MUMBAI: Television news broadcasters want ratings data weighing their performances to halt for a longer period of time as many of them negotiate to seal carriage deals with cable TV operators on their digital networks.

Living with something that has been a constant shadow of his life for years, the chief executive officer of a leading news organisation says that the weekly ratings released by TAM Media Research would not reflect an actual picture at this stage when their channels are yet to settle on digital cable TV.

?Several news broadcasters are yet to sign their carriage deals. Since the placement of the channels on the digital cable networks are not fixed and the EPG (electronic programme guide) is also not finalised, it will be unfair to have ratings during this period. There is a ?pick up? issue and for niche and news genres the margin of error in capturing true ratings can be wild,? says the executive on condition of anonymity.

Pouring their energies into persuading the government, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has managed to defer the release of ratings data for at least a few days. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has called for a meeting, likely to be held on Friday, between the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the NBA, Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

TAM, India?s sole TV audience measurement agency, was supposed to report on 19 December the data for the last nine weeks in a digitised environment. This would have for the first time captured the viewing trends after the four metros went cable digital on 1 November, something which the media agencies have been particularly waiting for as they decide on distributing advertising spends for their clients.

News broadcasters fear the ratings would go against them in this fluid situation when many of them have not sorted out the distribution of their channels and the set-top box (STB) deployment has behaved erratically in the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai that fell under digitisation in the first phase.

?Even seeding the STBs took time. It may have picked up faster in Delhi and Mumbai, but Kolkata was nowhere in the scene in the initial days. Chennai is still bad. And ideally the EPG should have been in place by 1 November. The data can be accurate when things stabilise first,? says a senior executive working in a TV news outfit.

Kolkata has made progress and the I&B ministry has cracked the whip for switching off of all analogue television signals in the West Bengal state capital by 27 December. Chennai is the only city still to go digital as the Madras High Court is hearing a petition filed by associations of cable operators. The court has scheduled a hearing in the last week of this month.

Another issue of worry is that while some news broadcasters (particularly those who are part of larger networks who have entertainment channels in their product portfolio) have concluded their carriage deals, the others who are still negotiating with the multi-system operators (MSOs) will be under tremendous pressure if the ratings data steps out of the doorstep of TAM.

?There is still an imbalance for those whose carriage deals are pending. For the news genre which has a small share in the overall TV viewing universe, this state of flux can be very harmful,? says the head of distribution at a news company who is yet to finalise carriage deals with some MSOs.

Already reeling under pressure to up their revenues, news broadcasters do not want media agencies to further dictate terms. ?We need more time for things to settle,? says the CEO of a news network.

There is a bigger worry for the TV news outlets. For correcting their business models, they need their ballooning carriage payouts to shrink. They fear that the "pre-mature" release of ratings data at this stage will reduce their bargaining power with the MSOs they are in discussions with for fixing the carriage amounts.

With all these anxieties in mind, it is no surprise that news broadcasters have found new energy in their campaign against the immediate release of ratings data by TAM. But it remains to be seen how long the broadcasting community will unite to stick to this common purpose. Entertainment networks, who spend big budgets on their programming, will need to know how their shows have been accepted among their audiences and, more importantly, they need to tell this to the media agencies for getting the right ad rates.

?The way out is to allow ratings data to flow in across other genres except news. At least for some more time,? says a news channel ad sales executive.

MUMBAI: ?Space Dive?, the documentary charting Felix Baumgartner?s record-breaking skydive, has been snapped up by broadcasters across the globe with BBC Worldwide licensing the documentary to 13 countries.

Belgium (VRT), Denmark (DR), Finland (YLE), Germany (RTL), Holland (VPRO), France (France 4), Russia (Russia 2), Norway (NRK), Singapore (Channel News Asia), Korea (Chosun), Poland (TVP), Indonesia (Kompas TV) and Canada (Sportsnet) are all set to screen the documentary which contains exclusive never-before-seen footage charting Felix Baumgartner?s remarkable mission.

BBC Worldwide president, MD for sales, distribution Steve Macallister said, ?Felix Baumgartner?s space dive was a truly extraordinary event played out in front of a global audience. Now with the ?Space Dive? documentary viewers all over the world will have the chance to step behind-the-scenes and see just what went into this epic mission and experience the jump through Baumgartner?s eyes.?

On 14 October Felix Baumgartner jumped from 128,100 feet (39,045 metres) above the Earth?s surface, completing the highest and fastest freefall ever and becoming the first person to skydive through the sound barrier.

Featuring footage from 20 cameras covering the jump itself, ?Space Dive? reveals the moment when Felix lost control, spinning dangerously back to Earth. The documentary also tells how hours earlier the team came close to aborting the mission, and moves back in time to show the four years of preparation and training that turned Felix from a base jumper into an extreme altitude specialist.

