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Tiny TV channel hits new heights on space jump

Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner not only broke three world records on Sunday when he skydived from the edge of space to earth – he also helped German news broadcaster n-tv to rack up its best ever viewing numbers.

Tiny TV channel hits new heights on space jump
Photo: DPA

The rolling news channel normally fails attract the masses in Germany which is still very traditional in its viewing habits. But on Sunday it hit dizzying heights when 7.1 million people tuned in to watch Baumgartner’s 39km freefall.

A further 640,000 watched it live online via the broadcaster’s website. This saw the news channel minnow outstrip giant state broadcaster ARD, which clocked up 5.6 million viewers.

It also broke the channel’s viewer record by far; its previous high was when 5.5 million watched its live coverage of Michael Jackson’s funeral.

During the actual jump, 19.9 percent of people watching television in Germany at that time were watching n-tv. Normally on a Sunday evening this figure is around just one percent, a spokesman from the channel confirmed.

“Thanks to Baumgartner the quota was twenty times higher (than normal),” he said.

Baumgartner jumped from a balloon floating 39 kilometres above the earth. Hitting a top speed of 1,342 kmph, he broke the sound barrier before releasing his parachute and landing in New Mexico, in the US.

DAPD/The Local/jcw

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BUSINESS

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat

Google announced Wednesday the reopening of its news service in Spain next year after the country amended a law that imposed fees on aggregators such as the US tech giant for using publishers’ content.

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat
Google argues its news site drives readers to Spanish newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue.Photo: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

The service closed in Spain in December 2014 after legislation passed requiring web platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay publishers to reproduce content from other websites, including links to their articles that describe a story’s content.

But on Tuesday the Spanish government approved a European Union copyright law that allows third-party online news platforms to negotiate directly with content providers regarding fees.

This means Google no longer has to pay a fee to Spain’s entire media industry and can instead negotiate fees with individual publishers.

Writing in a company blog post on Wednesday, Google Spain country manager Fuencisla Clemares welcomed the government move and announced that as a result “Google News will soon be available once again in Spain”.

“The new copyright law allows Spanish media outlets — big and small — to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to make money with that content,” she added.

“Over the coming months, we will be working with publishers to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.”

News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at the failure of Google particularly to pay them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news stories.

Google argues its news site drives readers to newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue and find new subscribers.

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