Radio Asia 2011 ... 23/2/11.......Day 3 ... New Delhi

Radio Asia 2011 ... 23/2/11.......Day 3  ... New Delhi
Day 3 - Morning SESSION 8

Speakers at Radio Asia 2011... Session 8... Day 3

  On 23rd Feb 2011 Radio Asia 2011 entered the eight session on the final day of its conference. The topic of this session was Media Convergence and growing demands on Radio-Is the industry heeding these needs? Altogether there were 6 speakers in this session which started with Amitabh Srivastava - Country Manager Radio Netherlands. Amitabh's focus has been on New Media and at RAC 2011, he was quite clear in his thoughts to ensure that his Radio service was available on AIR, private FM, University Radio, web sites, cable, DTH and mobile domains.

 Kalinga Athulathmudali 

Amitabh Srivastava

                                
                  
The next speaker of the day was Kalinga Athulathmudali - Manager Development Support, Metatechno Lanka, Colombo. Kalinga was by far the most impressive speaker in terms of his knowledge about Digital Media and E Learning. He has been instrumental in creating internet radio in Sri Lanka and was keen to help the broadcasters of Radio Asia 2011 representing community radio. Since the monthly cost of running an Internet Radio is negligible it becomes a viable medium for community radio.

Khor Kok Yeow

Amrendra Srivastava

                    
Khor Kok Yeow from Wawasan Open University Malaysia, the third speaker emphasized on the need of media convergence. He offered his services to the broadcasters to set up web radio in their respective countries.
As per the schedule Osama Manzar from Digital Empowerment Foundation India was supposed to deliver his thoughts on how mobile can empower the masses, however Amarendra Srivastava stepped in due to his unavailability. His opening statement was "India is an oral society" with 1.2 billion population, 700 million mobile households, 150 million TV households, 120 million radio households and 50 million internet households, he said that theses numbers proved that India at large was not hampered by the low literacy rates. His 'Digital Empowerment Foundation' has been giving Manthan Awards for the last 7 years to encourage the use of New Media. www.gaonkiawaaz.wordpress.com was the case study which he presented at the seminar.

Naimur Rehman

The next speaker Naimur Rehman - One World South Asia, spoke about Media Convergence to build information infrastructures for development. He cited the One World experience in India.

Anurag Batra

                        
The last speaker of the eight session was Anurag Batra - Publisher and Editor-In-Chief, exchange4media.com New Delhi. The ad guru started his address with a witty anecdote about Liz Taylor and her 7th husband. He impressed the audience with his thoughts on the growing importance of Digital Media.
Day 3 - Morning SESSION 9 
After the first tea break, session 9 commenced, the topic was getting to the "Top of the Market". The speakers were Jake Abdullah - AMP Radio Networks Malaysia, Steve Ahern - Managing Director Ahern Media and Training Pvt Ltd Australia, Mukesh Sharma - Director of Sales, Central Sales Unit, All India Radio Mumbai. The session was chaired by Ruxandra Obreja - President DRM UK.

Speakers during Session 9.....Day 3

This session provided the attendees with their reports on how they were able to rise to the top levels in their respective markets. Incidentally this was the first occasion  during the conference that All India Radio was being represented. Though all the speakers were well received, Mukesh Sharma from AIR was bombarded with the maximum  number of questions, in fact the Chair had to request the audience to direct their questions to other panelists as well.

Question Answer Session..

Mukesh Sharma in action...

 Day 3 - Post Lunch SESSION 10 
The topic for the session was Radio Broadcasters case studies. Tomohiro Kato - Sr Programme Director Radio Programmes Center NHK Japan, narrated the case study of the popular youth programme entitled "Shibu Maga Z" which was aired every Sunday. Research showed that the youth of Japan were not an active part of the radio listening audience, therefore this programme was created to revive that segment of youth interest.

Vijay Sadhu,Tomohiro Kato, Deep Kumar, Eshwar S. Mehta

RC Singh,AIR looking for answers...

The next speaker Dr. V S Deepkumar - Dty Director Audience Research Unit AIR Bangalore, informed all how AIR catalyzed the development in Indian agriculture. Through his slided he displayed lot of insight as to how the farming community was empowered by AIR.

Eshwar Singh Mehta - BECIL India, highlighted how technology infusion has helped commercial broadcasting in India.

The last speaker of this session was the ever charming, soft spoken Vijay Sadhu - Sr Exec Radio Programme ABU Malaysia. She opined that broadcast industry and its future lies in its digitalization. The highlight of her presentation was various audio tracks picked up from international radio broadcasters viz Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia etc. The sound tracks were about children and their use of radio.

Radio Activity at Radio Asia 2011 in full swing.. 

