AFRICA

• ANGOLA
  International Christian Broadcaster Trans World Radio (TWR) is to produce programmes in Angola, teaching the Ovimbundu people about the spread of the HIV virus and to create a forum for discussion among listeners. The Ovimbundu people number about 4 million, almost 40% of Angola’s total population. An estimated 6% of the population are infected with the HIV virus and 30 out of 100 people test positive each day. By 2010, there will be approximately 331,000 AIDS orphans.
  Email: hcombe@twr.org.uk

• NIGERIA
  The new leader of the Anglican / Episcopal Church in Nigeria has claimed that Muslims are trying to take over Africa. The Most Revd Nicholas Okoh, believes that Christianity is under threat from Islam. He was elected primate of Nigeria earlier this month, making him one of the powerful figures in Anglicanism. Nigeria, where the Anglican Church has 17 million adherents, is split between Christianity and Islam and has been troubled by religious strife in recent years, notably in the predominantly Muslim north. The Archbishop is a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Nigerian army, and as Archbishop of Nigeria’s Bendel Province, was one of the prime movers in the Gafcon meeting of conservative Anglicans in Jerusalem in 2008.
  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• MOZAMBIQUE
  Over 2 million people live in the rural flood plains of the Zambezi River, an area known as the Zambezia province. A civil war and lack of infrastructure have made it difficult for missionaries to the Lomwe and Makhuwa people living in the region. Traditional indigenous practices and rituals have been present in most churches. More than 350 growing Churches have emerged and Christian Communities established through Radio Broadcasts from TWR. The Lomwe people are largely an oral culture, and many potential Christian leaders cannot read or write. Contact: info@twr.org.uk

• ETHIOPIA
  In a letter from prison – a young man in Ethiopia recently testified that God’s love reaches beyond physical and spiritual barriers. He writes: “I am 27 years old and am writing this letter to share my experiences and testify to the changes that took place in my life while I was confined in a prison. Being sentenced to 5 years made me feel hopeless and helpless, and I spent my days weeping and I suffered from nightmares and flashbacks. The prisoner in the next cell was a believer and was imprisoned because of a false accusation. He began to teach me basic Bible lessons, introduced me to TWR’s radio ministry and requested a radio for me. The radio I got through my prison mate became my intimate friend. The Bible lessons are instilling new life, new thinking and a new attitude. I became a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
  Contact: info@twr.org
  

ASIA

• AFGHANISTAN
  Pamir Productions is preparing 40 half-hour radio programmes based on the “Come, follow me” discipleship course, which specifically addresses Afghan issues of attitude, family and social relations. They have also produced a pilot programme for a potential TV ministry and hope to begin regular production in the near future.
  Contact: info@pamirmedia.org
  

AUSTRALIA

• VISION RADIO NETWORK
  Vision Radio Network continues to expand towards its goal of Christian Radio for every Australian by bringing on air new stations nearly every week. The most recent addition was in a small Aboriginal community in Oombulgurrie northern WA, home to 300 people. Testing of the new AM antenna destined for Adelaide is being conducted and Vision hopes that 1611AM Adelaide will be on air by November 2009. There are 20 other stations ready and waiting for technicians to complete installation.
  Source: Squawk, Christian Media Australia

EUROPE

• EUROPEAN UNION LISBON TREATY
  The Irish electorate has voted “Yes” to the Lisbon Treaty with 67% of voters approving ratification during the second referendum. Turnout was 59%. Poland has also now ratified and this leaves only the Czech Republic to commit, to make the Treaty law.

• UK
  Product placement is to be allowed on UK TV shows. Independent Broadcasters will be allowed to take payments for displaying commercial products during shows. The change is intended to bring in extra funds for Commercial Broadcasters. Experts believe it could raise up to £100m a year. There are currently strict rules against product placement and the ban will remain in place on the BBC. An ITN spokesman welcomed the move, saying, “Reforming the UK prohibition would also be a welcome acknowledgment of the pressures currently faced by an industry in transition. New sources of revenue mean better-funded content – which can only be good news for viewers.” The Culture Secretary’s predecessor, Andy Burnham, had said in March that “serious concerns” remained about product placement because it could harm editorial independence. Big Brother creator, Peter Bazalgette, said, “You have to trust the consumer. If it’s overdone or tasteless, viewers will switch off.”
  Source: BBC News
  

• FRANCE
  TopChretien will launch a “Church on the Internet” for new believers, particularly those who have connected to ConnaitreDieu.com over the last 4 years. The project is called MonEglise.net (MyChurch.net) and will broadcast services specifically produced for Internet users to connect with God and each other. It is a Church for people discovering faith and a Church for transition as people will be encouraged to join a local church in their communities. It will encourage spiritual growth, with online Counsellors and Bible Studies by e-learning.
  Contact Eric Celerier: ec@topchretien.com

