European Broadcasting Research Articles

Channel 4 and the South Series (1991-93): from the Third World to the Global South

This article provides a case study of a groundbreaking yet hitherto overlooked transnational coproduction experience on European broadcasting: the South series (1991–93). An ambitious initiative led by Channel 4’s Independent Film and Video Department (IFVD) and the South Productions company, headed by Argentine producer Ana de Skalon, the South series was widely conceived and promoted as the first magazine programme in the world to be directed by film and video makers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Focusing on Latin America, this article reconstructs this unique experience of transnational collaboration on a global scale while also examining the shifting relationship between European broadcasting and the cinema of this region. Drawing on the internal production files of South Productions and using interviews with filmmakers, commissioning editors, and producers as well as the valuable information contained in Channel 4’s press packs, this article sheds light on this major effort of transnational coproduction. South not only constitutes the peak of the transatlantic collaborations developed between British television and Latin American cinema, but also embodies the conceptual shift from the Third World to the Global South through its broadening of film- and video-making practices, as is made clear through the series’ title.

Archives, Mismatches, Hacks! Overcoming Archival Boundaries in Transnational Research

In this article, I use my experiences in writing about the transnational history of Cursive to point toward ways forward for researchers interested in investigating entangled European broadcasting histories. I will point to places where I found European interconnections in journals, committees, and festivals and consider what the availability of these published and unpublished sources has meant for my inquiries. I will also explain how I used a specific content-management software (Tropy) to ‘hack’ and go beyond the national boundaries encoded in the archival collections I used. Finally, I suggest that perhaps it is not audiovisual material broadcasting archives first and foremost need to make available in digital formats if we want to further boundary-crossing television history; instead, I believe that the possibility of sharing self-digitized printed material should be a particular focus in the future.

Disinformation and Verification in a Digital Society: An Analysis of Strategies and Policies Applied in the European Regional TV Broadcasters of the CIRCOM Network

The recent COVID-19 health crisis has shone a spotlight on disinformation as the circulation of false information became more and more prominent. What the World Health Organization (WHO) has defined as an ‘infodemic’ poses a great risk for democracies and for society in general. In this context, public television channels, with their regional scope, actively participate in the fight against misinformation. This research aims to identify and classify the different verification initiatives and technological tools, as well as the different strategies and codes used in fact-checking tasks by European broadcasters belonging to the CIRCOM network. The methodology undertakes an exploratory approach and employs a questionnaire that is applied to a sample of the members of the network. Managers and professionals with executive profiles were asked about the management, operation and strategies used in the verification process. In light of the results obtained, it can be concluded that the current verification processes are based on human efforts, rather than technological tools, amounting to a total dependence on content curation by the writing teams in the newsroom. Thus, it is evidenced that in most cases, there is neither a specific department for verification, nor sufficient resources, despite the fact that all those surveyed regard disinformation as a priority issue, a threat to democratic integrity and a responsibility of public service media.

Tuning the Photometric Properties of Ternary Sm3+ Complexes Involving Mixed-Ligands.

This research article deals with the synthesis of ternary Sm3+ complexes with 6,8-dichlorochromone-3-carboxaldehyde through solution-precipitation method. The photometric properties of resultant complexes were tuned by coordinating N-donor heterocyclic ligands with Sm3+ ion. The emission spectra, obtained in the visible region have been studied. Under optical excitation of 370nm, the complexes displayed characteristic Sm3+-centered emission peaks at ~ 563, 600 and 647nm in solution as well as in powder state. The complexes showed thermal stability up to 175°C. The complexes delivered quantum yield as high as 7.91% and longest emission lifetime of 0.564ms. The color coordinates of the complexes, located in deep orange (in solution) and red (in powder) spectral region, matched well with the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and European Broadcasting Union. The properties of complexes have been investigated to a significant extent due to their easy synthesis and potential applications as orange-red light emitter in a wide range of photonic applications such as display devices, OLEDs, dashboards, optical systems.

Low-Cost Combustion Synthesis, Spectroscopic and Optoelectronic Analysis of Novel Ba2YAlO5:Er3+ Nanomaterials for Competent Illumination Applications

In the current prospective study, novel monoclinic symmetry type Ba2YAlO5:Er3+ nanocrystals with an emanation of vivid greenish light have been manufactured via an ideal, economical and ecological propellant combustion approach. Topographical investigations disclose roughly spherical agglomerated particles of nano-conduct (40-65 nm). Optimized content of the activator (Er3+) has been determined as x = 0.03, after the exigency of luminance quenching directed by the dipole-dipole kind interactions among the nearest Er3+ ions. The nanocrystals report an intense peak at 549 nm as per 4S3/2→4I15/2 characteristics transition, excited by 379 nm wavelength, hence proclaims glowing green luminescence. Decay lifetimes of target samples have been found to decline from 3.4556±0.0552 to 1.3063±0.0187 ms, with escalating Er3+ content. Excellent luminescent profile is reflected in terms of colour parameters like green colour coordinates (0.2630, 0.6205) and 90.79% colour purity, which have been contiguous to standard TV, SD colour green coordinates (0.300, 0.600), European Broadcasting Union (EBU, 0.290, 0.600) and NICHIA LED ( NCSGE17A) green coordinates (0.252, 0. 651). Hence, the overview of present research results insinuate their optimistic candidacy for advanced illuminating appliances like white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) and other lighting applications.

