Apparently-to: scdx@get.pp.se
From: "George Wood" 
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  SWEDEN CALLING DXERS       
  from Radio Sweden         
  Number 2256--Sept. 17, 1996  
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Shortwave and other electronic media news from Radio Sweden.
This week's bulletin was written by George Wood.
Packet Radio BID SCDX2256
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NORDIC MEDIA NEWS:
RADIO SWEDEN--Swedish Radio's RealAudio relays on the Internet have
now reached Radio Sweden. Our Swedish programs are now available in
RealAudio from our Web pages (at present it's the daily program at
18:00 hrs UTC that's saved every day). The World Radio Network has
been carrying our English programs in RealAudio on their World Wide
Web site (with a link on our pages). Now we're adding our own
RealAudio service for English, which should be available soon (the WRN
feed is still available). Our other languages will soon follow. Check
out:
http://www.sr.se/rs/main.htm
CLASSIC FM--The private Stockholm radio station Classic FM has a new
owner. The British chain of the same name (apparently owned by Time-
Warner) has sold the station to the American company Great Western
Radio. ("Dagens Nyheter")
DENMARK--In Denmark, the public telecommunications company Tele
Danmark is about to launch its own commercial radio channels. The
first will be a music station aimed at people between 15 and 35, and
will launch on satellite and cable at the beginning of October.
Another channel, featuring classical music, will start in the new
year.  ("Dagens Nyheter")
RADIO OASIS--Danish officials have revoked the community radio licence
of the neo-Nazi station Radio Oasis, because it aired texts from Adolf
Hitler's "Mein Kampf". When the station was given permission to go on
the air in February, officials warned the licence would be revoked if
Radio Oasis broadcast anything racist. The newspaper "Roskilde Tidene"
writes that the 13 member local radio board agreed unanimously on
September 3 to shut down the station. It gave the owners of Radio
Oasis, Denmark's National Socialist Movement, four weeks to appeal the
decision. Last month, Danish neo-Nazis applied to a licence to begin
shortwave broadcasts to Europe, but officials have not yet announced a
decision. (Reuters)
NORWAY/DENMARK--For the past two weeks both Denmark and Norway have
had new public service TV channels. In both cases, the original single
non- commercial channel has been competing with a new commercial
station called TV2. At the beginning of the month the original Danish
public service channel became DR1, and it was joined by the new DR2,
aimed at a younger audience. As we reported last time, you'll find DR2
on the Intelsat 707 satellite on 11.667 GHz, in D2-MAC. (And Monday
evening it was still broadcasting in the clear.)
On the same satellite, on the same day DR2 started, Norway's public
service NRK was joined by NRK 2. In today's program, Radio Sweden's
Olso correspondent Tony Samstag reports on response to the new
channel.
You can find NRK 2 on Intelsat 707 in D2-MAC at 11.486 GHz. It has
switched sporadically between clear and coded, but Monday evening it
was coded.
TV NORGE--TV Norge, owned by the Scandinavian Broadcasting System
(owned by the American ABC) and the Norwegian publishers Schibsted,
has cut its workforce in half during the past six months. The station
no longer has any studio presentation or production of its own.
("Dagens Nyheter") TV Norge, which broadcasts in clear PAL on Intelsat
707, has just begun broadcasting "Star Trek: The Next Generation",
Saturdays at 20:00 hrs CET. The first episode ("Encounter at Farpoint
I") was on September 14. (Sweden's Kanal 5, which broadcasts in
uncoded PAL on Tele-X, carries "Next Generation" on Saturdays at 17:10
hrs CET, preceeded at 16:20 hrs by "Babylon 5".)
SWEDEN--The public service Swedish Television has expansion plans.
Guldkanalen, the Gold Channel, modelled on the BBC's UK Gold, with a
best from the archives format, starts next year on cable here as a pay
channel, and will be relayed by satellite as well from next Spring.
("Svenska Dagebladet" and "Metro")
Swedish Television is finally going to put its regular programming on
satellite, so Swedes in Europe, and the thousands of licence-payers
here outside the reach of the terrestrial transmitters, can watch.
According to reports, the project is being co-ordinated with Finland's
YLE, which has a similar plan (reported last time). The channels would
be carried in digital MPEG, probably from Sirius at 5 degrees East.
("Radiotidningen")
The Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company, UR, is planning to
launch a Swedish counterpart to the American C-Span next year. Besides
covering the Swedish parliament, the new channel, called UR-Arena,
will carry broadcasts from the EU, the Council of Europe, the United
Nations, and similar organizations. The plan is controversial, a
Conservative party member of the UR board, Marika Ehrenkrona, has
written an opinion column in a Conservative Stockholm newspaper
denouncing the idea, saying "Who wants a TV channel with politicians
speaking continuously for 18 hours a day?" ("Radiotidningen" and
"Svenska Dagbladet")
She's apparently never heard of C-Span, which broadcasts over 2
channels for 24 hours a day.
