Each year, the AIB publishes a calendar of media events around the world that we believe are worthwhile gatherings. The diverse list is constantly updated through the year, enabling you to keep on top of what’s happening in different markets globally, and where you and your colleagues should devote energy in seeing and being seen!
And do let us know of other events that should be included – we love personal recommendations!
| On 4 January, Africanews launched from its headquarters in Congo Brazzaville. Africanews says that it is the first independent pan-African news media, initially reaching its audience through its digital community;:website, YouTube channel, Facebook and Twitter and its innovative and interactive app, “Story Hunters”.
Africanews provides news not just on Africa, but also on the rest of the world, from a purely African perspective. At our current offices in Pointe Noire, 85 media professionals, of 15 different nationalities from all over sub-Saharan Africa, work under the direction of Mame Campbell Touré, Bureau Chief, Isaac Khaguli Esipisu, Editor in Chief, and François Chignac, Director of Editorial Development. An extensive network of correspondents in every African country rounds out the team. Michael Peters, CEO of Euronews and Africanews stated: “This is a milestone in the history of our Group. It all began with the recognition that the rising African continent is an incredible source of news and that there is a great pool of talent that lacks a quality media environment. I want to thank all of the people at Africanews and Euronews who have been working together for months to prepare the launch of this new media whose mission is to ensure the independence and diversity of the news, as a founding principle of Africanews. Africanews is the first organisation to provide news from a pan-African point of view and it will spotlight all the talents of Africa.” In the news stories, features and magazines, Africanews will reflect the great creative diversity, ideas and perspectives of the evolving sub-Saharan Africa. The news coverage will be immediately available on africanews.com and, in a few weeks, the TV channel will start broadcasting across the major distribution networks. africanews.com People in Africa and anywhere in the world can now access the africanews.com website. Presented in four key areas – News / Economy / Sports / Culture – all the essential African and international news will be available in French and English on africanews.com. With its responsive web design, africanews.com is suited to all mobile, tablet and computer screens and has the added feature of adapting to the quality of the available connection. Viewers may choose from three versions:
The Africanews media comes with a community app known as “Story Hunters” which invites Africanews TV viewers and website users to play an active role in finding and creating news stories. The Story Hunters app: contribute, like, share, comment More than just an app or a social network, Story Hunters is a news-sharing platform designed to be a forum for expression of all things important for Africa. Available for iOS and Android devices, in French and English, the app allows users to watch video content published by Africanews, to comment on the items, rate them, send an emoticon, share or re-post them. Africanews also invites news hunters to join the community so that they can contribute their own photos and videos, by sending them directly from their mobile phone via the app. Download the app:
The Africanews team will select the best contributions and include them in the special ‘Story Hunters’ programme. To round out its digital presence, Africanews has also created its first two YouTube channels, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. |
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| Advertising sales
Sales of advertising space start today on digital media and on TV in a few weeks. The first advertisers are: the mobile phone company MTN Congo, Brussels Airlines, and the hotel chain Accor Africa. Sales contact for advertisers and ad agencies in Africa Marianne Michelet, Senior Account Director Africa tel. +33 (0)1 53 96 60 49 marianne.michelet@euronews.com
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International news channel RT 
marked its tenth anniversary with a major conference in Moscow on 10 December. The theme of the one-day event – attended by a range of international delegates from the world of media and politics as well as delegates from across Russia – was “Information, messages, politics: the shape-shifting powers of today’s world”. Guest speakers from the worlds of news, politics and security are taking part in lively discussions.
Speaking in a panel on security and surveillance on a link from London, Julian Assange provided thoughtful analysis of the state’s need for surveillance of the public.
RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan spoke about the role of the channel in the global media environment, highlighting the channel’s 3 billion views on YouTube.
Arnab Goswami, well-known presenter on India’s Times Now, talked of the “hegemony of Western news” and urged India to join the increasing number of global news channels.