Day 3 -  Last SESSION 11
The topic for the last session of the conference was "National and International Radio". The speakers were Ludo Maes - Vice Chairman TDP DRM UK who spoke about convergence of technologies in International broadcasting, R Narsimha Swamy - Gen manager BECIL India spoke of the role of BECIL and its contribution to broadcasting, Dr. R Shreedhar - Director Commonwealth Educational Media Center for Asia spoke about satellite radio a boon for Asian nations in a convergent scenario, Ram Sharan Karki - Freelance Consultant Broadcast media spoke about satellite radio, pros and cons for Asian markets.

Day 3 -  Last SESSION 11

That brought the RAC 2011 to a grand close. After the thanksgiving speech it was announced that the next conference for Radio Asia 2012 would be held in Beijing, China.

Radio Asia 2011 ... 22/2/11.......Day 2 ... New Delhi

  9am.... Day 2... Morning Session.... 
What started as a small step on day 1 , took a big leap on day 2.. Speakers after Speakers gave an insight of what is happening in their part of the world vis a vis Radio Broadcast.

The hustle bustle on day 2 of Radio Asia 2011

Dr R Shreedhar

The morning session was chaired by Dr R Sreedher, Director, Commonwealth Educational media center for Asia .The topic of the session was ''Does Radio broadcast socially relevant messages to reach intended audiences?" After Introducing the speakers , Dr Shreedhar emphasized the need for Community Broadcasters and  Public service  Broadcasters ( PSB) should work hand in hand and not as competitors.

The first speaker of the day was Esther Kar , Joint Secretary, National Commission  of Minorities, India. She was of the opinion that Public Service Broadcaster and community should develop some sort of synergy to strengthen the cause of the society at large. She felt that Radio has been a great tool in promoting literacy.

MC Rasmin (Sri Lanka)

The second speaker hailed from Sri Lanka development journalist forum. He was Director MC Rasmin. His topic was The role of PSB in pluralist communication, unpracticed lessons in Sri Lanka. He felt that Plurastic communication through broadcast can strengthen democracy, which in turn can balance structure between all the difficult groups of society. He concluded by saying that there was no Pluralism without Diversity and no Diversity without Pluralism.

Author and Fanny Podworny, DRM

Dr Binod C Agrawal was the 3rd speaker when Dr Shreedhar was chairing the session. Dr Agarwal  Heads the TALEEM Research Foundation.He felt that that the importance of radio is much more in South east Asia due to its rich cultural, linguistic and heterogeneousness background. He was surprised to see that Community Radio flourished in the entire Indian sub Continent except in India. He was looking for answers.

10am .. Day 2 .. Morning Session..
The topic for this session was'' Radio's positive role in conflict reporting''. It was chaired by Steve Ahern MD of Ahern Media And training Pvt Ltd, Australia . There were total five speakers in this session viz.
1. Dr Michael McCluskey... CEO, Radio Australia
2. Basharat Ahmed Khan...Controller, Indira Gandhi national Center for the Arts
3.Bryan Curtis.....RTHK, Hong kong.
4.Rajendra Sharma..... Executive Director , Anteena foundation, Nepal
5.Amit Baruah....BBc Bangla Service

Amit Baruh, Rajendra Sharma, Bryan Curtis ,Basharat A Khan, Micheal McCluskey 

They all spoke eloquently vis a vis their experience in conflict reporting. Dr Rajendra Sharma felt that inspite of the strong culture of self censorship and imposed censor ship on the media, radio in Nepal has been able to play a constructive role in building Nepal's political landscape.
Dr Micheal McCluskey with his ever charming smile underlined the importance of radio, that has given voice to many diverse viewpoints, thereby giving opportunity to people to express their viewpoints in times of conflict.
Basharat A Khan narrated his experience as to how he used the radio to bring down tension between two warring groups , by airing both the viewpoints and in turn reducing tension, when he was posted in the valley of Kashmir in the 80's.
Bryan Curtis informed , though Hong Kong is a rich state, yet the younger lot which is not that well off is totally disconnected and dis chanted with the state. In such times he is using the radio As medium to reconnect the youth with the Society by airing their viewpoints.
Amit Baruh of BBC Bangla  felt that Radio  works as a soothing balm to those separatist group, who are alienated from the social fabric. In such times Radio is able to reconnect them with the peers, as they have a platform to air their grievances.The Session ended with question and answers.

Mukesh Sharma (Author) with Vijay Sadhu the ever gracious lady

Day 2 ...Post Lunch Session...
There were 3 sessions in the afternoon. Changing Management: increasing Listenership among young audiences was the topic for the 5th session of the conference. The speakers were Shashwati Goswami, Kathyrn Brown ,Dr Binod Agrawal, Dr Kanchan K Malik.

Radio Activity ........

