Television Broadcasts

It was a voice of anguish that pierced a nation. Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who speaks Hebrew, worked as a gynecologist in an Israeli hospital.

The Dodgers are expanding their Spanish-language cable TV broadcasts this season, upping the telecasts from 30 to 50 games in 2012. As part of an effort by Fox to increase its Spanish sports broadcasts throughout the Los Angeles area, and nationally, games will be on Prime Ticket and carried by Time Warner, Cox and Bright House cable companies. Fox is still negotiating with other providers. The Dodgers have hired Jaime Jarrin's son , Jorge Jarrin, and long-time coach Manny Mota as broadcasters for their Spanish-language telecasts.

Hughes Electronics Corp.'s DirecTV and broadcasters have agreed on general guidelines for transmitting local programs via satellite in an attempt to influence the final form of a satellite TV bill pending in Congress. Copies of the agreement were sent to members of Congress trying to iron out the differences between House and Senate bills to permit vendors such as DirecTV to carry the signals of local stations. DirecTV, EchoStar Technologies Corp.

The Galaxy has reached a broadcast agreement to jump from Fox Sports West to Time Warner Cable's fledgling regional sports channels — one in English, one in Spanish — beginning in 2012. The 10-year deal is valued at $55 million for an undetermined number of games, an official close to the talks confirmed. Time Warner Cable, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment Tuesday as did the Galaxy. The value of the regional contract, $5.1 million per season, dwarfs the three-year $30-million national deal between Major League Soccer and NBC and will provide a welcome financial boost for the Galaxy.

"This is rather unexpected," said Andrew Lloyd Webber, accepting "Phantom of the Opera's" award for best musical on Sunday night's Tony broadcast. It certainly was, considering that "Into the Woods" had just received awards for having the Broadway season's best score (by Stephen Sondheim) and best book (by James Lapine). The reasoning seemed to be: Yeah, but "Phantom" is a better show . Fudge. However, as colleague Robert Hilburn might say, it's only rock 'n' roll.

Los Angeles' KTLA-TV (Channel 5) was the nation's first station to simultaneously broadcast programs in English and Spanish. In 1984, the Federal Communications Commission permitted some TV stations to split up their single monaural sound track into four audio channels--a second for stereo, a third for a foreign language track and a fourth for data transmission.

Two major Spanish-language broadcast companies said Tuesday that they've signed a contract with Nielsen Media Research to test "people meters" in 200 Latino households in the Los Angeles area. If the test goes well, Nielsen officials said, a national survey with the viewer-activated meters will start in 800 Latino households in the latter half of 1990. The companies signing the contract are the Telemundo Group Inc.

Two men suspected of murdering an Olympic boxing hopeful in his Wilmington home nearly a year ago surrendered to Maryland police Tuesday, two days after the television show "America's Most Wanted" depicted the crime. Fugitives Michael Berry, 34, and Jessie Morrison, 22, surrendered at the police station in Rockville, Md., authorities said.

A lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages against KHJ Television alleges that one of its broadcasts contained inaccurate information about new techniques for breast augmentation surgery and that the station thus is responsible for injuries a viewer allegedly suffered when she tried the treatment. Stephanie Brady, Channel 9 vice president and news director, declined comment Monday, saying she had not seen the lawsuit. Filed by J. E.

Two weeks before the Democratic convention, the television broadcast networks are facing a dilemma over how much prime-time coverage to devote to the event, which will take place July 13 through 16 in Madison Square Garden.

Fighting continued in the Libyan capital Thursday as rebel forces pressed the search for the country's longtime ruler, Moammar Kadafi, who was dislodged from his command-and-control center this week and remains in hiding. Rebels who overran the city and all but toppled Kadafi's decades-long rule said they had a group of Kadafi loyalists surrounded in an apartment building close to his Bab Azizya compound, which was ransacked by lightly armed rebel forces following a rapid advance from three directions on the capital.

A Pakistani TV station broadcast footage of a fire said to be at the compound near Islamabad where Osama bin Laden was killed Sunday. President Obama announced the death to the world, saying the Al Qaeda leader died in a firefight with U.S. special forces. No Americans were injured in the raid, Obama said, although a senior official said that one of the helicopters used in the operation was damaged and had to be destroyed. Photos: Osama bin Laden is dead Pakistani security forces sealed off the area, turning journalists away.

Thousands of supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak attacked anti-government forces in Cairo's main square Wednesday, some charging in on camels and horses in a dramatic escalation of violence that prompted an official order to clear the area. After days of raucous but peaceful demonstrations that had resembled a giant block party, pro-Mubarak forces pushed their way into the square from side streets, wielding clubs and horse whips against cordons of protesters. The crowd of anti-government demonstrators, sparse compared to their numbers in previous days, hurled stones and chunks of concrete.

In Guangzhou, the city formerly known as Canton, Chinese government banners hang in primary schools with instructions to use the country's official language, Mandarin, also known as Putonghua: "Speak Putonghua, write standard Chinese, use civilized language, be a civilized person. " But residents of the city, the capital of one of China's proudest Cantonese-speaking regions, recently marched by the hundreds to protest a new government proposal to switch television broadcasts from the local dialect to Mandarin ahead of the multi-sport Asian Games scheduled for November in Guangzhou.

President Obama signed a memorandum Monday that would double the current amount of airwaves available for wireless devices over the next 10 years, a move intended to create jobs and boost investment in the mobile phone market. The availability of more wireless spectrum will allow faster delivery of data and video onto smart phones and other next-generation devices. The memorandum calls for 500 megahertz of government and commercial spectrum to be made available over the next 10 years.

President Hu Jintao cut short his trip to South America on Thursday and Premier Wen Jiabao flew to a far-flung corner of the Tibetan plateau, pulling out all stops to portray a compassionate Chinese government doing all it can to help the victims of Wednesday's magnitude 6.9 earthquake. At last count, the quake had left 617 people dead, 9,110 injured and more than 100,000 homeless, the majority of them Tibetan. The earthquake took place in a politically tense region where many Tibetans have long chafed under Chinese rule.

Alex Yee left Hong Kong as a boy but never stopped missing the Cantonese TV shows of his childhood. Had his family settled in a heavily Chinese community like Monterey Park, Yee could have signed up for cable TV with Hong Kong programming. But moving into a house near Dodger Stadium, the Yees were out of luck. Until last year. That was when two firms in Los Angeles County began offering 24-hour TV satellite service in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Tapping into one of California's most vaunted universities is now just a click of the remote control away. This month, the University of California became one of the first universities anywhere to take to the airwaves, creating a 24-hour television channel. The UC channel, or UC-TV, airs nationwide via satellite to a potential audience of about 3.4 million.

For once, it was good news that came from the depths of a Chinese coal mine as 115 workers were rescued Monday after eight days and eight nights trapped deep inside a mine in Shanxi province. The extraordinary rescue turned into a round-the-clock reality show with state-run TV broadcasting live footage of the rescue workers carrying out the miners to a cheering audience. Rescue crews were still hoping as of Monday night to bring out 38 more miners. Although the miners had their faces wrapped with towels to protect their eyes after so many days in darkness, their elation was evident.