UK’s Ofcom revokes China’s CGTN license to broadcast in the country (posted February 4, 2021)
Citing violations to its rules, the UK’s Office for Communications (Ofcom) has revoked CGTN licencee Star China Media Group’s license to broadcast in the kingdom.
PVL partners with Cignal TV, One Sports (posted February 4, 2021)
Last Thursday, the Premier Volleyball League and Cignal TV have announced their newly-formed partnership. The latter is set to air the former on Cignal’s pay TV platforms and One Sports on free TV.
GMA Network’s DTV dongle ‘GMA Now’ officially launched (posted February 8, 2021)
During the February 7 episode of All Out Sundays, GMA Network officially introduced their new mobile digital TV receiver “GMA Now”.
The dongle, first introduced to the market in December last year, has several features like a capability to message concurrent viewers via the app, among others.
GMA Now is the second DTV device of the Kapuso network, with the first being the GMA Affordabox digibox released in June 2020.
ABS-CBN Entertainment is the number 1 YouTube channel in Southeast Asia (posted February 8, 2021)
ABS-CBN Entertainment’s YouTube channel is now the most subscribed in Southeast Asia. The channel, which boasts more than 32.4 million subs and 40 billion all-time views, surpassed previous record-holder — Thailand’s WorkpointOfficial. To date, ABS-CBN also holds two diamond creator awards, a recognition given to channels with more than 10M subscribers in the video streaming platform.
BBC World News banned in China (posted February 12, 2021)
Chinese authorities pronounced yesterday that the BBC World News service will no longer be accessible in the country except for the channel’s partner hotels. The move is seen to be a retaliation by the PRC after UK’s Ofcom revoked the license of China’s CGTN last week.
CNN Philippines announces mass layoffs by mid-March (posted February 12, 2021)
Local CNN franchisee Nine Media Corporation has announced a “downsizing” activity by mid-March to cut losses incurred by the company due to weak advertising brought by the effects of COVID-19 in the economy. There are no information available on the number of staffers affected by the forthcoming retrenchment.
Last year, CNNPH was also forced to close down TV broadcast twice as their Mandaluyong headquarters recorded COVID-19 positive cases. The channel was also forced to cut airtime or permanently cancel of several programs, among which is the 8am edition of Newsroom.
Coincidentally, the channel is also set to celebrate its sixth year on air on March 16.
Facebook bans news content in Australia (posted February 18, 2021)
As of today, the news pages of all five major Australian broadcasters are no longer displaying any posts, likewise they’re no longer allowed to post anything in the platform. This move by the social media giant is a direct response to the Australian government’s new legislation seeking payment from tech companies to pay for the local news outlets. In the contrary, Google has already, although allegedly, strike deals with several media companies in Australia.