Conference on the future of public broadcasting around the world

To mark its 75th anniversary, CBC/Radio-Canada is organizing a conference on the theme “The Role and Future of Public Broadcasting in the Digital Age.”

In partnership with the Canadian chapter of the International Institute of Communications (IIC) and in conjunction with the IIC Canada annual conference, CBC/Radio-Canada will be presenting this conference at the Ottawa Convention Centre on November 28, 2011.

CBC/Radio-Canada and public broadcasters worldwide are faced with the incredible opportunities brought about by the digital revolution. They must also tackle a number of common challenges, such as lack of long-term funding, media convergence, and audience fragmentation.

To better understand this new reality, we invited public broadcasting representatives and experts from the UK, France, South Africa, Taiwan and Canada to debate the issue.

CBC/Radio-Canada President and CEO, Hubert T. Lacroix, will open the pre-conference by describing the environment in which the national public broadcaster must operate.

Caroline Thomson, the BBC’s chief operating officer, is the keynote speaker. She’ll tell us about the issues the BBC is facing now that its licence fee has been frozen until 2017. It’s the first freeze of its kind in the history of the BBC, forcing the broadcaster to slash its expenditures.

The program also includes two plenary panels, the first offering an international perspective on public broadcasting, the second aimed at debating whether public broadcasting still plays a vital role in today’s world. Each panel will be followed by a question period.

The first plenary session will be moderated by Mark Kelley, host of Connect With Mark Kelley on CBC News Network. The panellists are Patrick Béhar, partner, Bain & Company (Paris); Hamilton Cheng, board member, Public Television Service Foundation (PTS, Taiwan); Lisa de Wilde, Chief Executive Officer, TVO; Pieter Grootes, general manager, markets and competition, Independent Communications Authority of South Africa; and Caroline Thomson, chief operating officer, BBC.

Some of the questions to be covered include: What values do these organizations share? What is their relationship with government? How do their funding mechanisms compare? How have their mandate/missions evolved in the last decade? What is the impact of democratization of content creation and delivery on their standards and practices? How do PSBs contribute to the democratic institutions in their countries?

The second plenary session will be moderated by Emmanuelle Latraverse, Radio-Canada’s parliamentary bureau chief in Ottawa and host of Les coulisses du pouvoir. The panellists are Marie-France Bazzo, host and producer, Productions Bazzo Bazzo; Patrick Beauduin, executive director, Radio de Radio-Canada; Ezra Levant, news anchor, Sun News Network; Glenn O’Farrell, President and CEO, Groupe Média TFO; and Carol Off, co-host, As It Happens, CBC Radio.

Some of the questions to be covered include: What does public broadcasting bring to this new participatory media environment that differs from private broadcasters? Is it worth the investment? Is citizen journalism replacing public broadcasting? Is there still a role for public broadcasting in integrating new immigrants, fostering diversity (cultural, geographic, political) while ensuring social cohesion? Are public broadcasters nimble enough to project themselves into the future?

As part of the IIC Canada conference program the following day on November 29, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) managing director Mark Scott will be giving a speech on the Australian media environment. Mr. Scott was unable to attend the CBC/Radio-Canada pre-conference on November 28 because of a commemorative event being held Sunday, November 27 to honour the three members of an ABC news crew who died in a helicopter crash this past August while on assignment.

IIC Canada’s annual conference is regularly attended by cabinet ministers, CEOs, seasoned journalists, business executives, and legal/regulatory experts from Canada, the US, and abroad. This makes it an ideal venue for debating the major issues of the digital age.