‘If you can’t beat them, be them’

Faced with heavy competition of global subscription-video-on-demand (SVOD) streaming services, along with increased pressure on fi nancing and distribution of domestic content, legacy media players are increasingly exploring the potential of local SVOD services as domestic alternatives to global platforms such as Netflix and Disney+, often in collaboration with other European broadcasters and/or distributors.This article presents an in-depth case study of Streamz, a domestic SVOD alternative launched in Belgium in September 2020. Building on scholarly work on media disruption and platform power, the case study examines the political and market context that shaped the existence of the platform, and critically analyses the strategies pursued by legacy media players in attempting to develop and emulate key competitive advantages of global SVOD players. The article demonstrates how a persistent policy push to collaborate in a small market resulted in an unusual joint venture and, at the same time, how diff erent market factors, most of them characteristic for small media markets, pose signifi cant challenges for domestic players to develop a profi table platform in Europe, let alone be able to stand achance in a highly competitive streaming market.

Transparency Policies in European Public Broadcasters: Sustainability, Digitalisation and Fact-Checking

Over the last few years, European public broadcasters have promoted the concept of public service media as one of their main values. To this end, transparency policies have been implemented as a mechanism of corporate projection by strengthening their role as an essential service. The objective of this article is to ascertain the existence of this type of policies among European public broadcasters. To this end, a nominal group was made with 24 experts who were surveyed, thus generating new indicators of transparency and accountability strategies around sustainability and digitalization. The contents of the websites of RTVE (Spain), RTP (Portugal), France TV (France), RAI (Italy), BBC (UK), RTÉ (Ireland), ZDF (Germany), VRT (Belgium), and SVT (Sweden) were also analyzed, paying attention to such indicators and strategies. The main results include the identification of differences on the basis of the ideal models described by Hallin and Mancini; a commitment to credibility (fact-checking) to the detriment of diversity of opinions; and a connection between the political system and the media system, which, preliminarily, determines the level of transparency of these public entities.

A novel strategy for high color purity virescent Er3+-doped SrLaAlO4 nanocrystals for solid-state lighting applications

Unique down-conversion virescent SrLaAlO4:Er3+ nanocrystals were successfully fabricated by urea-assisted solution combustion route. Presence of tetragonal phase in doped samples [SrLa(1−x)ErxAlO4 (x = 0.1–4.0 mol%)] with a space group of 14/mmm (139) was investigated by powder X-ray diffractometry and Rietveld refinement analysis. Nanocubic crystals with their size ranging from 45 to 55 nm were displayed by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques while high-resolution TEM highlighted the (105) crystallite plane by representing the resolved fringes of lattice. Nanocrystalline nature and the (101) crystal plane was depicted by selected area electron diffraction patterns of the powder sample. Qualitative as well as quantitative elemental composition of nanophosphors were investigated by mapping and spectra of energy dispersive X-ray analysis, respectively. On near UV excitation, photoluminescence emission spectra showed a prominent band of green color due to 4S3/2 → 4I15/2 transition (549 nm). Energy bandgap and refractive index of optimized sample were determined as 4.97 eV and 1.736, respectively, via diffuse reflectance spectra. Color chromaticity coordinates (0.1735, 0.6909) of SrLa0.98Er0.02AlO4 nanophosphors verified their virescent emission with a color purity of 100% and were found to be consistent with the standard values of European Broadcasting Unit (EBU) as well as International Telecommunication Union, thus reflected their important role as the green component in the solid-state lighting devices, especially red–green–blue pc-white light-emitting diodes.

Partners in crime: Transnational television’s role in the emergence and distribution of narratives of European solidarity

Television was heralded as a catalyst of European solidarity when satellite technology arrived, but financial failure, regulatory barriers and contrived cross-border stories – defamed as ‘Europuddings’ – quickly stifled this enthusiasm. This article reconsiders television as a medium for narratives of European solidarity within today’s TV industry, policy and culture. The crime drama The Last Panthers (2015), co-produced by Sky and Canal+, serves as a case study of the interplay between economic, political and cultural Europeanization in contemporary TV production. The analysis builds on Jürgen Habermas’s reflections on crisis dynamics in late capitalist societies (1980, 2005), which informs his response to the crisis of the European Union (2012). The case study shows how the pressure of global competition on European broadcasters, the European Commission’s support for distribution of audio-visual media, and the lessons learnt from the Europudding years have created a fragile window of opportunity for narratives of transnational solidarity.

