In the press release published on its website, the San Marino broadcaster does not mention the two radio stations that broadcast from Monte Titano: Radio San Marino (102.7 MHz) and Radio San Marino Classic (103.2 MHz): will these also be broadcast on digital terrestrial TV? Source
RTV San Marino will get frequencies from Raito cover the Italian territory. During a meeting of the board of directors of the Italian public broadcaster, held on June 30, 2021, the proposal to transfer frequencies to the San Marino station was unanimously approved. The general manager of RTV San Marino, Carlo Romeo, recalls that thirty years ago it was the then general manager of Rai Sergio Zavoli who aired this possibility. The agreement between the two governments is now awaited, essential for the decision to become operative. It will probably have to wait until 2023, when, with the passage to DVB T2, Rai’s increased availability of transmissions will allow it to host the San Marino station in its multiplex, thus enabling it to serve the peninsula.
On the Wirtualnemedia website, you can listen to a recording in which the jingles of RM and RMF are compared. Source
The world of radio has accustomed us to the craziest stories. And this one certainly deserves a prominent place. Accomplice technology and probably… a tourist. Wirtualnemedia, a Polish site specializing in media and broadcasting, has discovered that Tunisian broadcaster RM FM had infringed copyright by using jingles from Polish radio station RMF. And in a very detailed report the site interviews an audio producer who explains technically how the infringement took place: the jingles, perfectly identical in melody and singing, are one second shorter, as the final part of the song has been cut to remove the F of RMF, since the Tunisian station is called RM. You can also see that the sound is compressed, a sign that the jingles were recorded from the net or downloaded from YouTube (where they are available) or from the site of the prestigious American production studio that made them.
A few days after the article RM no longer aired jingles
Wirtualnemedia monitoring the audio streamed by RM, and a few days after the article was published, they discovered that the counterfeit jingles were no longer being aired. So it approached the Polish network to see if it had warned the Tunisian station, but the station would not provide details. RMF is Poland’s largest network, with 30.1% of listeners between March and May 2021, according to the Radio Track survey conducted by research institute Kantar.
Radio M’saken RM FM is a station in eastern Tunisia that broadcasts on 99.8 MHz FM from Zeramdine, a town in the governorate of Monastir SourceRMF is based in Krakow and on its website it offers a summer game that has a prize pool of 520,000 zlotys (over 115,000 euros) Source
El País article analyzes the financing model of public television, currently devoid of advertising, and presents the union’s proposals Source
The UGT (Sindicato Unión General de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de España) has formally asked public broadcasting to modify its strategic plan, providing for new measures to plug budget losses. RTVE lost 31.6 million euros in 2020, and by the end of April 2021, the debt had reached 184 million euros. The main demand concerns advertising, which the union is asking to reintroduce, at least in a limited way, also to re-establish competition, today very limited because in fact 95% of the market is controlled by a duopoly. An article published in the economics section of the newspaper El País goes into the details of the proposal, analyzing the similarities with the “French model”, which inspired the financial law of the Spanish government, which provides four channels of financing for public radio and television.
On the website of the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) several pages remind listeners that in July the licence fee must be paid. One of these pages mentions the father of the country, Nelson Mandela, and one of his famous phrases Source
The image and the quotation of the famous phrase “it always seems impossible until it’s done” by Nelson Mandela, hero of the fight against apartheid and first South African president, are not enough to convince public radio and television listeners to pay the fee. The citizens of South Africa do not want to pay the 265 South African Rand: at today’s exchange rate they correspond to little more than 15 Euros, but it must be considered that income is not equally distributed: blacks receive on average less than one-fifth of the salary of a white person.
Difficult situation
The South African, one of the most widely read sites in the country, devoted an article to the SABC’s situation, and calls this attempt to make ends meet “desperate.” Source
So at the beginning of this year the SABC, in a severe budget crisis, expanded the number of subscribers to include all those who could receive streaming programs on laptops, tablets and cell phones. But it has already cashed the stop of DStv, a platform that offers programs via satellite or streaming: executives have refused to charge its subscribers, saying that they cannot act as collectors and that public broadcasting must devise other ways to finance itself.
How are public broadcasting executives elected? A comparison of the procedures adopted by six European countries
The image of the BBC’s London headquarters opens the article by Vozpópuli, ‘independent and liberal digital medium’ Source
In recent months, when the top management of Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE) was being renewed, a debate was opened in the country on the mechanisms that govern these choices. An article in the periodical Vozpópuli compared the Spanish situation with that of five other European countries: the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Italy and Germany. In Spain, the president of RTVE is chosen from a shortlist of ten candidates, six of whom are appointed by the Congress of Deputies and four by the Senate.
In Germany, the TV channel ZDF enjoys greater autonomy from political forces and the executive, in order to focus on the professionalism of the management.
A fire that devastated French repeaters on Italian territory has made it impossible to listen to various national and local programmes on the island’s east coast since 27 June 2021
The fire broke out on the night of Saturday 27 June, shortly after 11 pm. The cause is unknown, but a short circuit has been suggested. Source
Elba is a strategic location for illuminating the east coast of Corsica with radio signals. Mount Capanne is opposite Bastia and is about fifty kilometres as the crow flies from the Corsican coast, so much so that French public radio and television, in agreement with Italy, has repeaters on the summit since 1990.
Two pictures on the Radio France website show that the damage involved the mast at the station causing extensive damage. Source
The location is managed by the TDF group (a company set up in 1975 by the public broadcaster to manage the technical infrastructure), which broadcasts four radio channels from the site, including national and regional ones: France Bleu RCFM (an acronym for Radio Corse Fréquence Mora, on 88.2 MHz), France Culture (92.3); France Inter (96.8) and France Musique (99.8).