In the evening, a gala reception attended by Vladimir Putin and Mikhail Gorbachev, along with many other Russian politicians and guests from national and international TV and radio channels, was held to round-off the day’s celebrations.
In its National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review, the government says:
The BBC currently reaches 308 million people worldwide, and its goal is to reach 500 million people by 2022. The BBC World Service reaches into some of the most remote places in the world, providing a link to the UK for individuals and societies who would otherwise not have this opportunity. We will invest £85 million each year by 2017/18 in the BBC’s digital, TV and radio services around the world to build the global reach of the World Service and increase access to news and information.
BBC Director-General Tony Hall commented on the news: “I warmly welcome today’s announcement. It’s fantastic news.
“This new funding is the single biggest increase in the World Service budget ever committed by any government.
“The millions announced today will help the BBC deliver on our commitment to uphold global democracy through accurate, impartial and independent news reporting.
“The World Service is one of the UK’s most important cultural exports and one of our best sources of global influence. We can now further build on that. The funding will also help speed us on to our target of reaching half a billion people globally.”
The new funding will allow the BBC to develop a range of services, including:
The BBC took over the funding of BBC World Service – including all radio services and foreign language television services, but not BBC World News – in April 2014. It had previously been funded by a “grant-in-aid” from the British Foreign Office [Ministry].
Radio Taiwan International has been broadcasting since the 1920s. Now it’s moving into the future with increased online and video activities supplementing its traditional radio offering. AIB chief executive Simon Spanswick visited RTI’s headquarters and talked with the broadcaster’s President, Weber Lai.
The winners of the 2015 AIBs were announced on the 4th November at a gala dinner at LSO St Luke’s in London. These annual international broadcasting awards are now in their eleventh year and celebrate the best in radio, TV and online – journalism, programmes and talent. The AIBs are judged by an independent and international panel of distinguished media professionals representing broadcasting across the world and they ensure that the awards are judged independently from commercial influence. The chosen winners demonstrate the best in engaging, powerful, moving and innovative reporting and investigation from entries which are submitted by countries in every continent of the world.
Simon Spanswick, AIB CEO said: ”The entries in 2015 demonstrated the continuing dedication of programme makers and journalists to uncover important and challenging stories, to take risks, both personally and professionally and to work expertly to investigate and explain complex subjects. The entries educate, entertain and engage their audience using the latest technologies at their disposal. We have seen important and sometimes harrowing stories brought to light, the power of the voice to captivate as well as exciting and engrossing coverage of sporting events. Once again the judges have had the hard but rewarding search for the best out of a very strong set of entries.”
This year’s awards were hosted by CNN’s Hala Gorani. Hala is based in London and anchors The World Right Now, with Hala Gorani, which airs every weekday evening. As an accomplished international journalist, Hala frequently goes into the field to report on major breaking news stories. Most recently, she’s been covering the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East.
The AIBs 2015 | Winners and highly commended finalists are:
TV Journalism
The winner is CNN for its coverage of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.
Highly commended
Al Jazeera English for Nepal in Ruins
Euronews for Fighting Boko Haram
Domestic current affairs
The winner is Channel 4 for My Last Summer, a programme that gathered together five terminally ill patients to share their experiences of coping with the last months of their lives and the effect on their families and friends.
Highly commended
Antena 3 for The Thing with Rom-Mania
Verve Productions for Filming My Father: In Life and Death
International Current Affairs
The winner is Al Jazeera Media Network for Al Jazeera Investigates – Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787. This was a disturbing tale of corporate greed as the world’s major aircraft manufacturer put profit ahead of safety.
Highly commended
Mongoose Pictures/Quicksilver Media for Outbreak: The Truth about Ebola
True Vision Productions for Kids in Camps
Domestic investigative
The winner is VRT for The Price of Cheap Food. This documentary looked at the never ending price war between supermarkets to lure consumers in with the cheapest possible food, asking who pays for this cheap food and whether a Pandora’s box has been opened in which food producers – principally farmers – have become the first victims.
