Archive for March, 2006
Thursday, March 30th, 2006
An interesting, and rather complex, challenge facing public service broadcasters is what services to provide to those outside the state in which they are based, and how to fund such services. The BBC has announced plans to generate advertising on bbc.com, which is to be the portal for those accessing ...
Posted in Public Service Media | Comments Off on BBC to sell advertising on international website?
Thursday, March 30th, 2006
When I was in Ireland last year - it must have been in January, though it doesn't seem that long ago - I caught a documentary on RTÉ focused on the life of John McGahern, the great Irish author. I was deeply struck not just by the quality of the ...
Posted in Society and culture | Comments Off on The passing of John McGahern
Sunday, March 26th, 2006
The MCPS and PRS in the United Kingdom have just launched a licensing scheme for music in podcasts. Interestingly, it allows non-DRM'd podcasts, but only if the first and last 10 seconds of the track are obscured with speech or a station ID. That's a long fade. It also appears ...
Posted in Intellectual property issues | Comments Off on Copyright licensing for music in podcasts
Friday, March 24th, 2006
The BCI has just launched the second stage of their consultation process on the proposed Code of Programme Standards. Responses should be sent to codes@bci.ie by 16 May. In the previous stage they asked which issues should be covered by the code; here they ask what specific guidelines should be ...
Posted in Media regulation | Comments Off on BCI consultation on programme standards
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
Michael D. is taking part in an Oireachtas delegation to D.C. that will push for support for the Kennedy-McCain legislation on undocumented immigrants. That legislation is facing pressure from other regressive proposals, and it's going to come to a head soon, with the conference report (on reconciling proposals from the ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity | Comments Off on Oireachtas delegation to lobby US Congress on migration reform
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
Liberation is reporting that community radio is in danger in France due to a plan to phase out the current funding support that the station receive. At present the stations are automatically entitled to financial support (which comes from a tax on the advertising receipts of commercial stations) as long ...
Posted in Alternative Media, Media regulation, Radio | Comments Off on Policy change could spell woe for community radio in France
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
The BCI have advertised for applications for community of interest stations serving student communities in Galway, Cork and Limerick. This is, essentially, part of the renewal process for Flirt FM, Cork Campus Radio, and Wired FM. They have also advertised for a community of interest station serving the Irish language ...
Posted in Radio | Comments Off on Community stations licenses up for renewal
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
Irish Labour Party President Michael D. Higgins is introducing a bill to establish the rights of freelance workers to be represented by a trade union in collective bargaining. According to Michael D.:The introduction of this Bill would be the most effective way of redressing the curtailment of ...
Posted in Labour issues | Comments Off on Michael D seeks to restore union rights for freelance workers
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
A worrying report that RTE dropped Pat Rabbitte as an interviewee after the Minister for Justice demanded that he only be interviewed by himself and not with any other politician. While I don't believe it's unprecedented for RTE to bow to requests from potential interviewees - and there's a certain ...
Posted in Media regulation | Comments Off on RTE bowing to government pressure?
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
The Irish government is investigating introducing Performance Related Pay (PRP) for university professors:While PRP could lessen the academic freedom enjoyed by professors, it could also provide pay bonuses of up to 20 per cent for those identified as "top performers". Already, universities can break their pay scales to offer competitive ...
Posted in Education | Comments Off on Endangering academic freedom, or improving performance?