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.