Search

Cartoons have been and still are a fundamental genre in children's television programming and are a key product for the media industry due to their easy interpretation by children and their presence in distribution channels. This paper presents an analysis of the supply of children's and cartoons broadcast over the last decade on 25 European general-interest television channels, both public and private, of Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. The research findings focus on the genre programming strategies applied in terms of channels, broadcasting time slots and types of production in a multiplatform context driven by the consumption of digital content through streaming and SVOD services. The results show the continued leadership of cartoons in an environment of scarcity of children's supply on European generalist television channels, reaffirming itself as a morning and weekend product highly shaped by commercial logics. However, distinctive programmatic policies are prominent in the role of public broadcasters in the supply of domestic products, both due to the broadcasting quotas of local cartoons and the consistency of their strategy over the period 2010-2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the potential for an HDTV delivery format with 1920 x 1080 pixels progressive scanning and 50 frames per second in broadcast applications. The paper discusses the difficulties in characterizing the display to be assumed for reception. It elaborates on the required bit rate of the 1080p/50 format when critical content is coded in MPEG-4 H.264 AVC Part 10 and subjectively viewed on a large, flat panel display with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. The paper describes the initial subjective quality evaluations that have been made in these conditions. The results of these initial tests suggest that the required bit-rate for a 1080p/50 HDTV signal in emission could be kept equal or lower than that of 2nd generation HDTV formats, to achieve equal or better image quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to review current policy and practice in management of analogue-digital switch in broadcasting. Design/methodology/approach - The paper adopts a case study approach. Findings - The paper finds that with regard the objectives of switch-off, the broad policy aims of clearing spectrum, modernising infrastructure, and improving the services to the consumer are shared across the major countries studied. Uncertainty about the cash value and potential alternative uses of spectrum is natural given rapid technological change, but the common potential broadcasting uses include mobile television, high definition digital terrestrial television, and more digital broadcasters and channels, including regional and local developments. Research limitations/implications - The study is restricted to Europe, Japan and North America. Practical implications - The study has implications for assessment of European switchover strategies and role of Digital Terrestrial. Originality/value - There are some overviews, but none of so up to date, nor with this geographical coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the enablers for new consumer electronics based products to be accepted in to the market is the availability of inexpensive, flexible and multi-standard chipsets and services. DVB-T, the principal standard for terrestrial broadcast of digital video in Europe, has been extremely successful in leading to governments reconsidering their targets for analogue television broadcast switch-off. To enable one further small step in creating increasingly cost effective chipsets, the ODFM deterministic equalizer has been presented before with its application to DVB-T. This paper, discusses the test set-up of a DVB- T compliant baseband simulation that includes the deterministic equalizer and DVB-T standard propagation channels. This is then followed by a presentation of the found inner and outer Bit Error Rate (BER) results using various modulation levels, coding rates and propagation channels in order to ascertain the actual performance of the deterministic equalizer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital satellite multimedia broadcasting services in Europe are specified in the Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) frequency band by two recently developed standards, namely the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Satellite Digital Radio (SDR) and the Digital Video Broadcasting—Satellite services to Handhelds (DVB-SH) standards. Commercial deployment of operational systems based on these standards is foreseen in the coming years targeting mainly six large European markets. For these standards, a state-of-the-art channel code is deployed based on the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) specifications having a wide range of coding rates. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (i) It studies and compares, for the first time, the Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of the 3GPP2 turbo code used in the aforementioned systems, in order to serve as a benchmark for system design engineers; and (ii) It investigates novel alternative channel coding schemes, including other state-of-the-art turbo code configurations and also Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes with linear-time encoding, such as the Irregular Repeat-Accumulate (IRA) codes, in order to improve the performance and/or reduce the complexity in future mobile satellite broadcasting systems. Extensive performance evaluation results in the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and uncorrelated Rayleigh/Rician fading channels have shown that the use of turbo codes with higher number of states improves performance against the 3GPP2 turbo codes of up to 0.25 dB but the decoding complexity is almost doubled. Furthermore, the use of duo-binary turbo codes reduces decoding latency and makes them more robust in puncturing with performance improvement against the 3GPP2 turbo codes of up to 0.3 dB but performance degrades at very low coding rates. On the other hand, the use of Rate Compatible (RC)-IRA codes results