazeera Network deserves special mention as it has been subject to immense challenges by the Egyptian authorities. Firstly their broadcasts were interfered with, then their bureau in Cairo closed, then six AJN correspondents and news crew detained and their kit confiscated (although they were allowed to go free subsequently).

AIB has condemned the moves by the Egyptian authorities, issuing a statement on 30 January and writing to the Egyptian ambassadors in London, Doha and Washington asking for the restrictions on Al Jazeera to be lifted. This was echoed by Philip J Crowley, Assistant Secretary of State who tweeted: "We are concerned by the shutdown of#Al-Jazeera in #Egypt and arrest of its correspondents. Egypt must be open and the reporters released."

This represents quite a change of heart by the US authorities towards the Qatar-based international broadcaster.

Al Jazeera Network Director General Wadah Khanfar contributed to The Huffington Post on 31 January with a call for Al Jazeera to be made available on US TV networks.

We have not seen the end of the Egyptian story - it's essential that international news media are allowed to report events without hindrance. I hope that the situation improves for Al Jazeera in Egypt and doesn't get any worse for other news media operating in the country.

Monitor the output...everywhere

While carrying out research today for a paper I'm writing, I checked some websites of major international channels. And I discovered that it's almost impossible for media companies to be across their entire output.

It used to be simple in the old analogue days - in the BBC, a Presentation Department report at the close of transmission each day provided a summary of faults on individual transmitters, so that the powers that be could see where audiences hadn't been able to watch BBC1, for example, after a piece of kit broke down.

Today, it's rather more complicated and not only do broadcasters have to make sure that everything is OK in the studio, but also across multiple distribution networks feeding multiple platforms. And that's just the programming. What about the website? When the whole site crashes, then it's glaringly obvious that there's a problem. But when one part of it stops working, then it's quite difficult to see.

So, discovering a problem, I have fired off e-mails and text messages to various people in the hope of them kicking someone who can fix this small, but annoying, problem on the channel's website. One that could prevent people from watching the programme they want to see. I hope that they manage to correct it soon.

The moral of the story...make sure that staff check not only the live output on the screen (or loudspeaker, for radio), but also what the public can see on the web. Otherwise, you start to look rather unprofessional. Now, how's the AIB website performing?

New Year, so resolutions?

OK, OK, I haven't managed to write this blog regularly, and perhaps a New Year's resolution ought to be for me to discipline myself to be more prolific online!

Mind you, I'm not particularly keen on NY resolutions as I think one becomes a hostage to fortune by suggesting that one will do new things, or do things better. Anyway, I will do my best to keep this more up-to-date in 2011.

So what's happening in AIB at the moment. We're just finishing off the latest edition of our international media magazine, The Channel, which goes to press on 11 January. The magazine will be distributed at some major events around the world such as Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February and the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha the following month.

I will be at both these events, discovering in Barcelona, I hope, the latest developments in mobile and mobile content and the potential for content distribution. AIB is organising a member-only private networking dinner to bring AIB members into contact with senior executives from across the mobile industry.

And we have the first AIB member-only conference call on 12 January and then there's lots going on with research for our market intelligence briefings and planning the 2011 AIBs.

So, best wishes for a very Happy New Year and let's hope that despite continuing uncertainty in global finance and rising food prices, 2011 is a great year!

AIBs getting closer

It's been a manic few weeks and it looks as though the pressure is not going to ease over the coming weeks, either.

AIB is in the final stages of planning its sixth annual AIBs - the international media excellence awards - with our judges now looking through and listening to the short-listed entries.

We're gearing up for the awards evening, taking place in London on Tuesday 9 November at LSO St Luke's - a venue that's proved immensely popular with guests to the AIBs over the past two years. More information is online at theaibs.tv.

Meanwhile we've seen a sudden surge in orders for our international directory - the AIB Global Broadcasting Sourcebook. It's the only global directory that includes TV, radio, online, satellite, cable and IPTV that's updated every month. That must be why it's proving popular...

Temperatures hot up, as do competitions

Here in the UK we're basking in extremely warm temperatures...after a wash-out summer in 2009 (which the UK's Met Office had predicted would be a scorcher), 2010 looks set to have a hot, dry summer.

And as the temperature increases outside, it is getting warmer in the AIB office. The phones are ringing off the hook and the world's courier companies are busy delivering packages of Digibeta tapes and CDs - all entries to this year's AIBs, the international media excellence awards.

We have entries from every continent and more are on the way - and many broadcasters, production houses and tech companies have asked us for more time to get their entries to us. So, we've agreed to an extension to the closing date.

Instead of the original date of 2 July, we've extended the closing date to Friday 16 July at 1600 GMT. That's the final cut-off for entries to reach us - giving people another ten working days to get their material to us.

We're looking forward to a great competition this year, with a great panel of judges (who are looking forward to the judging process, they are telling me) and great support from the industry via sponsorship: Eurosport is the latest company to agree to sponsor the 2010 AIBs, alongside Bloomberg Television, Advanced Digital Broadcast and 1GOAL.

Make sure you get your entries in by 16 July.

Entries heading our way

Entries for the 2010 AIBs, the international media excellence awards, are arriving at AIB head office from all over the world.

It's great to see another immense range of programmes being submitted into the sixth annual AIBs from broadcasters everywhere in the world, from New Zealand to Qatar, Germany to the Netherlands, Chile to the USA.

At the same time, there are entries for the technology category arriving, highlighting some of the great technical solutions for the broadcasting industry.

So now is the time to get your entry into us before the competition closes on 2 July. Look at the entry booklet here: http://www.aib.org.uk/onlinepubs/aibs_2010_entry/Entrybook.swf.

And you can see a short video of the 2009 AIBs here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AIBLondon#p/a/u/1/yqkfRWTI7o0.

Green light for MIP

After a little bit of worry, I'm delighted to say that Reed MIDEM have now confirmed that the AIB's press registration has been cleared!

Thanks, Audrey, for sorting this out...