Media, politics and state broadcasting in Greece

This article focuses on governmental control over state broadcasting media in Greece and analyses whether Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation can be considered as public or state broadcaster. The first part explores the interrelationship between media, politics and the state in Greece, and the ways the latter has affected the development of Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. By doing so, it makes references to similar Southern European broadcasting models that are also characterised by clientist manners, ministerial censorship, a powerful state and a weak civil society. Furthermore, it looks at the devastating impact of haphazard deregulation and market liberalisation on Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation since the early 1990s, when the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation lost much of its formerly loyal audience and advertising income to a number of newly launched commercial television channels. Part 2 assesses the degree of political, editorial and financial independence of Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation under the current SYRIZA-led administration. Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation was re-launched by the left-wing SYRIZA government after a temporary 2-year closure, but it is struggling to maintain a competitive advantage and a politically neutral output.

Single-Sensor Video Cameras and the TLCI-2012

Reliable measurements of multiple single-sensor color filter array video cameras have recently been obtained. These can be used to augment the Television Lighting Consistency Index Q a [European Broadcasting Union Recommendation R-137 Television Lighting Consistency Index (TLCI)-2012] and the Standard Camera Model, which were mainly based on modern broadcast HDTV cameras with three-sensor technology. During the development of TLCI-2012, an interest in single-sensor cameras was noted, but reliable measurements were difficult and only one example was available under NonDisclosure Agreement from the manufacturer.

Technical Practices for a Multi-CDN Distribution Strategy

Ideally, data in a multicontent delivery network (CDN) setup are load balanced dynamically using realtime traffic information gathered throughout the delivery chain. This paper provides the rationale and architectural guidelines for an online multi-CDN distribution backend, abstracting the content publication and playout logic from the actual delivery networks used. It describes the essential technical practices for a multi-CDN setup covering the role of the origin servers and essential broadcast features such as geofencing, HTTPs secured traffic, cache purging, etc. Essential metrics such as video player feedback are detailed and fall back scenarios are explained. All the elements above are deployed and tested during a pilot involving five European broadcasters sharing a multi-CDN overlay to load balance their traffic over three different CDNs using dynamic switching algorithms. This paper provides the rationale and architectural guidelines for an online multi-CDN distribution backend, abstracting the content publication and playout logic from the actual delivery networks used.

Optimizing Apple Lossless Audio Codec Algorithm using NVIDIA CUDA Architecture

As majority of the compression algorithms are implementations for CPU architecture, the primary focus of our work was to exploit the opportunities of GPU parallelism in audio compression. This paper presents an implementation of Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) algorithm by using NVIDIA GPUs Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) Framework. The core idea was to identify the areas where data parallelism could be applied and parallel programming model CUDA could be used to execute the identified parallel components on Single Instruction Multiple Thread (SIMT) model of CUDA. The dataset was retrieved from European Broadcasting Union, Sound Quality Assessment Material (SQAM). Faster execution of the algorithm led to execution time reduction when applied to audio coding for large audios. This paper also presents the reduction of power usage due to running the parallel components on GPU. Experimental results reveal that we achieve about 80-90% speedup through CUDA on the identified components over its CPU implementation while saving CPU power consumption.

Brand detection framework in LG wavelet domain

This work proposes a method for an effective and quick monitoring of video contents produced by TV Broadcasters by means of a fully automatic system. The proposed system performs acquisition, recognition and classification of logos labeling video contents hosted by video-sharing platforms. This challenge is addressed in the Laguerre-Gauss wavelet domain; as soon as a logo is located, in any area of the video screen, a detection strategy, based on the analysis of local Fisher information of the selected logo region, is applied. A distance metric on the LG saliency maps, based nearest neighbor algorithm, is defined, to classify the logo in the relevant video portion. A preliminary test on a dataset of 300 heterogeneous videos, produced by several European Broadcasters, was performed, to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results proved the robustness of the implemented logo recognition and classification method, also for video content labeled with different logo sizes and shapes and for video content corrupted by geometric transformations and/or coding degradations.

Medijski servis javnosti - na razmeđi društvene dobrobiti i tržišnih neminovnosti

The media public service or the so-called European broadcasting model represents a specific, technological, organizational and program form of broadcasting activity. Since broadcasting in its emission capacities is transboundary and at the same time represents a limited natural resource, from its early beginnings, the issue of its regulation has turned out to be a terrain of serious regulatory activity. Nevertheless, especially when it comes to programming, we are very often witnessing phenomena that indicate that the specific function of media services is not understood by the public in the best way.

