AIB announces David Frost Memorial Lecture

AIB announces David Frost Memorial Lecture

Wilfred Frost at the 10th Annual AIB Awards

Wilfred Frost at the 10th Annual AIB Awards

At the 10th annual AIB Awards in London on 5 November, Wilfred Frost, son of journalist Sir David Frost, announced the inaugural Sir David Frost Memorial Lecture. The talk by a major public figure to be announced will be held on 18 February at the Association for International Broadcasting’s #iamabroadcaster Global Media Summit.

A journalist in his own right, Wilfred Frost announced the lecture in his introduction to the “In Conversation” segment of the AIB Awards gala. This year’s In Conversation featured an interview by Frost interview with documentary filmmaker Olly Lambert, who won the AIB last year in the category of Best Middle East Documentary for his film Syria: Across The Lines.

Frost said: “We debated whether an annual talk should be given in Dad’s name by a fellow TV presenter. Or perhaps by a fellow media entrepreneur or executive. But in the end, the answer was simple. If Dad were alive today, who in the world would he most want to be interviewing? On Wednesday 18th February 2015 Paradine Productions and AIB will bring you an address from an individual that fits that description – someone who can not only tell us what is happening on a set of crucial issues in the world today, but can in fact make news themselves with what they say. We will be announcing the speaker for February very soon.”

Sir David Frost, who died last year, is one of the most famous journalist of the 20th century. He is most known for his interviews with notable political figures, including eight British Prime Ministers and seven US Presidents. His series of interviews with US President Richard Nixon, broadcast on American TV in 1977, drew the largest TV audience for a political interview in US TV history. The Nixon interviews were adapted into the play Frost/Nixon, which was adapted into a film in which Frost was played by Martin Sheen, directed by Ron Howard.

The #iamabroadcaster Media Summit will offer the global media industry two days of intensive discussion on the upheavals and opportunities facing broadcasters today. Held in London from 17-18 February, #iamabroadcaster will feature provocative and challenging discussions with major players and thinkers both from within and outside the media industry. Attendees will leave with an entirely new outlook on the broadcast industry and a new definition of what the word “broadcasting” means in the 21st century.

Further information, including venue, line-up, and sponsorship opportunities will be available on the AIB website.

The 2012 AIBs | shortlist released

The shortlist of entries in the 2012 AIBs, the international media excellence awards, has been announced.

“The shortlist has been even more challenging to compile this year,” says Simon Spanswick, AIB chief executive. “We received more entries from more organisations than ever, and most were of an extremely high standard. This made selecting the finalists for the 2012 AIBs extremely difficult. Some hard decisions were made, and now it is up to our global panel of judges to deliver the names of the winners in this year’s competition.”

The international panel of judges includes programme makers, journalists, editors, producers and executives across every continent – full details of all the judges are here. Over the coming four weeks, they will be evaluating and reviewing entries and submitting their results in time for the annual gala evening on Wednesday 7 November.

“This year, the judges are receiving the entries electronically,” says Spanswick. “For the first time, we have done away with the need to ship DVDs, audio CDs and accompanying paperwork around the world by courier. Instead, all the material is online for judges to watch or download at their leisure. It makes these awards a little bit greener.”

The gala awards evening in London will be hosted this year by Evgenia Altfeld, a presenter/producer at RTG TV in Russia. Evgenia has worked in TV news in Russia before becoming a political spokesman in the St Petersburg region. She joined RTG TV in 2011 and now produces and presents a range of programmes for the Russian travel channel.

To reserve places at the 2012 AIBs, visit the AIBs page on this site, or download the booking form here.

The 2012 AIBs are sponsored by Eurosport and RTG TV.

Preparing for 2011 Launch

The Association of International Broadcasting (AIB) is preparing hard for the launch of the 2011 AIBs, international media excellence awards.  After last year’s increased entries and highly successful awards event, whose highlights you can see in a video on theaibs.tv home page, we are looking forward to even more entries and enquiries are already coming in from those wanting to reserve the date of the 2011 AIBs ceremony (Wednesday November 9th, so book it in your diaries).

There will be one or two different categories this year to reflect the changing face of broadcasting and the widening scope of member’s activities.  Also, for the second year of the People’s Choice category, we will be choosing a subject that is a current major focus of world news and one that will continue to evoke much comment and discussion over the rest of this year and beyond.

Much more detail will follow shortly.

2009 AIBs

The involvement of radio and TV broadcasters from throughout the world, the range of factual topics covered and the quality of the finalists are highlighted in this video of last year’s international media excellence awards, the 2009 AIBs

There is still time to enter the 2010 AIBs – for full details go to the entries page on the website.

You can also see other videos from the Association for International Broadcasting on our YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/AIBLondon

Passionate, dramatic and engaging

“Passionate, dramatic and engaging.” Some of the key words used by the judges of the 2009 AIBs (international media excellence awards) about the winning entries.  They highlight the qualities that make programmes stand out above others in their category, whether it be news, current affairs, documentaries or technology and marketing in support of programmes.  They apply equally to radio and TV, as well as online and mobile presentation.

Last year the winners provided insight into the drama and tension of elections; gave gripping insights into the lives of children and adults affected by war, natural disasters and HIV; put the spotlight on Korea, China and Africa among other places; and showed how innovative use could be made of  iPhones and online interaction.  You can see a full list of winners here or contact us for a copy of The Channel, Issue 1 2010 with a full write-up of the 2009 winners and runners-up

We are looking forward to equally compelling, exciting and innovative submissions to the 2010 AIBs.  With over a month left to the 2nd July closing date for entries, we are already hearing of exciting work on its way.  2010 promises to be another year when international broadcasting is able to demonstrate it’s continuing quality.

Tweets and quotes

The AIB is enthusiastic about the possibilities for social media tools such as Twitter and Ushahidi to enhance news reporting and the creation of factual programming.  We have already seen Twitter used for breaking news in countries from Haiti to Ukraine (and I am hearing about some interesting tools being developed to analyse Tweets to discover changing opinions – I will be giving more details when we are allowed to).   They are also great tools for promoting broadcasts and we will be using them extensively to publicise the People’s Choice award in this year’s AIBs.

However, I remain to be convinced about Twittermedia‘s  enthusiasm for the new ability to be able easily to enter Tweets in a news story.  They highlight ReadWriteWeb’s story on HP and Palm as a great way to convey reactions to a story without having quotes from different people spread round a story.  While it is great to be able to provide accurate quotes and Twitter helps in this, a key role of journalism and factual broadcasting is to provide a context and develop a story around individuals’ comments.  I hope that we do not see the rise of articles which rely just on picking out a number of Tweets without explaining them and referring as well to those who are not Twittering (yes, they still exist).