{"id":296,"date":"2005-09-01T23:48:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-01T23:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanaasfour.dev.specidea.uk\/?p=296"},"modified":"2021-06-11T23:48:47","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T23:48:47","slug":"getting-a-piece-of-the-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/2005\/09\/01\/getting-a-piece-of-the-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting a piece of the action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Beirut Media Center has built a solid business providing news transmission services for western media.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The climate is not the only thing linking London to Beirut these days. On an unusually hot and humid August afternoon in Stockwell, broadcast service provider Ken Suckling explains the surprising portability of a large satellite dish that sits on top of a van, more technically known as a flyaway terminal. Operations manager Kate Ivens is on hand to translate Suckling\u2019s expertise into layman\u2019s terms, while engineer Adam Simmons has no such qualms and launches into an intricate explanation of the input, conversion and transmission process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Beirut Media Center (BMC) was founded by Suckling and international television journalist Brent Sadler in 2001. While based in Beirut, it is supported and partnered by Suckling\u2019s London-based Satellite News Gathering (SNG) Broadcast Services, which provides technical support from its office and warehouse in Stockwell. The BMC provides satellite transmission and production equipment for independent and national networks and broadcasters all over Europe, the Middle East and North America, including the BBC, CNN, Sky, Deutsche Wella, Al Jazeera and Al Arabia. It has a fixed link studio in downtown Beirut. Located behind the ESCWA building, the studio offers a permanent live background of the Prime Minister\u2019s palace, downtown Beirut and the sea. It also provides portable flyaway satellite uplink facilities, so that breaking news, and cultural, business and sporting events in the Middle East can be covered and transmitted all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning Beirut into a media hub<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The establishment of the BMC heralds a new era in which Beirut is becoming a center for journalism and broadcasting in the Middle East. It was established in January 2001, after SNG was subcontracted by CNN to help cover the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. At the same time, then prime minister, the late Rafik Hariri, liberalized the licensing laws for broadcasting and satellite transmission in Lebanon. Sadler, reporting for CNN, got together with Suckling and formed the company. \u201cWe saw an opportunity and went with it,\u201d said Suckling. \u201cThere were no obstacles after the initial transition period during which the liberalization laws came into effect.\u201d The company was quickly up and running, making use of its partner SNG\u2019s contacts, technical support and predominantly European client list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The partnership between Sadler and Suckling works effectively. They have known each other since 1992, when Suckling was providing satellite services for CNN in Somalia. Sadler is the BMC\u2019s chairman and a 50% shareholder. As a well known television reporter, he is very much the company\u2019s face. Suckling, on the other hand, is the technology and business expert who has been in the news gathering business since the 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before 2001, Cairo was, and remains, a principal regional center for broadcasting, where several international television networks and broadcasters (including CNN) base their regional headquarters. During the 1990s, Egypt had an advantage over Lebanon because there were more flights to and from the country granting easier access to the rest of the Middle East. In Lebanon there remain difficulties for broadcasters and journalists wanting to travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories. But Hariri\u2019s liberalization of transmission regulations made an enormous difference. What also tipped the balance in Beirut\u2019s favour was Hariri\u2019s launching of an \u201copen skies\u201d policy, which ended restrictions on aircraft capacity and limitations on the frequency of flights to and from Beirut, thus permitting more frequent and easier transportation of satellite broadcasting equipment. Finally, Cairo\u2019s licensing laws can be restrictive. It can be difficult to get transmission licences from the government, and the marketplace is inevitably controlled by this to some degree. So once Hariri\u2019s reforms had been implemented, some movement towards Beirut was inevitable. The BMC was the first transmission services company to open up in Beirut, and was rapidly followed by Sawatel and the Beirut Broadcast Service Centre (BBSC). Television stations LBC, Future TV and Orbit also offer transmission facilities. While it is not the largest, the BMC remains one of the busiest. Its success depends on many of the same qualities that allowed SNG, out of which it was formed, to thrive. These qualities include the company\u2019s small size, which permits immediate reaction to world events, and its highly skilled engineers for the operation and maintenance of expensive and easily damaged equipment. \u201cIt is an expensive service to provide, with high entry and maintenance costs,\u201d said Suckling. Well-trained engineers are paramount, and the BMC can draw upon SNG\u2019s technical back-up facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is difficult to predict the company\u2019s annual turnover, Suckling estimated it at US$300,000. \u201cBecause most of our revenue comes from Western clients it depends on how much interest there is in the Middle East,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can double our turnover with a war in Afghanistan or Iraq. But we\u2019re the first people to suffer if Western economies become tight, or if advertising revenues, which pay for air time, are reduced.\u201d It is not that there would be less news, but the ways in which news is transmitted would suffer \u2013 there would be fewer live crosses, for instance, and more taped news. The BMC\u2019s reputation has certainly been consolidated this year. Since Hariri\u2019s assassination in February, the demonstrations, elections and bombings have reawakened international interest in Lebanon. For Suckling, these events have proved that the decision to create the BMC was correct: \u201cBeirut is a sensible place to be based if you can\u2019t function out of Cairo.\u201d He also believes that providing transmission services permits Lebanon to have a more prominent voice on the world stage. \u201cThere\u2019s now a studio for people to go to in Beirut and it\u2019s easy for international broadcasters to contact and hear the opinions of local politicians, experts and analysts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What lies ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the future of the company, Suckling and Sadler are planning to expand the BMC\u2019s editorial department, which was established in 2003 and has grown rapidly. The BMC\u2019s permanent journalists, Anthony Mills and Christina Foerch, complement the company\u2019s transmission services, and use the downtown studio and production facilities to transmit their stories. This journalism department is building a solid reputation for providing a European view on regional events. Mills and Foerch are fluent in English, French and German and present stories to Deutsche Wella, ZDV, Arte, Sky, CNN and Al-Arabia, among other stations. \u201cOur experiment with the journalists has been a success and we are looking to expand the journalistic side regionally,\u201d Suckling said. He believes that Beirut will continue to operate as a centre for news gathering in the region. However, he wishes the company to remain small which, up to now, has proved to be a winning formula. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to apply ourselves to a vast number of clients,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a core of quality clients and we provide a good service to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beirut Media Center has built a solid business providing news transmission services for western media. The climate is not the only thing linking London to Beirut these days. On an unusually hot and humid August afternoon in Stockwell, broadcast service provider Ken Suckling explains the surprising portability of a large satellite dish that sits on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world-affairs","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lanaasfour.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}