Highly commended
BBC Northern Ireland for Spotlight: A Woman Alone with the IRA
Channel 4 for The Paedophile Hunter
International Investigative
The winner is Flying Cloud Productions for Human Harvest, a programme that investigated claims that first emerged from China in 2006 that state-run hospitals were killing prisoners of conscience to sell their organs.
Highly commended
Al Jazeera Media Network for Al Jazeera Investigates – Inside Kenya’s Death Squads
Sky News Arabia for Death Boats
Children’s Factual
The winner is Strix Television (part of the Nice Group) that produced The Museum for SVT. The Museum is a competition show in which knowledge, excitement, history and the present day are woven together in a children’s programme that is just as much fun for adults.
Highly commended
BBC for Being Me – A Newsround Special
deMENSEN for The Blacklist – Getting Married
Science programme
The winner is Channel 4 for Drugs Live: Cannabis on Trial which was a ground-breaking scientific trial looking at the effects on the brain of two different forms of cannabis – ‘skunk’ and ‘hash’.
Highly commended
Flimmer Film for Death – A Series about Life
True Vision Productions for Curing Cancer
Short news report
The winner is VICE News for Russian Roulette, Dispatch Fifty Seven in which Simon Ostrovsky spoke to residents in Eastern Ukraine which are innocently caught up in the middle of a bloody campaign – and who are dying as a result.
Highly commended
CNN for Ebola Battle through Nurse’s Eyes
TVC News for Customised Coffins in Ghana
Short feature
The winner is Blue Chalk Media for Burned Girl. Ragini is one of millions of children who are suffering from severe burn injuries. Blue Chalk Media travelled to India to document Ragini’s story through video and still photographs.
Highly commended
BBC World Service for Hooked
ITN for On Assignment: Heroin on the East Coast
Specialist programme
The winner is by TBI Media with Snappin’ Turtle Productions for D-Day 70 Years On. The BBC brought the UK together in a tour de force production to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings – the programme was broadcast on TV and radio, and screened in cinemas across the country.
Highly commended
LOOKS Film & TV Produktionen & ARTE for 14 – Diaries of the Great War
Kansai Telecasting for Bunraku – Soul of the Art
Online factual
The winner is Bayerischer Rundfunk for Do Not Track which explored how information about you is collected and used as you browse the web.
Highly commended
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for My Ukraine
Radio journalism
The winner is BBC World Service for its Ebola Coverage, one of the biggest stories the international broadcaster covered during 2014.
Radio current affairs
The winner is RTE Radio One for Voices which, over 12 episodes, explored issues like suicide, abortion, addiction, and raised questions about who we are and how we live.
Highly commended
ABC for Indigenous Soldiers Who Hid their Identity to Serve – the Untold Story
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for Tradition of the Blade
Radio investigative documentary
The winner is BBC World Service for The Lost Children of the Holocaust. At the end of the Second World War, the BBC began a series of special radio appeals on behalf of a group of children who had survived the Holocaust but were now stranded in post-war Europe. 70 yearson, Alex Last tries to find out what happened to the children named in the recording.
Radio creative feature
The winner is BFBS for Children of Belsen, a compelling anniversary story that deserved to be told and to reach a wider audience.
Highly commended
RTHK for Bipolar Express
Television personality
The winner is Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent and anchor of the
network’s award-winning, flagship global affairs programme Amanpour.
Radio personality
The winner is Kathryn Ryan of Radio New Zealand, where she anchors the daily Nine to Noon, a
three-hour live news and current affairs programme which runs each weekday.
AIB Founders Award – Mike Wooldridge
The AIB Founders’ Award is in recognition of Mike Wooldridge’s lifetime work as an outstanding correspondent.
AIB Lifetime Achievement Award – Larry King
The inaugural AIB Lifetime Achievement Award is in recognition of Larry King’s remarkable career on radio and television, and his extraordinary impact on the news industry.