On 15 February 2005, the CBA celebrates the first meeting in 1945 which led to its existence.
The CBA was founded in February 1945 as the Commonwealth Broadcasting Conference. The first meeting, held in London, brought together representatives of a number of broadcasting organisations that had co-operated closely in reporting the Second World. It began with six members and is today an association of more than 100 broadcasting organisations in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Australasia, the Pacific, North and South America.
The title “Commonwealth Broadcasting Association” was adopted in Malta in 1974 as well as the CBA charter, which set out the principles and aims of the association stipulating that membership “shall be open to publicly owned national public service broadcasting organisations, or groups of such organisations, which are responsible for the planning, production and presentation of broadcast programmes in Commonwealth countries”. This was modified in 1995 to allow for membership of commercial companies with a commitment to public service broadcasting and to allow for affiliate membership.
Following the first conference in Britain in 1945, a subsequent meeting was again held in Britain in 1952 and then in Australia (1956), India (1960), Canada (1963), Nigeria (1965), New Zealand (1968), and then on a regular basis every two years continuing with Jamaica (1970), Kenya (1972), Malta (1974), Singapore (1976), Mauritius (1978), Australia (1980), Canada (1982), Hong Kong (1984), Britain (1986), The Bahamas (1988) Cyprus (1990), Botswana (1992), Canada (1994), Malaysia (1996), Gibraltar (1998), South Africa (2000), Britain (2002) and Fiji (2004).
The modern CBA is a respected international forum for broadcasters, promoting quality broadcasting through exchange of knowledge and skills, it runs broadcasting conferences, consultancies and training, has a number of broadcasting publications to its credit, helps broadcasters with funds in case of major crises like disasters and has recently made donations to the broadcasting organisations of the Maldives, Seychelles and Sri Lanka to help repair tsunami damage.
The CBA also runs a big bursary programme, and currently spends over £300,000 on bursaries to broadcasters each year.
As part of its 60th anniversary celebrations, the BBC’s Chairman Michael Grade gave the Commonwealth Broadcasting Lecture on 9 February 2005.
CBA will publish a book with the best of the Commonwealth Short Stories and Photographs called “The Spirit of the Commonwealth”.