in smaller performance improvement against the 3GPP2 turbo codes, i.e. up to 0.1 dB, but rate compatibility is used to obtain different coding rates with simple puncturing/extending method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main objective of the ESA ARTES 5.1 Contract 20887/07/NL/LvH 'Verification of Propagation Impairment Mitigation Techniques' with Politecnico di Milano as Prime, ONERA and Space Engineering as subcontractors, was to validate the channel models and related input data appropriate for the design, analysis and/or control phase of Propagation Impairments Mitigation Techniques (PIMTs), both for the Broadcasting Satellite Service (BSS) and the Interactive Multimedia Broadband Service (IMMBS). For the BSS scenario, which is the focus of this paper, the On Board Antenna Pattern Reconfiguration (OBAPR) PIMT is investigated, using as channel models the rain field generators able to provide the spatial distribution of rain across the service area on the basis of large-scale meteorological forecasts. Their performance were tested using either radar data or a large dataset of beacon measurements collected in Europe during the OLYMPUS experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the impact of digitization on television. Early treatments of digital television (DTV) have become outdated by technical and market developments. This paper reviews these developments and reconsiders the public policy and regulatory issues surrounding DTV, particularly with respect to public service broadcasting in Europe. Convergence trends are examined and we find that it happens, but differently than expected. This raises serious doubts concerning whether current models and conceptualizations of public service broadcasting can address future challenges of pluralism and diversity if they remain constrained by traditional understandings of broadcasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts the schedule-oriented approach against the content-oriented strategy of public broadcasters. It presents data collected in 1999 and 2000 at the Finnish public broadcasters (YLE) and offers this as a concrete example of the challenges which European public broadcasters face on the way to digital convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early of nineties the dual broadcasting sys-tem in the young country in the middle of Europe enabled to develop television broadcasting to the scale of what viewers previously even had not dreamed of. Commercial television broadcasting prevailed in five and a half million country. Pri-vate broadcasting gained control of the more than forty-year-old state-owned service of TV broad-casting and sent it to the role of a statistical mar-gin. Confidence of the first one - and later fol-lowed by other private televisions - has grown faster than the numbers of audience. Directors with the influence of legislators, unbeatable man-agers determined the transmission time programs from a week to week. This is termed as finding the optimal time based on audience preferences. The result is today's big television chaos for the viewers, who, as a consequence of unpredictable changes in the broadcasting of televisions cease to be interested. For many years the most viewed channel has dropped to the level of underrated rivals and the panic, which it suddenly started, make them produce more fatal changes. All in the name of the audience and excellent numbers of boxes called people meters. The same problem also faces other post-communist country, the second part of the former Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic. The paper focuses on analysis and evaluation of Slovak television sphere (partly in comparison with the Czech), which seems, after twenty years of dual broadcasting, to gather a real media competition. But not everybody likes it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is twofold: First we discuss what can be regarded as quality in TV entertainment and how it's promoted or regulated by different media systems. We argue that the public value of entertainment depends on its quality. Thus, there should be a difference between entertainment programming in public service and commercial broadcasts. A brief review of discussion on media quality is provided in order to distinguish the perspective of recipients, producers and regulators. We find three different types of quality criteria: Minimum standards apply to all broadcasters, while Public Service Broadcasters (PSB) must address rather fuzzy additional criteria derived from their respective mandates. Small states impose additional criteria to protect their market and culture. To fulfill our second objective, we present findings from a comparative study in five European countries with different media systems about the role perception of TV commissioners in the production process of entertainment programming and their commitment to quality content. We find that commissioners at PSBs have generally internalized their programming mandates. They allocate higher importance to quality dimensions that address a public value, however, when it comes to tangible commissioning decisions they generally use the same decision criteria in the same ranking as their counterparts in commercial broadcasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, the British company Mecom bought up the Norwegian company Orkla Media, an important player in eight European countries. The article discusses the possible effects from two perspectives, (1) Hallin and Mancini's 'Three Models of Media and Politics' and (2) the old and new media order described by the Norwegian 'Power and Democracy' study. From perspective (1), the takeover will put the Norwegian media system to the test, as Mecom represents the liberal and Norway the democratic corporatist model. The article examines the takeover in relation to the criteria Hallin and Mancini use to distinguish between the models, and pays particular attention to the burden of defining one's journalistic stand as social responsibility, drawing partly on lessons from the US. With regard to perspective (2), it is noted that Norway has already implemented salient features of the