International Journal of Digital Television - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2014

In April 2013 Cyprus and the Troika (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) reached an agreement aimed at addressing the country’s financial imbalances by leading the Island through a series of austerity measures. This article addresses the Cypriot digital television landscape three years following digital switchover (DSO) and currently in the midst of austerity measures. The article draws on long-term historical analyses combined with discourse analysis of current policy decisions, media coverage and expert interviews with the main stakeholders. It is divided into five sections. The first situates the case study within an appropriate theoretical framework. The second sheds light on Cyprus’ turbulent history and how it has affected the development of the media sectors. Next, it offers an overview of digital television in Cyprus and highlights how the main players had positioned themselves in the market before the country sunk into a deep recession. The fourth section underlines the financial crisis and the resulting austerity measures that have affected Cyprus, especially since 2012/2013. In the fifth and final section, the work focuses on the current situation, paying particular attention to how political and market-driven agendas have collided, with the example of the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform Velister.

This article provides an analysis of celebrity politics within the public sphere. As there has been a commodification of digital media services, the lines between politics and entertainment have been blurred. With the rise of talent shows, rolling news channels, Web 2.0 networks and user-generated online content, celebrity has become instantaneous and may be orchestrated in viral terms. Therefore, this analysis will consider how politicized celebrities (CP2s) have received a greater amount of coverage with reference to social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to associate themselves with endorsements, causes and activities. The article will provide a case study of the online dispute that occurred amongst film, television and music stars concerning Israel’s 2014 military action within Gaza. Finally, it will reflect upon whether celebrity activists’ use of the social media can reinvigorate politics or will such activity erode the political culture.

The deadline for the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting in Serbia is scheduled for June 2015. The aim of this article is to present the development of the digitalization process in Serbia from 2006 until 2014, and the current state a year prior to the deadline for analogue broadcasting switch-off. Considering technical, legislative, broadcasting, economic and social aspects of the process, this article argues that digital switchover in Serbia has been delayed due to the state’s inconsistent decision-making regarding the transition to digital and the lack of preparedness of each of the state, broadcasters and citizens. The delay in analogue switch-off shall be discussed in comparison with the digital transition in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, countries that share common historical, social and cultural contexts with Serbia.

Structural changes in TV markets are resulting in carriage disputes that have spread from the United States to Europe. A carriage dispute refers to a disagreement between a pay-TV operator and a broadcaster over the right to ‘carry’ a broadcaster’s channel. TV broadcasters are demanding ever increasing payments from pay-TV operators that complain about lower-profit margins due to spiralling programming costs. This article discusses vertical mergers between distributors and broadcasters as a possible way to reduce retransmission payments and to secure cheap and privileged access to programming in today’s hypercompetitive video markets.

The Independence of the Media and its Regulatory Agencies – Shedding new Light on Formal and Actual Independence Against the National Contexts, Wolfgang Schulz, Peggy Valcke and Kristina Irion (eds) (2013) Bristol: Intellect, 381 pp., ISBN: 9781841507330, p/bk, £25.

The Political Economy of Television Sports Rights, Tom Evens, Petros Iosifidis and Paul Smith (2013) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 267 pp., ISBN: 9781137275646, h/bk, £58.

Radio’s Digital Dilemma: Broadcasting in the Twenty-First Century, John Nathan Anderson (2013) New York: Routledge, 188 pp., ISBN: 9780415656122, h/bk, $125.