Forty years ago, Radio Corse Internationale was silenced
On the portal’s website, Italradio dedicates an in-depth study to the 1980 bombing of the Monte Capanne posts Source
Mount Capanne was also at the centre of an obscure episode, as the Italradio website writes: the attack on several repeaters on 14 August 1980, two weeks after the Bologna station massacre. A book published in France in 2013 (Histoire politique des services secrets français, Editions La Découverte) relates the four explosions to similar actions carried out by the French secret services. Among the radio stations involved was Radio Corse Internationale, a station thatsupported Corsican independence. The French government tried to use diplomatic means to stop the station but was met with disinterest from the Italian authorities. The station stopped broadcasting in 1981.
José Maria Garcia, in an archive image, during an editorial meeting Source
A challenge between two Spanish journalists, kings of the ratings and rulers of the fans, took place in Spain at the end of the last century. The programs they invented aired on two networks after midnight, and were followed by millions of Spaniards. Thirty years later, that epic battle is being celebrated by a TV series
It is a beautiful story that the Italian magazine Contrasti, a sports and cultural magazine, dedicates to the challenge between two Spanish football commentators, which took place in Spain between the eighties and nineties of the last century. The protagonists are José Maria Garcia, the true “dominus” of commentators, who earned more than soccer players (in 1987 his cachet was one billion pesetas, equal to 6 million euros today, without indexation) and his antagonist, José Ramón de la Morena.
Spanish TV, drawing on archive material, has produced a programme on the beginnings of José Maria Garcia and made it available on YouTube Source
Garcia used to broadcast on Cadena Ser (an acronym for “Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión”: today it has about 250 owned and almost 200 associated stations,) but it was from 1982, when he moved to Antena 3 Radio (a national network closed in 1994) that his season of success began. “Supergarcía“, his program aired from midnight onwards (he decided at what time to close the microphones) would be followed by over a million people. Thanks to his program, the flagship of the network, Antena 3, exceeded Cadena Ser in terms of ratings, but when the station was purchased by the competitor (which absorbed its 93 stations) Garcia moved to the antagonist network, the Catholic Cadena Cope (acronym of “Cadena de Ondas Populares Españolas”, where he remained until 2000, and then moved to Onda Cero (third in ratings, it has 220 stations), where he remained until 2002. Garcia was so popular and powerful that he could tell team presidents and ministers to go to hell, and he had a special relationship with King Juan Carlos, who gave him exclusive interviews.
José Ramón de la Morena will leave the microphones as of 30 June 2021. At 64, he has decided to devote himself to his family and his foundation and has not renewed his contract with Onda Cero. His wife, 25 years younger, gave him a son in February 2021. Source
But at some point on his way, Cadena Ser bet on a young antagonist, José Ramón de la Morena, who created a new format for the program, managing over the years to catch up, then keep up and finally overtake him. In 2002, Garcia threw in the towel, thus breaking the magic of this no-holds-barred challenge (well described in the Contrasts article). So much so that a few years later, Ramon De la Morena also lost the scepter.
Ensuring high transmission quality requires regular checks of the efficiency of the radiating systems. They must be checked to ensure that they are in line with the design specifications, avoiding power reductions or lobe distortions. ORS’s Austrian technicians have used a drone that can “measure” even the tallest towers.
The video, available on the ORS website (in German), shows the tests carried out on the tower of the Gaisberg transmission centre in Salzburg Source
Austrian public radio and television tested an innovative method of measuring antenna efficiency. The tests were carried out by theORS Group, a technical structure controlled by the public broadcaster, which is responsible for transporting content across different platforms (from terrestrial transmitters to satellite, from cable to IP). The ORS Group manages around 430 sites, regularly checking their characteristics and performance. One of the most important is on the Gaisberg (a 1288-metre mountain in the northern Alps east of Salzburg), which serves around half a million residents in Salzburg and the surrounding area.
Designed in Germany, it is shielded
The drone’s take-off phase. It can reach a height of 100 metres, enabling it to take a three hundred and sixty-degree view of even large radiant systems Source
The idea of using drones for measurements is not new, but the data was often inaccurate due to the large number of signals broadcast by the most important radiant systems and the high powers involved. But the apparatus developed by ARGE Rundfunk-Betriebstechnik (a working group made up of ten German broadcasting companies) has solved the problem thanks to shielding that allows more precise values to be obtained, making it possible to verify the characteristics of the signal and the angle of dip (the angle at which the signal must take when it leaves the antenna, in order to concentrate it in the desired listening area).
Communications Minister Fábio Faria claims that around 90 % of mobile phones sold in the country have an FM tuner, but the function is disabled for commercial reasons Source
From 1 June 2021, mobile phones manufactured in the South American country must integrate FM radio, to allow those in areas not served by the internet to get information for free. The government sees this as an opportunity for those who live far from large urban centres, where the mobile network signal is weak and FM stations are well received. As many as 40 million Brazilians do not have access to the internet, but almost all of them have a mobile phone. Smartphones will have to allow listening from 76.1 to 108 MHz: in the South American country, in fact, the FM band has been extended since 2013to allow AM stations to move to FM (1720 broadcasters out of 1781 operating on AM have requested this, but feasibility analyses are delayed).
Some images of the station’s inauguration and the speech of the police chief Mohammed Adamu Source
Accused of brutality and abuses in repressing the demonstrations that inflamed the country in October 2020, the Nigerian police, in an effort to mend fences with its citizens and rebuild its image, has opened a radio station in the capital. This is how Nigeria Police Radio got its start in Abuja, on 99.1 MHz, which provides useful information to the population and updates on the operations carried out by public security. The official inauguration was made on March 31st, 2021 by the Chief of Police, Inspector General Mohammed Adamu, but a social account on Facebook had already been activated on March 2nd, where news is relayed.