• GERMANY
  ERF celebrates its 50th anniversary in October, with a praise worship service and a jubilee gala. The celebration’s theme is: “50 years ERF – Listening, Watching, Believing“. On October 19, 1959, seven men and women founded ERF Media, at that time under the name “Evangeliums-Rundfunk” at Hotel Eulerhaus in Wetzlar, Germany. In February 1961, the first broadcast was sent by short-wave transmission throughout Europe. Today ERF Media operates a 24 hour television channel, 3 radio channels and 15 internet websites. While offering his congratulations, Hessian Prime Minister Roland Koch wrote, “contrary to the idea that media information always has a short lifespan, ERF Media sends a message that is timeless- the message of Christianity.”
  Contact: lothar.ruehl@erf.de

• BULGARIA
  Studio 865, partner of 3xM, has launched a new website to meet the growing interest of Bulgarians for the Christian message via internet. On the new website all episodes of the Christian programme “Christianity” are played. The viewer can decide when to view an episode. During the first month the website had more than 13,000 viewers. 3xM has partnered with Churches and Christian organisations in producing and broadcasting television programmes for nearly 30 years. Working mainly in Africa and Asia, 3xM focuses primarily on Countries where there are few believers.
  Contact Martien Timmer: m.timmer@3xm.nl

• UK
  The Church and Media Network (CMN), the successor body to the UK Churches’ Media Council, has launched a new network, “theMediaNet“,  for Christians and others who work in media, which includes contacts, resources, articles, blogs, events and jobs.
  Visit www.themedianet.org

• EUROPEAN COMMISSION
  The European Commission has declared the official start of operations by EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, with its Open Service now available free to businesses and citizens. EGNOS is Europe’s first contribution to satellite navigation and a precursor of Galileo, the global satellite navigation systen that the European Union is developing. EGNOS is a satellite-based augmentation system that improves the accuracy of satellite navigation signals over Europe. The accuracy of current GPS signals is improved from about 10 metres to 2 metres.
  Source: European Union Press Release

• UK
  London’s Premier Christian Radio, which started 14 years ago as a small AM Station - has become a National Broadcaster, heard across the UK on DAB Digital Radio. Premier is the UK’s only Christian Radio with national terrestrial coverage.
  Contact: response@premier.org.uk

• ROMANIA
  Alfa Omega is celebrating in 2009! It is 15 years since it began, there have been 10 years of TV productions, beginning with “The Truth, The Way and the Life” series, its flagship programme; it is 7 years since the beginning of its weekly news programme in Romanian “Mapamond crestin” (Christian World News) and 3 years since it aired the first Romanian Christian TV channel on satellite. They now plan to equip and set up a new studio in Timisoara.
  Visit www.alfaomega.tv

• FRANCE
  The European Commission authorised a €450m (US£640m) state aid payment to French Public Service Broadcaster France Televisions last month, but has opened a formal investigation into its future funding. The cash injection is compensation for lost revenue at France Televisions following a primetime advertising ban on the broadcaster earlier this year. In July, the EC adopted new rules on the public funding of broadcasters, to ensure commercial broadcasters are not disadvantaged from such state aid. The Commission said the subsidy was in line with European rules on state aid and public sector broadcasting, but has opened the formal investigation into whether the funding mechanism for France Televisions for 2010 and beyond complies with these regulations. Future payments will be based on the findings of this investigation.
  Source: C21Media.net

• GERMANY

Official Country Name	Federal Republic of Germany
Region	Europe
Population	93,029,536
Languages	German
Literacy Rate	99%
Size	357,021 sq. km
GDP	1,872,992 (US$ millions)
Number of TV Stations	373
Number of TV sets	51,400,000
TV Sets per 1,000	619.1
Number of Radio Stations	822
Number of Radio receivers	77,800,000
Radio Receivers per 1,000	937.0
Number of individuals with computers	27,640,000
Number of individuals with Internet access	24,000,000
Internet access per 1,000	289.1

GLOBAL

• INTERNET ADVERTISING
  According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), first-half spending on internet advertising was a record £1.75 billion (US$2.8bn, €1.87bn) a quarter of the market and more than the £1.64 billion for television. The 4.6% online increase may have made the UK the world’s first major economy to relegate TV advertising – down 17% to 21.9% of total spend – to second place. According to IAB boss Guy Phillipson, online can grow even bigger. He said: “We could absolutely see it grow to being 30% of ad share spend, to exceed £4 billion (US$6.3bn, €4.28bn) a year.” Of the total online spend, 60% went to search engines and 22% was for classified ads. Meanwhile, newspaper display ads were the third biggest – £1.38billion (US$2.17bn, €1.47bn) or 18.5% of the total. The study, co-produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers, shows that overall advertising fell by 16% as businesses cut costs in the recession.
  Source: broadcast