liberal model. Mecom, however, adds an international dimension, and its commercialism may be different from that of Norway's new media order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1990, the European Commission did not even mention public service broadcasting (PSB) in a 'Communication' on the Community's audio-visual policy (European Commission 1990). Soon afterwards, complaints against aid to PSB (Harrison and Woods 2001) forced the Commission to tackle the issue. The Commission and other Community authorities have since had to devote a great deal of attention to PSB. The ensuing debate, pitting a cultural perspective on the media against an economic one, and the resolution of that debate so far, illuminate wider issues of the evolution and changing foci of media policy in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public service broadcasting (PSB) in its traditional form is the product of a long gone era. Social, technological, ideological and cultural change has altered the entire context within which public broadcasting operates. Also media policy has evolved, moving beyond its "public service" phase to a new paradigm, devoted primarily to economic goals. With these changes, attitudes to PSB are changing, too. It is increasingly treated as an exception to the "normal" market-based rules governing broadcasting, indeed an anomaly. In this paper we will seek to ascertain the effects of these changed attitudes, especially in terms of efforts to develop a precise definition of public broadcasting, and of evolution from "autonomy" to a "controlled public service" model of PSB. This involves a multitude of accountability systems, designed to ensure that PSB remains true to its remit and performs the service it was created to deliver. Defining public service broadcasting is notoriously difficult, all the more so that at least 9 models appear in European debates. Also developing accountability systems for PSB is far from easy because of the many contradictory views of the "product" that PSB is expected to "deliver." The question of auditing is part of a much wider debate on what public broadcasting to do to become more relevant to society today and how it needs to safeguard its own future. The main problem, however, is that imposition of "box-ticking" accountability systems based on outdated concepts on an institution in the midst of redefining itself could stop its modernization and thwart its ability to find a new identity in a much-changed context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the need to maintain independent media broadcast facilities in Europe. Role of electronic media in Western Europe; Need to preserve diversity in program content; Need for public consensus on the use and control of mass media.

This article focuses on the launch of IREN, Europe's new International Radio Research Network on April 2004. IREN, a play on acronyms in several languages, is the child of 13 partners coming from 10 European countries. Its aims are to improve knowledge of radio at national and European level; to encourage theoretical and applied research in the field; and thereby enhance the status of the medium. IREN is funded by the European Commission for two and a half years by which time it will have set up an association to continue the work of coordination and support across Europe. Younger researchers and academics from the new European Union member countries will be especially encouraged. The rich variety of disciplines within which radio is studied has the potential for fruitful interdisciplinary exchange if the infra-structural conditions can be supplied. What essentially is lacking at present are places and occasions to meet and share viewpoints and findings. IREN's programme provides a starting point: the launch meeting, hosted by the Radio Research and Study Group in Bordeaux in April, the University of Siena's International Radio Summer School in July and a conference in Spain at the end of February 2005, cover a wide variety of themes as well as demonstrating two other aspects of the initiative: a wish to open a dialogue with broadcasting professionals, and an interest in links with countries of the developing world.

DVB standards are currently being implemented in various countries, not only in Europe, but also around the world. In order to meet various consumers' demands, the DVB standards support interactive services. Among the interactive broadcasting services, DVB-RCT based on OFDM can be used for interactive broadcasting service in terrestrial broadcasting network. To improve the DVB-RCT system performance, a combining of MIMO signal processing with OFDM is very efficient solution. To detect the received MIMO signal with low complexity, an efficient detection technique with K-best scheme is proposed in this paper. The proposed technique can overcome the limitations of K-best scheme which are performance limitation and high complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides information about the book "The Economics, Technology and Content of Digital TV. Economics of Science, Technology and Innovation," vol. 15, edited by Darcy Gerbarg. The book includes sixteen papers deal with technological, programming, economic and international issues relating to the transition from analog to digital TV broadcasting. Papers discuss the evolution of television technology, converging computer and television image portrayal, the FCC digital television standards decision, digital technology and its application to television, digital data broadcasting, content and services for the new digital TV environment, programming, its control, and how digital TV may be a catalyst for a change, interactive television, inhabited TV, a digital television business ecosystem, digital television and program pricing, the economics of digital TV's future, broadcasting and bandwidth, public television's digital future, the path from analog high-definition TV to digital TV in Japan, and digital television in Europe and Japan. Contributors to the book are heads of corporations involved in digital communications or academics in fields of political science, communications, economics and engineering.

