Radio, TV managers complete a training course in Japan TOKYO, 26 April 2013 - An eight-person delegation from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting completed a one-week training course in Japan where they were exposed to cutting-edge broadcasting technologies, equipment maintenance methods, as well as to the concept and practical methods of public broadcasting.
The officials, led by the Director General of Information, Mr. Mustafa Biong Majak, returned to Juba on 25 April 2013. Accompanying Mustafa were Paul Jacob, director of information, Moyiga Nduru, director of South Sudan TV (SSTV), Rehan Abdelnabi, director of South Sudan Radio (SSR), Faris Mathew, director of state affairs and international relations, Ramadan Kamil, head of SSTV’s engineering section, Abdallah Noah, head of engineering unit at the SSR, and Rejoice Samson Tio, head of the English News section at the SSTV. The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the implementing arm of the Japanese government, invited the team to the Asian country. JICA has embarked on a four-year project since last year to turn SSTV and SSR into a public broadcaster. Upon arrival in Japan on 17 April 2013, the delegation was subjected to a series of trainings in the capital Tokyo and Kyoto, a city in central Japan. In Tokyo, the delegation learned about the relationship between government and public broadcaster. In Japan, the main source of revenue for the national broadcaster, NHK, is the subscribers. Each household, owning a TV set, pays a fixed annual subscription fees to the NHK for running the national broadcaster. This system has not been introduced in South Sudan. Hence, the revenue collected by the SSTV and SSR, through advertisement sales, is submitted directly to the account of the Ministry of Finance in Juba. The imposing Tower in Tokyo has also offered some idea to the delegation. This 648-metre tower hosts all transmitters, used by both public and private broadcasters, in Japan. It is a system that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in South Sudan hopes to benefit from. Archiving, or storing films or footages, also offers challenges for both SSTV and SSR. While NHK is working on a new search system which would run through ten million items (tapes, footages) per second, SSTV needs, sometimes, a full day, if not days, to identify and pick an item out of a heap of a mess in its archive unit. Currently NHK search system can run through one million items per minute. In Japan, the government has no say in the running of the NHK, which is, essentially, an independent public broadcaster. The media bills, which are being discussed by various governmental institutions, are expected to provide such autonomy in South Sudan where the government controls both the SSTV and SSR. NHK has a lot of experiences to share with both the SSTV and SSR. For example, the Japanese national broadcaster has more than ten helicopters, on standby, to cover elections and national disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami. It also has cameras stationed all over the country to cover natural disasters without participation of camerapersons. The camera transmits the footage directly to the NHK, which is then broadcast within seven seconds of its transmission. The delegation also had an opportunity to visit Sony Corporation headquarters in Tokyo. Sony is workig on a new generation of its modern equipment such as mobile phones and TV sets. In Kyoto, the delegation was exposed to small-scale broadcaster management and its transmission tower. The delegation also visited Buddhist temples and shrines in Kyoto, a former Japanese capital before the emperor relocated his headquarters to Tokyo. ‘’It was a successful training course,’’ Mustafa, the head of the delegation, said. ‘’The team has benefited from the training.’’ Reported by Moyiga Nduru -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