How ever the presentations in the 6th session of Radio Asia 2011, entitled  Radio Programming and Station Management, gave some valuable insight of Regional FM radio channels success stories.
Mr Amritendu Roy presented his views on The rise of Niche FM Channels in Indian Contest. He narrated step by step the success of 91.9Friends FM and how they manage to change the rules of the game by creating a new FPC and not sticking to the CHR or contemporary hit radio format.
Another young broadcaster Jignesh Vasavada of 94.3 MY FM India , shared his thoughts on the understanding of radio in non metro India. He felt that there is a great potential for the son of the soils to show case their talent. He informed that reversed brain drain is happening and lot of young blood is returning back to be a part of their own culture.

Ms Kavitha Srinivaasan

The 3rd speaker Ms Kavitha Srinivaasan topic was a sustainable model for balancing competing interests around community radio and resources situated in education campus. She presented her paper on Case of KSR Community Radio. 

Jignesh Vasavada

Amritendu Roy

The 7th session of the Conference entitled Exploring FM Radio: Leveraging the enhanced Audience in Radio , had Vineeta Dwivedi of DRM doing a proxy for Tim Ayris from UK who could not turn up, but had sent his paper. The paper gave insight, as to why DAB( digital audio broadcast) as against DRM( digital radio mondiale) was successful in UK.
Shailendra Nigam of Techno Media Solution commented on the boom in FM radio infrastructure, more on the technical aspect of FM . How ever his thoughts on the evolution of FM in India were well resarched.
And finally it was Kudsia Kahar from AMP Radio Network Malaysia who really impressed one and all (including me) with her Ipad approach to marketing and sales in the digital world.She floored every one with her deep knowledge of the new media.

Vineeta Dwivedi and Kudsia Kahar

It was a hectic day for me too. Day 3 happens to be my presentation day...need to  pack up for the day.
Hope you enjoyed the post...

THE MORNING SESSION OF RADIO ASIA 2011- 

V Sadhu

It was 21st Feb 2011, at Hotel Lalit, New Delhi Radio Asia 2011 came out of the shadows.The weather was quite cool , due to the winter rains at Delhi. But the warmth spread by the organizers especially Ms. Vijay Sadhu and her team made the delegates more then cozy.

  D S Bali(Mauritius),Dr BK Ravi, M Sharma (author), A Sharma

 It was Mark Neely, Regional Director Radio Asia Pacific, who conducted the very first workshop at the Regal Room. The topic Profiling Target Audience through Audience Measurement Data was well received by the audience. Coincidently  Mark is responsible for introducing new RAM services in the Asia Pacific Region. 

Mark Neely, Regional Director Radio Asia Pacific, taking a question...

 What followed after Mark, was the workshop which emphasized more on Hands on Experience and less on talking. The Entire team of DRM consortium led by Ruxandra Obreja was quite impressive. With unlimited FM frequency availability, and 5.1 surround sound the Digital Radio Mondiale has come a long way and is here to stay.                                                                                                                                

Ruxandra Obreja was quite impressive with the mike..

 The dark horse of the DRM team was Alexander Zink, who ensured that no  question from the delegates remained unanswered through out the workshop.

Mukesh Sharma & Alexander Zink at the Radio Asia 2011

       THE AFTERNOON SESSION OF RADIO ASIA 2011

Karan Karnik former President NASSCOM

The afternoon session started with the right note. Mr Karan Karnik former President NASSCOM was the key note speaker. Though his association with Radio per Se was limited, however he was quite clear in his thoughts and speech that radio which suffered a benign neglect in the 90ties is now not only talking but has become a medium of dialogue. In the words of Mr Kiran Karnik "the radio is now Informative, Interactive and Involved".   

Delgates at the  Radio Asia 2011- Ist Day Session

 After the key note address by Mr Kiran Karnik the content was some what repetitive. Madam Ruxandra Obreja of DRM and Mark Neely and Alexander Zink where now addressing a some what bigger gathering , but most of the information was same as morning session, except for some changes here and there. But it was useful even the second time.

 Dr. Michael Mc Cluskey

The other speakers in the afternoon session were Dr. Michael Mc Cluskey, (CEO) ABC Radio Australia, Masahiko Hattori from NHK Japan, and Pradeep Hejmadi TAM Media. The topic was" paradigm shift in content programming: Digital Radio, Internet, Blogs And Interactive platforms for global Radio." Being a compulsive blogger myself ,I was expecting to take home something new, but  things did not work out as the topic suggested. How ever Mr Pradeep Hejmadi picked up maximum questions for the day.                                                                        

Steve Ahern

The topic for the last session was How Technology has impacted Radio Content And Service. The speaker Steve Ahern from Ahern media & training, apprised the delegates that Digital Audio Broadcast  or DAB is in full throttle in Australia and is going great guns.  Nicholas Levitte talked about Streaming Radio.




By 5.30 the Radio Activity was at its zenith when the day's session ended and  I rushed back to my hotel to complete this post.