Another breach in the wall: copyright territoriality in Europe and its progressive erosion on the grounds of competition law

Purpose This paper aims to show how the European Commission is seeking to solve the problems of market fragmentation and inaccessibility of copyright content in the Digital Single Market. The analysis draws on a still unresolved conflict between the enforcement of national copyright titles and the European Union (EU) policy objective to ensure pan-European access to copyright works. Design/methodology/approach First, the paper focuses on the causal relationship between national copyright systems and the existing territorial partitions in the online content markets. Second, the paper reviews the piecemeal approach followed by the Commission in its recent legislative initiative aimed at ensuring the cross-border “portability” of online content services. Third, the paper points out how a much more radical approach the Commission has undertaken in an ongoing antitrust case against the territorial partitions created by major film producers and the biggest EU broadcasters might revisit the principle of copyright’s territoriality. Findings In particular, the paper explains why the application of Article 101 TFEU with regard to the licensing agreements creating areas of absolute territorial exclusivity might have potentially disruptive effects on the existing models of online distribution. While pointing out that this outcome will largely depend on how the ongoing antitrust case will be settled, the paper concludes that the liberalization of so-called “passive sales” might force content owners and broadcasters (or content suppliers) to re-structure markets for online content and to replace territoriality with other criteria that might help them differentiate their offerings and packages. Originality/value The modernization of copyright rules that the Juncker Commission has advocated since the start of its mandate aims to ensure that consumers can access services, music, movies and sporting events on their electronic devices wherever they are in Europe and regardless of borders. In May 2015, this pledge was transposed in the first pillar of the Commission Communication “A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe”. In particular, the Commission announced its intention to propose, before the end of 2015, legislation to reduce differences and friction between national copyright regimes and prevent “unjustified” geo-blocking. In parallel, DG Competition of the European Commission in its capacity as antitrust authority is conducting a formal antitrust investigation aimed to examine whether territorial licensing agreements concluded by several US film studios with the largest European pay-tv broadcasters could be regarded as incompatible with Article 101 TFEU. For the first time, a paper aims to compare the expected outcome of the ongoing reform of the EU copyright framework vis-a-vis the potential outcome of the antitrust investigation led by DG Competition and identify the pros and cons of the two approaches followed by the Commission.

European international broadcasting and Islamist terrorism in Africa: The case of Boko Haram onFrance 24andDeutsche Welle

This article examines the relationship between European (international) broadcasting and Islamist terrorism in Africa and positions media portrayal of Boko Haram within the larger picture of Europe’s relations with Africa. Two international broadcasters provide the basis for the analysis: France 24 and Deutsche Welle. The article compares and contrasts their discourse on terrorism to advance several arguments: 1) that through their respective portrayal of Boko Haram and Nigeria both France 24 and Deutsche Welle’s reporting is in line with their respective countries’ foreign policies towards Africa, 2) that discourse on both F24 and DW perpetuates the unequal relationship between African countries and Western powers, 3) that portraying terrorism in terms of ‘clash of civilisations’, as in the case of France 24, may unintentionally contribute to the strengthening of the extremist cause. This is due to the transformation of violent extremism into ‘new wars’. The concept, elaborated in the article, differently explains the logic of extremist behaviour and its relationship with media.

Compiling European Immigration History: The Case of Land of Promise

Today television's reliance on archival footage seems to be intensifying due to the increased accessibility of European broadcast archives and the increased amount of available digitized broadcast material. In this article, the author reflects on television's convention to compile stories from archival material by presenting a case-study of a recently broadcast Dutch television series Land of Promise (2014). This series narrates the history of European post-war immigration, and is constructed from archival material from various European broadcast archives. In this article the author analyses the compilation strategy of Land of Promise, and assesses what kind of European immigration history the series has articulated through the selection and juxtaposition of archival footage.

Compiling European Immigration History

Today television's reliance on archival footage seems to be intensifying due to the increased accessibility of European broadcast archives and the increased amount of available digitized broadcast material. In this article, the author reflects on television's convention to compile stories from archival material by presenting a case-study of a recently broadcast Dutch television series Land of Promise (2014). This series narrates the history of European post-war immigration, and is constructed from archival material from various European broadcast archives. In this article the author analyses the compilation strategy of Land of Promise, and assesses what kind of European immigration history the series has articulated through the selection and juxtaposition of archival footage.

Equidad y representación de género en los órganos de gobernanza

Equity and gender representation are still a goal of equal social policies in companies in the European Union. The organs of governance of European public broadcasters notes that aspiration, despite the development of legal, general and specific, frameworks and selfregulation policies through its Corporate Social Responsibility statements. The presence of women in newsrooms is prevailed but not in the governance bodies. This research chooses the mirror of European public broadcasters to reflect the empirical reality of women in leadership positions.