Asiavision (news exchange)

Asiavision is a daily exchange of news by satellite among television stations in 19 countries in Asia. Launched in January 1984, it brings together many of Asia's leading broadcasters. Its members are: RTA–Afghanistan, BTV–Bangladesh, BBS–Bhutan, RTB–Brunei, CCTV–China, TVB–Hong Kong, DDI–India, IRIB–Iran, NHK–Japan, TDM–Macau, RTM–Malaysia, TV5–Mongolia, NTV–Nepal, PTV–Pakistan, CNA–Singapore, SLRC–Sri Lanka, MCOT–Thailand, RTTL–Timor Leste and TRT–Turkey. Asiavision is a non-profit activity of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU). It has no commercial or political aims; its purpose is to promote the free exchange of news among broadcasters in Asia.

Asiavision has its operations centre in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and is coordinated by ABU Secretariat staff. Asiavision has two satellite transmissions a day. The first is from 0830 to 0900 GMT and the second from 1215 to 1235 GMT. Transmission is on AsiaSat 2. About 10,000 items are exchanged each year.

Besides the daily transmissions, news flashes are arranged for important, breaking stories such as natural disasters or major political events. Asiavision has covered the Chinese earthquake of May 2008 extensively.

Training

Asiavision organises funded training courses for its members. Recent events have included a workshop on covering avian flu, a course on environmental journalism, a broadcast news workshop for young journalists, a seminar on issues facing news directors in Asia and technical training on satellite uplinks. The latest was a two-day workshop on covering climate change, held in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007 alongside the United Nations climate change conference.

At their annual meeting in Singapore in May 2007, members of the news exchange launched the Asiavision Advisory Service. Under this scheme, Asiavision provides funding for consultancies to its members who request assistance. The consultancies cover any area of their news activities, from newsroom training to help with uplinking to satellites.

Asiavision awards

Each year, members hold a ballot to select the winners of the Asiavision Annual Awards, given for the quality of contributions to the news exchange. The 2007 winners are CCTV, IRIB, NHK and MCOT.

CNN presents an annual prize, the Dennis Anthony Memorial Award, for the best Asiavision news story of the year. The winner in 2007 was MCOT, for its coverage of a plane crash in Phuket on 16 September that killed 90 people.

Secondment scheme

Asiavision runs a secondment scheme under which journalists from member organisations spend up to one month at the Asiavision centre in Kuala Lumpur. They help Asiavision staff coordinate the news exchange. Since 2004, journalists from BBS, BTV, CCTV, CNA, IRIB, MCOT, RTB and SLRC have taken part in the scheme.

ABU News Group

The ABU News Group sets policy for Asiavision. The group brings together heads of news and other senior journalists from ABU members. Its present chairman is Shaun Seow of Channel NewsAsia in Singapore. The group's most recent meeting was in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on 30 June-1 July 2008. Mongolia's President Nambaryn Enkhbayar opened the meeting.

History

Asiavision was launched on 16 January 16, 1984, with five members: BTV, RTB, RTM, PTV and SLRC. Over the following year, nine more broadcasters joined. It went fully digital in January 2001. The news exchange had one daily satellite feed until May 2005, when a second feed was launched to handle the growing number of offers from members.

External links

* [http://www.abu.org.my/] Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union