The Association for International Broadcasting has announced that it is starting a series of work on the issue of sustainability in the broadcasting sector.
Speaking at the Business & Climate Summit in London, AIB chief executive Simon Spanswick said that there is a need for media companies around the world to develop strategies that will increase the sustainability of their businesses. Some countries have already developed systems and plans that, for example, allow broadcasters and production companies to calculate the carbon emissions produced during programme making.
The AIB has released a briefing note that provides simple steps that broadcasters can take to help them become more sustainable.
In addition, the AIB is launching a new Sustainability Working Group to provide a platform to share information, experience and expertise among the AIB’s worldwide Membership.
The AIB is also working to ensure that its broadcaster Members collaborate on ways to promote the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals to audiences around the world. More details of initiatives in this area will be announced in coming weeks.
The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, presented a keynote speech at the Cannes Lions advertising festival on 24 June calling on the advertising industry to work together to support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. On stage alongside the Secretary-General were the heads of five of the world’s largest ad agencies: Yannick Bolloré, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Havas, Michael Roth, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IPG, John Wren, President and Chief Executive Officer of Omnicom, Maurice Lévy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Publicis Groupe and Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and Chief Executive Officer of WPP. Dentsu CEO Tadashi Ishii sent a video message to the event from Tokyo.
Ban Ki Moon said: “I am here to ask for your help. This is Cannes, so I have come with a pitch. I know all of you have tremendous power to shape opinions. You are master story-tellers. And I want you to help us create the biggest campaign ever for humanity.”
He went on to explain the challenge: “Last September, leaders of 193 member states of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with 17 goals. If we implement these by 2030, all seven billion people on this planet will be put forward towards a future where nobody will be left behind. I ask you to use all your creativity, ingenuity, innovation and power of persuasion. Help us transform a complex and abstract agenda into personal, emotional and concrete walkable solutions, and make it your own story.”
The six agencies have agreed to work together – putting side their differences and competing commercial interests – to promote the SDGs over the coming 14 years.
The work of promoting the SDGs will move from the advertising industry to the media industry at the Business&Climate Summit in London on 28 and 29 June when Sir Martin Sorrell will expand on his mission to promote the SDGs and encourage media companies to join the advertising sector’s initiative. Sir Martin will open a special two-hour session at the Summit that will also see AIB CEO Simon Spanswick talk about how the media industry across the world is working on the SDGs and climate change in particular.
In 2009 veteran TV producer Fran Mires set up Al Youm for MBN’s Alhurra TV, the live daily three-hour show for the Middle East that broadcasts simultaneously from Dubai, Cairo, Beirut, Jerusalem and the US. It proved a big challenge, not least because Mires did not speak any Arabic. In 2016, with Al Youm firmly established among audiences in 22 Middle Eastern countries and having spawned a number of successful spin-offs such as Street Pulse, Mires has turned the spotlight on female empowerment in Arab society with her latest production Sit B’Mit Ragel. The Channel spoke to Mires to find out more – click here to go to interview
The Association for International Broadcasting is pleased to be working with the World Bank Connect4Climate Campaign on a special session at the Business&Climate Summit taking place in London on 28 and 29 June 2016.
A session devoted to the way in which advertising and media companies are responding to the challenge of climate change takes place with speakers including:
Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive Officer, WPP Andy Ridley, Chief Executive Officer, Circle Economy Jonathan Charles, Managing Director, Communications, EBRD & Former BBC Anchor Chris Hirst, Chief Executive Officer, Havas UK Caroline Nursey, Executive Director, BBC Media Action Beth Garrod, Director, Social Responsibility, Viacom International Media Networks Simon Spanswick, Chief Executive Officer, Association for International Broadcasting
The session will explore how media companies are engaging on the issue of climate change as well as how they are reporting on this complex subject.
As the closing date for the AIBs 2016 approaches, entries are arriving constantly at the headquarters of the Association for International Broadcasting.
These 12th annual awards celebrate the best in factual productions across television, radio and online. The AIBs are truly international, open for work produced in any language, from any organisation whether broadcaster or production company, newspaper or online platform.
The closing date is 30 June 2016. For complete information on the AIBs 2016, download the entry book and visit the AIBs website. You can see the names of our international panel of judges and details of past years’ competitions.
RT’s round the clock documentary channel RTDoc has presented hundreds of documentaries and has been recognized by many international industry awards, including the New York Festivals Awards and US International Film & Video Festival Awards, in the five years since its launch.
“The original idea was to focus on producing documentaries about Russia, but the channel has grown to cover the entire world in these 5 years,” says Yekaterina Yakovleva, head of RTDoc. “To-date, we have produced and aired over 500 films. Our teams find one-of-a-kind, absolutely stunning stories all over the world, and run live investigations at the sites of ongoing conflicts, often risking their lives.”
RTDoc crew’s recent trip to Syrian Kurdistan produced two eye-opening documentaries. In the Name of the Profit explores a possible connection between Turkey and the Islamic State; it has been scheduled for screening at the UN later this summer. Her War: Women vs. ISIS tells the story of Kurdish women fighting against the Islamic State militants who fear dying at the hand of a woman.
Other notable RTDoc films about the military conflicts include Trauma, which is dedicated to the work of emergency response doctors in the conflict-torn Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and Zashto? (Why?), shot 15 years after NATO’s air strikes of Yugoslavia, which documents present-day consequences of that military operation.
Several RTDoc stories captivated the international public with their unexpected and peculiar subjects. Sleepy Hollow followed reports of a Kazakh village whose many residents would occasionally fall into several-days-long sleep. The documentary piqued the interest of the Washington Post, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Week, and other outlets. Meanwhile, Agafiapresented to the world a 70-year-old recluse who has lived her entire life cut off from the civilization, hundreds of kilometers deep into the thick forests of Siberia.
RTDoc documentaries have been distinguished with many international awards including New York Festivals Awards, MediaExcellence Awards, OMNI Intermedia Awards, Broadcast Digital Awards, US International Film & Video Festival and Russian film festival Strana. Stand-out works include Blood and Honour, which investigated the story of a centuries-old tradition in the North Caucasus, Albino Africa about the hardships befalling albino children born in Tanzania, The Town of Little Angels, filmed six years after Beslan massacre, and Children of the Tundra, portraying the life of the indigenous population of Russia’s Far North.
The AIB has released a briefing note that provides simple steps that broadcasters can take to help them become more sustainable.
