Thursday, February 04, 2010

2010 will be known as the year of radio

The way the world changed in the first decade of the 21st century can be gauged by the year-end covers of two prominent magazines. Time Magazine (Dec 7th issue) called this decade the "Decade from Hell". In contrast, Business Today's cover (Dec 27th issue) called this decade "India's best decade." Clearly, the center of gravity of the world of business has shifted towards the East!

While Indian industry battled the slowdown of 2009 rather bravely, and the Indian economy still grew at over 7 per cent, the advertising industry wasn't that lucky. As the downturn hit the ad industry, the bean counters took over and the focus of CEOs shifted towards management of bottom lines.

The first item to be cut was obviously the advertising line. Most media companies - who rely heavily on advertising for revenues - saw revenue drops of between 5 and 25 per cent in the first nine months of 2009. While the last quarter of the year looks better, the overall growth in 2009 is still expected to end negative.

There were more companies recording revenue de-growths than those recording positive growths. For every one Colors coming in and grabbing new revenues, there was a Star Plus and Zee that lost revenues heavily. The sum total: negative growth. Borrowing the terminology of business news channels, the "market width" was negative!

The few media companies that recorded positive growths in revenues did so on the back of inorganic growth (some parts of the business did not exist last year). Or they were in the early part of their growth cycle (hence last year's comparative revenue base was small). In other words, the quarters were incomparable.

Detail story on http://www.indiantelevision.com/

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AIR to get 2 MW DRM transmitters for Gujarat, W Bengal

All India Radio (AIR) has placed an order for the supply of two 1000 kilowatt DRM capable medium wave transmitters. These will replace old analogue transmitters of same capacity at Chinsurah (West Bengal) and Rajkot (Gujarat), with state-of-the-art solid state transmitters.

The new Megawatt transmitters can be operated in analogue, in simulcast or in DRM mode with automatic change-over between these three operational modes. The transmitters shall provide coverage to very large areas in the Indian sub-continent as well to the West, North, East and Southeast Asia.

This significant purchase was revealed at the recently concluded Broadcast Engineering Society (BES) India's conference in New Delhi, attended by exhibitors and participants from all over the world. The need for cheaper digital radio sets and content innovation was highlighted by speakers during the event.

All India Radio has already chosen DRM as the technology for converting its vast analogue network to digital. This is part of its digital radio switchover strategy where more than 40 transmitters are to be made DRM capable in the near future. AIR is already broadcasting in DRM from one of its high-power shortwave transmitter located at Khampur near Delhi that covers an area of approximately 800 kilometre radius.

The DRM Consortium says the development underlines the commitment made by India to new technology in general and the DRM standard in particular.

Source: http://www.radioandmusic.com/


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Monday, February 01, 2010

UADX has published its first Newsletter

After a break of about 17 years, the Union of Asian DXers has risen like aphoenix from the ashes. The UADX has published its first Newsletter sinceJuly 1993 as a PDF file on the DXAsia website, edited now, as then, by mygood friend Victor Goonetilleke in Sri Lanka. Familiar UADX names such asGerhard Werdin, Sarath Amukotuwa & Sarath Weerakoon will also be helpingVictor, who says that the first edition of the E-Newsletter is meant as anintroduction and sample. The next edition is scheduled before the end ofFebruary. I hope SWLs and DXers amongst our readership will support thisventure.Victor has also written an article about Eclipse Monitoring on 15 January2010. A UADX blog will also be starting soon. Thanks to Alok das Gupta andhis son Abhishek for technical help in getting this material online.http://www.dxasia. info (Andy)

If you want to read the Newsletter, click here

Radio Pakistan starts Tamil service

Radio Pakistan starts Tamil service from 1 Feb 2010
1300-1330 UTC on 11525 ISL 100 kW / 147 deg & 15630vISL 100 kW / 147 deg

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