Drawing on fieldwork among Kurdish broadcasters in Turkey and Europe, this article shows how ethnic media mediate nationhood in a conflict context. Despite rising interest in the media–nationhood nexus, and the expansion of studies on ethnic media, little is known about ethnic media in conflicts involving state and non-state actors. This study investigates three Kurdish broadcasters, Roj-TV, Gün-TV, and TRT-6. The collected data include expert interviews and informal conversations with employees. Through a grounded theory approach, a model is developed that proposes four modes of mediated nationhood, in which the relation to the state and the role of ethnicity are key elements. Next, it is demonstrated how mediated nationhood in conflicts is characterized by multiple constraints, and how this affects the perceived roles and ethnic belongings among media professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The promise of convergence and the maturing internet appear to create arenas of communicative plenty but, instead of the end of spectrum scarcity, we are witnessing a new challenge of ‘coexistence’ and fierce competition over spectrum between the broadcasters and mobile telecom providers. Some European countries have already decided on further reductions in the broadcast spectrum, though the vast majority disagreed with the mobile industries’ proposal at the World Radiocommunication Conference in November 2015 that the entire ultra high frequency band should in future be shared by mobile broadband and broadcasting. This article explores the proposition that broadcasting requires adequate spectrum in order to deliver the information and cultural assets that are vital for citizenship, at a cost likely to remain significantly lower than comparable service delivered via subscription or broadband providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across a sample of twenty-seven European nations, we examine variation in the level of factual political knowledge in relation to self-reported exposure to news programs aired by public or commercial channels, and to broadsheet or tabloid newspapers. Unlike previous studies, we estimate the effects of exposure to these news outlets while controlling for self-selection into the audience. Our results show that the positive effects of exposure to broadsheets and public broadcasting on knowledge remain robust. Finally, we show that only exposure to broadsheets (and not to public broadcasting) narrows the knowledge gap within nations; relatively apathetic individuals who read broadsheet newspapers are able to "catch up" with their more attentive counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses public service broadcasting in Europe, looking at public broadcasters' role as promoters of participative processes. Computer-mediated communication and studies rooted in mediated human interactivity are used to explore participative elements provided by digital technology, and how these can be incorporated into the news websites, through an empirical study of 5 case studies in the European market. The analysis is based on the methodology of content analysis with the goal of outlining the particularities of the participative elements implemented by each broadcaster and revealing the most common participative strategies. The findings suggest that although public service broadcasters offer a wide variety of possibilities, encouraging audiences to take on more active roles, their role is still peripheral and complementary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses various issues related to brand management in the public service sector in European broadcasting. He discusses why developing mastery is so difficult for public service broadcasting (PSB) firms and suggest that the difficulties indicate why the challenge is important for next stage development in the sector. He states that branding poses challenges for PSB as well.

Digital-video-broadcasting-terrestrial (DVB-T) systems affected by in-channel interference are dealt with here. Attention is mainly paid to the experimental assessment of the video quality perceived by the end user when only in-channel interference degrades the transmission path. To this aim, a number of experiments are conducted through a proper testbed, which enlists a flexible DVB-T broadcasting platform. To confer reliability and generality to the research activity, different configurations of the transmission platform parameters are arranged; moreover, common types of interference are taken into account. Due to a proper cross-layer measurement approach, valuable relations involving values that physical and modulation quantities and application-level metrics assume at the same time are deduced. The ultimate goal is to derive helpful information and hints for designers and technicians that are to be applied to efficiently optimize the performance of a DVB-T system whenever in-channel interference is of major concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State and community authorities face up to the task of redefining the legal framework affecting European television services, with the challenge of adopting a configuration capable of assimilating the multiple requirements consequent on the complex nature of television. Communitarian Law has participated in this process, proposing a new perspective built on the definition of television services as general economic interest services. European jurisprudence in audiovisual matters has to address the consequences of incorporating this regulation alongside national laws. Competitiveness between operators, control of possible exceptions, the redefinition of the public service mission – these are some of the consequences of the Communitarian perspective. Although the Communitarian perspective has benefits and drawbacks, its contributions allow the construction of a more stable television model, producing new market regulation, and, above all, with the aim of protecting citizen interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on algorithms in the integrity processing facility (IPF) of the Ground Mission Segment (GMS) of Galileo, the European Global Navigation Satellite System. Real-time alerts regarding satellite status are provided by the integrity algorithms of the GMS. In the Galileo integrity concept, the signal-in-space accuracy (SISA) plays a significant part as it should deal with the navigation message errors in fault-free conditions. The real-time processing component of the GMS, that is, the IPF, provides integrity information for the broadcast satellite navigation data.

