The Association for International Broadcasting

Last year's niche may become this year's mainstream.
Adam Chadwick, ITN International

Public service broadcasting, Cheneviere said, "needs the contributions of viewers and listeners as well as governments and programme editors." It is important, he added, that people have access to a variety of viewpoints. Public service broadcasters have an obligation to be impartial. With hundreds of new channels, Cheneviere added, that will be absolutely essential. The Hutton report has helped make people absolutely aware of the need for standards. "Everywhere I go;" Cheneviere concluded,"I find listeners and viewers who want broadcasters to put the public interest first."

Harnessing new technologies in production, distribution and programme promotion
As A1 B delegates were gathering in Prague, a tiny website in Malaysia –half a world away –carried graphic footage of the beheading by terrorists of American citizen Nicholas Berg in Iraq. The images were picked up immediately by the world's media, especially satellite TV networks in the Middle East. Media anthropologist Glenn Hall was quick to grasp the significance of this, and the host of questions it raised for editors and managers in a multimedia world. "We can do anything with a picture," Hall told the AIB conference, "but is it reliable? Who's watching, and why? Who'll pay for it?"

AIB planners, led by Chief Executive Simon Spanswick, constructed a conference which was a harvest of forecasts about new technologies, new techniques, and new ways of transforming cross-border broadcasting – both public and prívate. Panels focused on:
- The Internet
- New Production and Disti-ibution Platforms
- Co-operation and Rebroadcasting
- Digital Radio for the World (DRM)
- High Definition Television (HDTV)
- Information Technology
- Branding

The Internet
Use of the Internet continues to expand the reach of international broadcasters, especially in countries where traditional broadcasts are jammed or where it is imposible to rebroadcast on terrestrial outlets. RFE/RL executive Jeff Trimble notes that Radio Farda, a joint project of his network and VOA, has a website which has been quite successful in reaching Iranian youth and reformers. Druker of Transitions Online concurs, saying that in eastern and central Europe, the Internet is an increasingly important tool in reaching elites. Media historian Helen Shaw observes that during the first week of the Iraq ovar, Internet use expanded by seven percent, and she cites the Internet as one of the "hoyes and challenges" for international broadcasters in the new century.And Deutsche Welle editor-in-chief Uta Thofern says her network is inaugurating a 24/7 English language service on the Internes

New production and distribution platforms
Thofern also spoke of what she called an EU media platform, designed to appeal to younger audiences and to cover ale of Europe. Stations in Tirana and Sofía are picking up Deutsche Welle products in Albanian and Bulgarian and increasingly, the Bonn network is substituting digital for analogue shortwave and increasing rebroadcasts on FM.

Andrew Lyle, editor of the BBC's domestic classical music network, Radio 3, reports that as of May 1, sound montages of cultural programmes are being exchanged daily via a newly inaugurated platform serving stations in nine EU countries. He foresees the eventual automated transmission of digitally-produced music, as a sequel to the 2,500 concerts a year which have been distributed by the EBU satellite network in a system first introduced six years ago.

Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of new platforms, however, was that displayed in an illustrated talk by Lars Vesterlokke of Danmarks Radio. His network is integrating its radio, television and web divisions into a single multilingual complex, one in which so called "media conductors" can commission basic materials for adaptation by each of the formats.Vesterlokke believes this convergente can save costs through sharing of research and coordinated production. In the end, he says, it will serve more clients in more countries. It has the potential of transforming the organisational structure of media entities, even the design of their headquarters buildings. Danmarks Radio plans to inaugurate a full scale multimedia plant in April 2006.

Adam Chadwick, managing director of ITN International in the UK, says his organisation over the last 50 years has archived more than a half a million ítems suitable for sound documentaries.These are now being supplied to 50 channels in Britain and the United States. ITN also has pioneered the supply of voiced video bulletins, regularly updated.