international broadcasting
At this week’s MIPTV Media Market in Cannes, France, which officially kicked off on Sunday, Israeli production companies Armoza Formats and Keshet Media Group have already closed major deals for TV formats to be developed and distributed in the United States, Canada, France and Thailand.
As part of the CPD Annual Review, we highlight some of the year’s key public diplomacy moments in our Top 10 List of the most notable stories from 2013.
Sherine B. Walton, Editor-in-Chief
Naomi Leight, Managing Editor
Sohaela Amiri, Associate Editor
Colin Hale, PD News Contributing Researcher
Latvia is joining Lithuania in banning Russian state television broadcasts because it found that several programs about the Ukraine crisis were tendentious and not in the Baltic nation’s security interests.
The BBC is to make its “greatest commitment to the arts for a generation” with a new focus on bringing culture to the masses. The corporation has recruited Sir Nicholas Serota, head of the Tate, and the National Theatre’s artistic director Nicholas Hytner as advisers. Sir Tony Hall, the BBC director-general, said he wanted BBC Arts to be as recognisable around the world as BBC News and BBC Sport.
U.S. National Security Advisor to President Obama Susan Rice and U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel are promoting through social media State Department’s response to Putin’s propaganda machine. The Obama Administration has offered so far very little help to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees such journalistic media outlets as Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and the Voice of America (VOA).
For journalists in Ukraine, safety has become a leading concern. Radio Svoboda, the Ukrainian branch of Radio Free Europe, had been covering the protests (in Ukrainian) since they started in November.
The United Arab Emirates has started to ban its citizens from working at Qatari media outlets following its recent decision to withdraw its ambassador from Doha. The UAE government has requested a number of prominent anchors to terminate their contracts with the Doha-based Bein Sports network (formerly Al-Jazeera Sports).