European audiovisual legislation focuses exclusively on a concept of external pluralism. It therefore seems necessary to adopt other policies and develop new measures to guarantee diversity. In order to implement this reform, a new, richer concept of pluralism must be sought that reflects the reality of the market. This would enable us to devise instruments to measure the real presence of pluralism in the media, and perform effective regulation to defend this right at every level. The aim of this study is to examine the scope of this problem in the content of public and private broadcasting in different European countries, and then suggest a redefinition of pluralism and cultural diversity, together with new forms of evaluation that could guarantee that both values are present in sufficient measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how pay television (TV) piracy affects the legal providers of pay TV services in Europe. It describes the main TV players in the European market, namely, the Conditional Access Systems (CAS) used in the European Union, the European pay TV piracy market, and the most important technologies used. Moreover, it also discusses the effects of pay TV piracy on CAS providers and pay TV providers as well as proposed anti-piracy measures for protection against pay TV piracy in the region.

This article elucidates the role of issue news and personality news in Germany and the Netherlands. A party with a popular leader is assumed to benefit from increased media attention. A party may also benefit from issue news. News on an issue favours its ‘issue owner’ (e.g. the German Social Democrats in the case of news on social security). Good news on issue developments (e.g. rising employment) favours the parties who make up the Dutch coalition government, whereas bad news (e.g. rising unemployment) favours opposition parties. Content analysis of the 1994 and 1998 election campaigns in Germany and the Netherlands shows that issue news and personality portrayal vary heavily between countries and between subsequent elections within one country. A broad comparison of news patterns and election outcomes suggests that election outcomes do indeed correspond with the news. A closer examination of effects of news about issues and party leaders on party preference at the level of individual respondents confirms the results of the exploratory analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of governments in the transition in cable policy in the three largest media countries of Europe (Britain, France and Germany). In theoretical terms it is argued that the involvement of governments in determining the course of development of cable systems has comprised three main stages. In the first stage, governments tried to ignore cable and prevent the establishment of cable infrastructure. In the second stage, governments regulated the technology in order to promote a national cable policy and encourage the overall development of the broadcasting media. In the third stage, although at different speeds and perceptions, governments deregulated cable by giving permission to market forces to dominate cable's development and abandoning the social goals of cable policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the significance of the dispute between the United States and the European Community over the Community's October 1989 directive on transfrontier television. Characterization of the issue by the U.S. as a free trade issue; Populist rhetoric used by protagonists to justify their claims; Analysis of why the European Community embarked on the task of creating a pan-European broadcasting policy.

This article demonstrates that the cost of public service broadcasting is dependent on the wealth and size of the country, and that, whatever its social and political environment public service broadcasting companies show identical characteristics. The supply of programmes is determined by such variables as the number of TV receivers, the number of channels and the existence of advertising as a source of finance. The introduction of advertising is shown to increase the length of programmes without providing new resources, with the consequence that the quality of programming decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confronted with the privatization of communications in particular and the deregulation of state-linked structures in general, many critical researchers have come to defend public service broadcasting (PSB), despite their previous criticism of both PSB and commercial broadcasting. This article examines the arguments in the debate over the future of PSB in Europe and argues that important developments in new media mean this debate is no longer simply two-sided. Taking account of these new media and drawing on the Belgian example, the author evaluates three possible scenarios for the future of PSB — immobility, free competition, or PSB organized as an audiovisual `holding' — and proposes an alternative Le Monde-like restructuring of PSB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the dynamic changes in broadcasting industry. The author explores the adoption of broadcasting monopoly in Europe, in which he says that the adoption was motivated by political and ideological considerations. The author states that reawakening of regional spirit and the demand of political parties have promoted the decentralization in broadcasting industry, mentioning that the decentralization may reflect to the regional differences in culture, language, and historical tradition. It discusses the four process of change in the industry such as commercialization, specialization, and decentralization.