In May, the AIBD (Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development) organized the 2006 edition
of the Asia Media Summit in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). This annual international conference was attended by 400 participants including governmental representatives, media professionals, academic representatives, news and programme managers from across Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America. In the perspective of a growing cooperation, the AIDB invited COPEAM to join the reflection process and to present a contribution in the work session devoted to the topic “Regional contents for a global audience: a growing challenge? – Promoting the Millennium Development Goals: the role of broadcasters”: “We have understood that the difficulty in broadcasting programmes from one corner of the planet to another essentially lies in the need to actually understand the added value of diversity, especially in the audiovisual sector. As public service broadcasters, we are experiencing the strongly innovative and comprehensive challenge of measuring up to the expectations of an increasingly demanding viewership.
How should we act in this new situation? By following the explanations given by Darwin approximately two centuries ago, i.e. by adapting to the new environment or, in other words, by
valorising the growing multi-culturalism of our societies; by combining different sensitivities, cultures and heritages, with the aim of achieving the formula for a ‘global product’” […] “COPEAM is like a butterfly’ fluttering of wings, and I’m here to try to explain our vision in the way we are used to: by images and sounds” (Excerpt from the speech by Alessandra Paradisi, Secretary General of COPEAM) This represents an important step forward in developing a “global community of ideas” in the field of media and communication.