Friday, January 1, 1999 Published at 15:22 GMT
1999: The media year in prospect By Chris McWhinnie of BBC Monitoring's Foreign Media Unit
The next year in the media will no doubt hold many surprises, and some of the events listed may not proceed quite as planned.
First quarter
Digital TV will continue to replace analogue: EuroNews, a multilingual European news channel, goes digital in January and plans more languages and services. It will cease analogue transmissions in April.
The US-run broadcaster to Africa, Radio Democracy, should start in 1999.
From January the international French TV5 will take advertising - up to six minutes per hour - and concentrate more on news programmes.
On 4th January, Intel launches the fastest consumer PC chip yet: 400Mhz.
The youth TV station MTV Germany will move from subscription to free-to-air satellite, with possible impact on other pan-European channels.
In the US, satellite CD Radio will start to deliver 100 digital radio subscription channels across the nation.
28th February is the deadline for application for licences for legal radio and TV broadcasting in Bosnia.
In February, the replacement for the AsiaSat1 satellite will be launched to cover two-thirds of the world's population.
And WorldSpace's AfriStar satellite will start transmitting free-to-air live programmes to dedicated radio and data receivers.
Second quarter
Internet traffic will have doubled in the first 100 days of the year, according to a Price Waterhouse/Coopers forecast.
The UK companies NTL and Cable&Wireless plan interactive digital cable TV.
BBC Learning, the UK's first dedicated public service educational TV channel, will launch on cable and digital satellite in May.
Comments on the European Commission green paper on radio spectrum policy and the space allocated to broadcasting have to be submitted by 15th April.
Third quarter
In July, a new Eutelsat satellite should bolster Russia's ageing satellites.
The Internationale Funkausstellung consumer electronics fair takes place in Berlin for a week from 28th August.
World Radio Network plans to have the German and multilingual service of European Radio Network, ERN, on air via DAB and analogue radio.
The winner of the first UK local digital radio (DAB) multiplex licences, for Birmingham, will be announced.
Final quarter
Digital One, the UK's national commercial DAB operator, plans to start 10 new digital radio services.
In November, the third terrestrial Israeli TV channel is due to launch. This is against a background of new cable and direct-to-home satellite TV services in Israel starting in 1999 .
Botswana TV plans the first national TV broadcasts. The channel will use former Bop-TV studios in Mafeking.
BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
Friday, January 1, 1999 Published at 15:22 GMT
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