• BROADBAND
  A study of the global state of broadband has put the UK 25th out of 66 countries in terms of the quality and reach of its networks. The research for Cisco found that countries such as Latvia and Bulgaria were better prepared than the UK for next-generation net applications. The UK was listed among countries whose broadband is “meeting needs for today”. South Korea and Japan dominate the league table. While the average download speed globally was 4.75mbps (megabits per second) – average upload speed was 1.3mbps. Researchers also worked out how fit countries were to cope with the demands of today’s users based on a set of popular consumer applications. Two-thirds of the 66 countries met the criteria for today’s requirements, but only 9, including Japan, Sweden and Latvia, were ready for future demands such as watching high-definition video. Countries will need an average download speed of 11.25 mbps to be able to cope with future applications.
  Source: BBC News
  

• INTERNET
  Viviane Reding, the EU’s retiring Commissioner for Information Society and Media, welcomed news that ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the body primarily responsible for managing internet domain names, will become more open and accountable to billions of internet users worldwide, by being subject to an Independent review panel rather than the US Department of Commerce. Since 2005, the European Commission has called for reform of the governance of the internet’s key global resources. This is necessary to ensure important public policy objectives such as freedom of expression and facilitating stable business transactions online.
  Source: European Commission Press Release

• 44TH WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY
  The theme chosen by Pope Benedict XVI for the 44th World Communications Day on 24th January 2010 is: “The priest and pastoral ministry in the digital world – New Media in the service of the word.” Bishop Duffy, Chair of the Communications Commission of the Irish Bishops’ Conference said, “We must remain alert and continue to grow within this new media environment while being ever-mindful that it must be managed responsibly.”
  Source: www.radiovaticana.org
  

LATIN AMERICA

• BONAIRE
  Trans World Radio has announced that their broadcasts across the Caribbean and South America will continue during the repair of their transmission towers on the island of Bonaire. Due to the harsh, salty environment of the island, parts of the transmission towers had rusted extensively and had to be replaced. The cost of replacing the towers would have been over £600,000 (US$947,000, €640,000), so the team on Bonaire is repairing the individual braces, at a tenth of that cost. The transmission towers allow the station to broadcast across Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana and Cuba.
  Contact Hannah Combe: hcombe@twr.org.uk

MIDDLE EAST

• SAT-7
  SAT-7 KIDS and SAT-7 ARABIC have begun broadcasting on the Atlantic Bird 4 (AB4) satellite, making these two channels available to many new viewers in the Arab world. They will continue to broadcast simultaneously on HotBird. The AB4 satellite platform can be viewed by people living in nearly every country in the Middle East and North Africa and is co-located with Nilesat at 7 degrees West. SAT-7 PARS has just re-launched its Farsi website www.sat7pars.com as well as a new airtime schedule.
  Visit www.sat7.org
  

NORTH AMERICA

• USA
  NRB is 65 years old. 65 years ago, Television was in its infancy, Radio was king, and the Internet was still the stuff of science fiction. In 1943 evangelical ministers discovered that they were virtually unable to purchase radio airtime. In response to that challenge, a group of leaders formed a Committee, later named the “National Religious Broadcasters“. In April 1944, 150 Broadcasters met in Columbus, OH and drafted NRB’s “Statement of Faith“; then on September 21, 1944, NRB held a constitutional convention in the Moody Memorial Church in Chicago. The group voted on a Constitution, Bylaws and Code of Ethics, and on December 18, 1944, the state of Delaware awarded NRB a Charter of Incorporation. “NRB was birthed in the fires of adversity and these many years later the fires burn hotter than ever,” says Dr Frank Wright, NRB’s President & CEO. “Just as NRB’s founders underwent defining trials 65 years ago, the battles we face today will define the shape of Christian media communications for decades to come.”
  Contact: today@nrb.org

• CANADA
  Galcom International has appointed Tim Whitehead as its new Executive Director, taking over leadership responsibilities from Allan McGuirl, who will continue serving with Galcom as “Founder and International Director Emeritus“, seeking further opportunities to expand Galcom’s radio outreach. Galcom was founded as a radio ministry in 1989, and since then has distributed more than 750,000 solar powered radios in 126 countries.
  Email: galcom@galcom.org
  

DIARY DATES

• UK: The Christian Broadcasting Conference (CBC) will be on Friday 27 November 2009 at the De Vere Latimer Place, Chesham, Bucks. It’s Theme will be “Confronting Giants, Applauding Excellence, Encouraging One Another in Tough Times“. CBC hopes to enhance the rise of Christian Media and Christians working in the Media by all means and on every platform, including proliferation of New Media and global communication.
  Contact Crystal Chamkhi: info@cbc.org.uk




• SLOVENIA: The next FEB Conference will be 11-14 November 2010 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Put the dates in your diary NOW!
  
• USA: The NRB 2010 Convention will feature Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, during the Closing Banquet on March 2nd 2010.
  For more information about the Convention visit www.nrbconvention.org