13 March 2004

G.E. Signals a Growing Interest in Solar. General Electric will acquire the assets of the largest American-owned maker of solar equipment, in a move the solar power industry sees as a vote of confidence in the business. By Barnaby J. Feder. [New York Times: Technology] 8:44:52 PM    comment []

Public TV News in Holland costs 330 Euro per minute.... Or so they say. NRC Handelsblad newspaper reports Saturday that with a couple of important debates coming up in the Dutch parliament, they want to let people see how their tax money is spent (in Holland there is no longer a licence fee - costs for public broadcasting are taken out of general taxation).   Editor in Chief Hans Laroes says he has nothing to hide. Their budget for the NOS Television Journaal, equivalent of the BBC Newsroom, is 27 million Euro per year. 13 of that is personell, 2 million are for the contracts with press bureaus like ANP, Reuters and news exchange with regional public TV stations, office space is 150,000, 8 million for studios and OB facilities, 1,6 in phone calls, hotels and travel. The number of TV News bulletins has risen from 41,000 minutes in 1999 to 65,000 minutes per year now. So, the TV minute has dropped in price...although the costs of making the bulletins has not risen much. Laroes doesn't say how much original material is made....it is logical that repeating reports throughout the day is not that expensive. I'm sure RTL Nieuws will be interested to comment - they are rumoured to spend more in the region of 9 million Euro on their news output. http://www.nos.nl/journaal/indiscussie/verantwoording/wat_kost_journaal.html   8:32:32 PM    comment []

The Economist: Wi-Fi's big brother. Heavyweights such as Intel, Nokia and AT&T are lining up behind the standard. Sean Maloney, the head of Intel's telecoms division, says it will put "the next 5 billion users" on the internet. But whereas WiMax has promise, says John Yunker, an analyst at Pyramid Research, it is currently surrounded by much confusion and "a ton of hype". 12:03:15 PM    comment []

Net Cries Out for Madrid. The horrific train bombings in Spain prompt a huge outpouring of sympathy on the Net. Some liken the cyberspace tributes to the candlelight vigils held worldwide after 9/11. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News] 12:02:13 PM    comment []

German Media on Spy Numbers Simon Mason's site has some interesting clips from the continuing spy numbers saga. http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page65.html  Worth a look and listen to the audio clips too. 12:01:25 PM    comment []

Transborder TV Interesting report on the extent of transborder television and also the extent to which it is watched in smaller countries, despite language differences. Obviously, despite the development of a Sky service for Ireland, the Irish are worried about UK TV over their country. Full report is from the European Audiovisual Observatory and is free at...  http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/transfrontier_tv.pdf.en   10:39:34 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Jonathan Marks. Last update: 10/04/2004; 09:50:54.