RADIO ASIA

Media professionals to debate issues at new Asian radio conference

Radio broadcasters, communications academics and representatives of
developmental agencies will be among those exchanging views at a new
radio industry conference in Singapore in June. RadioAsia 2005 is a
new side-event to the annual BroadcastAsia being organised by the
Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) and the
Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) in partnership with Singapore
Exhibition Services (SES). The three-day event, which is being
supported by the Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore, will
discuss the impact of emerging and converging radio communications
strategies in the Asia-Pacific region. The conference will be
convened by the CEO of the MDA, Dr Chris Chia.

"Radio is one of the most accessible and widespread media across the
world, yet its very ubiquity means it often falls short of
recognition. In seeking to redress this imbalance AMIC is happy to be
able to initiate the RadioAsia 2005 Conference, a milestone event,"
said Indrajit Banerjee, Secretary-General of AMIC.

"We've received very encouraging response to the call for papers for
this new conference, which is an indication of the need for such a
conference in this region," said David Astley, Secretary-General of
the ABU.

"RadioAsia is the first conference in the region to bring radio
practitioners and academics together to speak on the same platform
and address the issues impacting radio today. We believe this will
result in many new insights being discussed and debated".

Most of the speakers and participants will be drawn from across Asia,
but there will be many from the USA and Europe as well. AMIC and the
ABU are planning to publish the papers presented at the conference.

The event will comprise two-and-a-half days of conference sessions
and two parallel half-day workshops. The conference will feature
issues such as the development of radio, development communication,
community radio, radio and youth, radio regulation as well as
audience research and radio advertising. Industry speakers from ABU
member broadcasting organisations including Radio Australia, All
India Radio (AIR), Commercial Radio Australia and the BBC, and
academics from around the region will participate.

Two parallel half-day workshop sessions on radio will be conducted by
the Radio Netherlands Training Centre and the Deutsche Welle Academy
on the afternoon of the third day of the conference.

The dates of RadioAsia are 15-17 June 2005, and it will be held at
the Singapore Expo facility. Those interested in registering for the
conference can visit http://www.radioasia.org for more details.
# posted by Andy @ 08:15 UTC
--
--