Updated 9 April 2021
The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union held their 2021 Digital Broadcasting Symposium, April 5–8. Normally meeting on-site in Malaysia, this year’s gathering was moved online due to the global pandemic.
With the theme of “Inspire, Engage and Enhance,” the four-day symposium focused on overcoming the unprecendent challenges that are facing broadcasters amid the global pandemic.
Malaysia’s Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Dato’ Saifuddin Abdullah opened the conference. He celebrated Radio Television Malaysia’s (RTM) 75th birthday and reviewed the broadcaster’s plans for future growth and improvement.
“Embrace new technology to remain relevant so as to continue to play a role in sharing knowledge and information for the betterment of people,” he encouraged. Read more about Abdullah’s opening remarks here.
Dr. Javad Mottaghi, Secretary General of the ABU added, “Broadcasters around the globe are going through a difficult time at the moment. Regardless of all the challenges that media professionals are facing with, our responsibility as broadcasters to inform, educate and entertain our audiences has not been changed. We have to think of creative and innovative ways to continue our services to our audiences in such a competitive media environment.”
ABU reported that 700 engineers, IT managers, producers and media professionals registered for the symposium, representing 340 organizations from 74 countries. To cover the various topics of interest for the industry, it organized 13 conference sessions and three workshops, presented by over 50 global professionals.
Topics of focus included advanced technologies, business strategies, content security, AI and big data applications and content security, as well as digital radio standards such as DRM, DAB and RadioDNS.
The key conference session brought together senior broadcast engineers from six Asian countries to share their experiences on overcoming the pandemic. It was moderated by Nepal Television journalist and presenter Shivanee Thapa.
WorldDAB, Digital Radio Mondiale and media solutions and service provider Dalet presented hour-long workshops.
Joan Warner, CEO of Commercial Radio Australia, discussed how the pandemic affected the country’s media sector. The accelerated focus on digital shifted advertising dollars away from traditional media and led to consolidation, cost-cutting and closures across the media sector last year, particularly in magazines, regional TV and regional print media, she said. Radio was affected too, but remained one of the most successful mediums at reaching and engaging listeners, Warner noted.
Next month, ABU will be holding a two-day virtual show on digital media and content, May 26–27. #ABUdigital is a place to explore the latest digital trends, tools, technologies and best practices, says the organizers.