MUMBAI: Broadcasters and satellite operators condemned the sharp increase in jamming of broadcasts and considered what steps can be taken to address the growing threat of intentional blocking of international broadcasts and internet services.

Industry experts at a conference hosted by the BBC pointed out that Article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights states that individuals should have ?the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers?, but this right is not universally respected.

Satellite owner Eutelsat reports that jamming incidents doubled between 2010 and 2011. The number of incidents has increased threefold from 2011 to 2102. From January 2012 to November 2012, 340 incidents have been recorded. The Middle East-based operator Arabsat has recorded an increase in incidents of deliberate jamming of between 2011 and 2012 of nearly three times. Eutelsat estimates that between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of jamming in 2010 originated in Iran. In 2011, the source was mainly Iran with some interference traced to Syria and Bahrain. This year, most of the interference has been traced to Syria, but jamming also continues in Bahrain and Iran. The current regulatory process offers no direct sanction against countries that allow jamming to originate from within their borders.

Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen said, "The meeting adds more weight to the growing voice of condemnation of pollution of the airwaves and the need for decisive action to combat jamming."

Keynote speaker Jamie Saunders, who is International Cyber Policy at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office director, said, ?The FCO is a strong supporter of freedom of expression, and we believe that the existing framework of international human rights law is as equally applicable in the digital environment as it is on the off-line world. Specifically, we believe that efforts to block and suppress broadcasting are wrong and are bound to fail over time: we need to understand what more can be done to address deliberate interference, and what part the Government should play.?

BBC director of global news Peter Horrocks said, ?Satellite jamming is a growing scourge and a threat to the vital flow of free information. Throughout its history the BBC World Service has countered the efforts of jammers, whether on old shortwave or new satellites. We always called on the guile of the best editorial and technical minds to overcome jamming. Today we do that again to help tackle the menace of jamming."

On the internet, BBC Chinese has been blocked in China since its launch in 1999. BBC Persian has been blocked intermittently from 2006 onwards, and routinely since 2009. The BBC has run pilot services with Psiphon (a Canadian corporation that develops advanced censorship circumvention systems and technologies specifically designed to support users in countries where access to the internet is restricted) to deliver content into China, Iran, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan so that people who want to read BBC news are still able to do so. Over one million pages are viewed weekly through the BBC?s Psiphon web proxies. In a study commissioned by BBC in Iran, 97 per cent of respondents believed that unmonitored and uncensored access to the Internet is a universal right.

Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Richard Ottaway MP said, ?Gunboat diplomacy is history. Soft power is the future. We live in a globally networked world where human rights abuses cannot hide.?

The International Broadcasting without Barriers Conference brought over 100 delegates from a variety of satellite operators, broadcasters and stakeholders together to consider what political and technical steps can be taken to make the distribution of media less vulnerable to interference. They face the challenge that jamming is becoming more frequent and there is currently no viable technical solution that can protect direct to home broadcast satellites.

MUMBAI: Neo Prime, formerly Neo Cricket, has sealed the broadcast rights for the West Indies tour of Bangladesh for Indian sub-continent and the US market.

Fresh from winning their first major title in eight years, the World Twenty20 Champions aim to continue their ascent in the world rankings as they tour Bangladesh for 2 Tests, 5 One Day Internationals and 1 T20.

Neo Sports Broadcast COO Prasana Krishnan said, "West Indies cricket is on a high after their World T20 victory and we are thrilled to have stalwarts like Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels and Shivnarine Chanderpaul playing on Neo for our viewers in the Indian Sub-continent and the US to enjoy."

Nimbus Communications, the parent company of Neo Sports Broadcast, incidentally held the broadcast rights for Bangladesh cricket. Currently, the Bangladesh Cricket Board is without an official broadcaster following a cold response from broadcasters to international media rights tender.

MUMBAI: The total Social TV market is expected to grow from $151.14 billion in 2012 to $256.44 billion by 2017 with a CAGR of 11.2 per cent, according to a research report Social TV Market: Global Advancements Forecasts & Analysis (2012 - 2017) published by MarketsandMarkets.

Europe commanded the largest share of the Social TV market revenue in 2012 at $55.48 billion and is expected to reach $77.74 billion by 2017, at a CAGR of seven per cent from 2012 to 2017.

Internet and social networking acts as a medium for the convergence of the social layer with television and to enable viewers to communicate electronically with their friends watching the same program, the report says.

Television viewers are able to personalise the television experience by analyzing the various statistics provided by Social TV. Viewers are provided with a wide variety of choices from content discovery applications, check-in applications, and social programming application.

Many social television tools and applications have given a customised television experience based on the viewer‘s choice of interest. Many companies have developed second screen applications to engage more viewers and to increase the targeted audience. It also notes that the future for television is social through integration of social interaction on the television. Broadcasters are developing and enriching social TV integration; they are targeting the tune-in customer, engagement and their loyalty to boost the rating and they are also discovering the social TV challenges.