VOR Begins New Relay to Buenos Aires
WRN is pleased to announce its first foray into a much sought-after market with the launch of Voice of Russia on FM in Argentina.

Using our own expert in the region, WRN facilitated an airtime deal for the Russian State broadcaster on a very popular local FM station which gives VOR daily and weekend placement of its Spanish language programmes.

The station is located in Argentina's bustling capital and the transmission area covers the Greater Buenos Aires region, encompassing an estimated 13 million residents.

Voice of Russia's Chairman, Andrey Bystritskiy said: "We are happy to start broadcasting regularly in Argentina. In our view, the possibility of direct communication from Russian to Argentinean communities is extremely important. We will try to provide Argentina with full, honest and interesting information about events in Russia, as well as insight into how Russians see world developments".

WRN's access to FM in Argentina is just one of many relay opportunities that we offer around the world.

For further information please contact [email protected] or call +44 (0) 20 7896 4020 for more details.

NHK Begins SW Service to Brazil
WRN has recently launched a new shortwave service to Brazil for NHK as part of its ongoing commitment to increasing NHK's global broadcast presence.

NHK World Radio is the Japanese International State Broadcaster which broadcasts news, information and entertainment programmes focusing on Japan and Asia. NHK comprises a general service which broadcasts worldwide in Japanese and English and a regional service which broadcasts to specific geographical zones in 17 different languages.

Over the years, WRN has been instrumental in extending NHK's worldwide coverage; first in South Asia and the Middle East and now, after the addition of this latest service, Latin America. WRN has provided shortwave services for NHK's radio programming in Portuguese to Brazil, which commenced broadcasting on 28th March.

WRN has the means and capabilities to provide cost effective and resilient shortwave services to virtually anywhere in the world.

For more information regarding WRN's shortwave services, please contact the WRN Sales Team at [email protected].

Freesat TV Signs One-millionth Customer
Freesat, the joint venture free-to-air satellite service between the BBC and ITV, has this week announced that it has reached the one million mark in terms of receiver sales.

Emma Scott, Managing Director of Freesat, commented: "Hitting one million is a significant milestone for Freesat and gives us a great foundation for further growth, specifically with the millions of UK homes that have HD TVs but no HD service".

Freesat claimed that 40% (400,000) of its customers are former subscribers to Sky's pay-TV service.

Despite the fact that the service has only been in existence 18 months, the last six months has seen its most impressive growth to date. Over Christmas and New Year 2009, Freesat introduced 250,000 new customers to the service and, as a result, recorded a 30% sales growth.

Freesat plans to launch ITV's on-demand service ITV Player this summer and a full ITV HD channel next month.

WRN has the full capability to launch both radio and TV broadcasters onto Freesat, including providing satellite uplink and capacity and EPG submission and management service. WRN has successfully launched 7 x channels on the platform since its inception. For existing Sky customers who already use the Eurobird 1 satellite system which feeds Freesat, the process is extremely straightforward and cost-effective.

If you would like to know more about launching on Freesat, contact [email protected].

WRN at the NAB
Representatives from the WRN Business Team will be attending the NAB show in Las Vegas this month, being held 12th-15th April.

The NAB Show is attended by leading media, entertainment and communications professionals who share a passion for the next generation of video and audio content across multiple platforms, from television, radios and computers to phones, the big screen and beyond.

The conference has evolved, remaining the world's resource for high-level insight, training, education and state-of-the-art technology, powering the future of content creation, management, commerce and delivery

If you would like to meet with a member of WRN's Business Team at the NAB, please contact the Sales team at [email protected]

Asia Calling to join WRN English Networks
Yet another international flavour has been recently added to World Radio Network, with the addition of Asia Calling.

The programme represents the first Indonesian broadcaster to be added to the WRN Networks in what will be a one-hour weekly current affairs show produced by award-winning Indonesian radio news agency KBR686H. The programme produces in-depth reports that offer listeners a rare insight into the rich political, economic, social and cultural diversity of the region and provides nuanced and carefully balanced takes on stories that are often missed by other media.

From the 28th March, listeners can tune in to this exciting new programme on all three WRN English networks on two 30 minute programmes per week every Saturday and Sunday.

WRN Europe is broadcast on the UK's leading satellite platform Sky channel as well as the premium Hotbird satellite. WRN North America is broadcast on Galaxy for the US and WRN Africa, Asia and the Pacific is broadcast on Intelsat 10.

For programme information, refer to www.wrn.org/listeners/ or alternatively, if you would like to enquire about placing your programmes on the WRN English Networks, contact [email protected]

WRN at MIPTV
Sophie Wilson, WRN's Head of Sales & Business Development, will be attending this year's MIPTV conference in Cannes, France.

MIPTV is the industry content market for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing entertainment content.

As well as being a great industry get-together (MIPTV is the ideal networking platform) it is also the place to discover future trends and trade content rights on a global level.

Look out for Sophie's thoughts and findings on the WRN blog page at www.wrn.org/corporate/blog/

If you are attending MIPTV and would like to schedule a meeting, please contact Sophie directly on [email protected] or on +44 7908 247 306.