Radio station banned from webcasting Games

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Sydney: Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) has forced an Australian government owned radio to stop broadcasting its audio-internet programmes.

It may sound unbelievable in this age when media is becoming all powerful and when incessant chanting about breaking of the global barriers is becoming shriller with every passing day, but the SOCOG has forced the Australian Broadcasting Corporation owned Triple J FM radio to stop webcasting its news and music programmes to the Australian youth.

Irony of the situation is that this webcasting, a mix of audio and Internet contents, was not even sports-oriented. Triple J FM radio stopped webcasting on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Olympics Games on September 15.

In a clear departure from much more sombre image of its parent organisation, Triple J has created a niche for itself in the intensively-competitive youth programmes' segment all over Australia.

In another straitjacket-breaking move, the popular radio has managed to construct one of the most well-known websites in Australia to webcast itsyouthful news and music programmes to wider national and international audiences.

It was reaching its niche audience all over the world live, 24 hours a day using both Windows and Real Audio streaming media technology. A Triple J communique to its subscribers explained that "due to Olympic content being included in Triple J programming, Triple J has been instructed by SOCOG that this material must not be streamed on the Internet and therefore all streaming must cease".

The provocation behind this 'ban' is understood to be the lucrative deal between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and United States television network NBC.

The unfavorable time difference between America and Australia is causing this heartburn as the American company does not want any print, electronic or internet media to send the news about Olympics to the north American region before it.

And it is holding back programmes by about six to seven hours so that it suits the American body clocks. Such contrived telecasts at prime time are expected to ensure big profits for NBC. NBC is also keeping its own online video coverage to the minimum to get the best out of the American audience and, obviously, advertisers.

It would come as a shock to the netizens and other observers of the phenomenon called internet that there is no live Olympics coverage on the internet.

India Abroad News Service