OPEN CHANNEL--The Stockholm City Council is giving a grant of more
than USD 525,000 to the cable TV channel Oeppna Kanalen ("Open
Channel"). The community access station, which has been on local cable
since 1993, reaches 330,000 Stochkholm households. It has anticipated
UR-Arena by broadcasting sessions of the Swedish parliament.
TV3/TV4--On the commercial side, both private Swedish broadcasters TV3
and TV4 have been denounced by their own colleagues recently. TV4 has
been accused of taking advantage of the local TV companies around the
country who provide it with regional programming. ("Dagens Nyheter") 
TV3, owned by Rupert Murdoch wannabe Jan Stenbeck's Kinnevik, has been
accused of having a top-down management style that squashes dissent,
and ignores normal labor practices. Of the 21 journalists who started
their new news program in the Spring of 1995, nearly two-thirds have
quit or were fired, often with no notice. ("Journalisten")
TV3 has a new homepage, (so far just one screen saying it's under
construction) at:
http://www.tv3.se
("SATCO DX Chart Update")
TV1000--TV3's system station, the pay-movie channel TV1000, made a
mess of its launch to Finland ten days ago. TV1000 and TV1000 Cinema
broadcast uncoded during the weekend, and the centerpiece of the
entire advertising campaign for subscribers, both in Finland and here
in Sweden, was the broadcast of the film "Pulp Fiction". Unfortunately
something happened to the uplink, and the screen went blank in the
middle of the movie for an entire hour. Rather than stop and start the
film again when the trouble was fixed, TV1000 just kept rolling, a
move that did not win it many friends. The uncoded broadcasts
continued for several more days than initially announced.
VIACOM--We reported last time that TV Pluss on Intelsat 707 was going
off the air. According to a screen announcement, TV Pluss is now owned
by its rival TV Norge, along with the labor movement's newspaper
chain. They've taken it off the air to develop a new format, and it
will return on a new transponder.
Last Thursday the old transponder, 11.679 GHz, was taken over by MTV's
Nordic service, which continues to broadcast in parallel on the Thor
satellite at the same position. (Richard Karlsson, "Aftonbladet") The
Thor service is to  close down. ("SATCO DX Update) 
MTV has announced that its sister channel for older viewers, VH-1, is
expanding into Scandinavia. VH-1 Scandinavia is reportedly to be
coming to the other Nordic satellite position, on Sirius at 5 degrees
East. An Eastern European service will be launching on Eutelsat's Hot
Bird satellite. ("Tele-satellit News")
On September 17, Kinnevik announced that it has reached agreement with
Viacom to distribute four channels in the Nordic and Baltic regions:
Nickelodeon, the Sci-Fi Channel, MTV, and VH-1. According to the
managing director of Kinnevik's Modern Times Group, Pelle Toernberg,
the distribution of MTV (already on Thor and now Intelsat 707) would
not begin until the middle of 1998. The other 3 will start October 1.
The channels will be transitted through the Nordic satellite company
NSAB.  VH-1 will be on Sirius at 5 degrees East. The other two will be
on TV-SAT at 1 degree West. (Frank Oestergren, "Aftonbladet", TT and
Reuters)
MTV Europe has finally achieved a long held goal of transmitting three
regional streams into Europe. The service began September 2, using
digital technology to send northern, central, and southern beams via a
single transponder. ("Tele-satellit News")
Kinnevik's media company MTG is also negotiating with British Sky
Broadcasting to create a structure for pay-TV, alongside MTG's
existing commercial-sponsored channels. MTG continues to negotiate
with Nethold about merging TV1000 and FilmNet, as well as merging
Sportkanalen with SuperSport. ("Finanstidningen" and Frank Oestergren,
"Aftonbladet")
SUPERSPORT--Nethold's SuperSport is realizing its original ambition,
by becoming a pay channel on November 1. The initial plans for a pay
channel had to be changed when rival Kinnevik announced that its
planned Sportkanalen would be free and financed by commercials.
SuperSports' switch to free operation (and appearance on a D2-MAC
transponder in addition to its original MPEG transmission) forced
Kinnevik to make Sportkanalen a weekend only channel sharing the
Swedish and Danish TV6 transponders. SuperSport is negotiating with
Sweden's major cable operators, but FilmNet's CEO says there's a risk
that if the negotiations are not completed in time, SuperSport may be
blacked out on some cable systems. Home dish owners will be able to
subscribe, with a discount to those subscribing to FilmNet. ("Dagens
Nyheter") (Fortunately the baseball season will be over by November 1.
SuperSport is one of the few European channels carrying Major League
Baseball.)
SuperSport is adding a Tele-text service. (Richard Karlsson in
"Aftonbladet")
EUROPE:
NETHOLD/CANAL PLUS--TV1000 may need friends, as its main rival just
became part of Europe's largest TV empire. The Scandinavian-Dutch
channel FilmNet is owned by the Swiss-South African company Nethold,
which also broadcasts to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The American giant Hughes, owner of DirecTV, was rumored to be talking
to Nethold about buying a major share, which would have created a
globe-spanning rival for Rupert Murdoch. ("Wall Street Journal")
But instead, it was France's Canal Plus that announced a merger with
Nethold, creating a European empire instead, with interests in France,
Spain, Italy, and Germany, as well as Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and
the Benelux. Nethold's broadcasts to Southern Africa are reportedly
being kept out of the deal. ("Aftonbladet", "Tele-satellit news",
Reuters)
Nokia has been supplying the digital decoders that are necessary for
reception of Nethold/Multichoice's new digital services to
Scandinavia, the Benelux, and other areas. Digital receivers are now
being sold in the Netherlands, but manufactured by Pace instead of
Nokia. When these have been evaluated, Nethold/Multichoice will launch
its Scandinavian digital service. (Richard Karlsson in "Aftonbladet")
Nethold has signed an agreement with Hyundai Electronics America to
supply up to 60,000 decoders per month for all the territories where
Nethold has, or is about to launch, digital television. ("Business
Wire")
DIGITAL WOES--Germany's ill-fated digital television consortium
Multimedia Betriebs GmbH on Monday appeared close to collapse after
its leading shareholder announced it would leave the group. Deutsche
Telekom AG, which holds 27 percent of MMBG, says it will inform the
other shareholders this week of its plan to withdraw. The other
investors include Bertelsmann, CLT, Canal Plus, and the German public
broadcasters ARD and ZDF. MMBG was set up to market a common digital
decoder for Europe, to avoid a standards war. This goal was undermined
by Bavarian media mogul Leo Kirch, who declined to join the group and
launched his own decoder. The take-over of Nethold by Canal Plus gives
it control of both of Europe's decoder systems, the Seca decoder which
it created with Bertelsmann, and Nethold's decoder, which is being
used by Kirch. One German newspaper says Deutsche Telekom now wants to
develop its own decoder. Rupert Murdoch's New Corp has taken a stake
in Kirch. (Reuters) 
EUROPEAN UNION--The European Commision announced on September 12 that
it is investigating the proposed merger between Bertelsmann and CLT,
as the deal apparently falls under the EU's merger rules which ban the
creation or strengthening of dominant positions. The Canal
Plus/Nethold merger is also expected to be submitted to the EU's
authority. (Reuters)
The European Court has ruled that laws which Belgium imposes on its
cable operators are unlawful. The Belgian regulations require the
networks to carry only approved foreign programming. The court agreed
with the European Commission, which said the rules were against the
Broadcasting Without Frontiers regulations, as they stopped
TNT/Cartoon Network from getting on cable in Belgium. The court says
that a national government cannot block a channel that has been
approved under the laws of another EU member. However, the European
Commision has denied that the ruling would authorize the broadcast of
pornography into Britain, as had been claimed by British newspapers.
In a statement, the Commission said the Broadcasting Without Frontiers
regulations specifically exempt "offensive programme material, such as
pornography or gratuitous violence". (Reuters and "Tele-satellit
News")
ADULT--The hardcore French pornography channel, Rendez-Vous returned
on September 11. ("Tele-satellit News)
NBC--NBC and Eutelsat have signed a contract that gives NBC Super
Channel (which is changing its name to NBC Europe) a 12 year home on
the upcoming Hot Bird 5 satellite. This is scheduled to join Eutelsat
II-F1 (current home of NBC Super Channel) and the other Hot Birds at
13 degrees East, when it is launched in 1999. (Eutelsat) 
MSNBC--Several programs from MSNBC have been carried weekends on CNBC
on Astra. Now daily MSNBC programs are being carried on NBC Super
Channel on Eutelsat II-F1 (albeit it at rather strange times).
(Reuters) "Internight" is being carried live, at 2:00 CET. The
computer show "The Site" is at 16:00 hrs (when hardly anyone
interested in computers is home from work.
NBC says it expects the full MSNBC channel to make its debut in Europe
in late 1997, when digital capacity is available. (Reuters)
--- NetMgr 1.00.g4+
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