7th July 2008

Welcome to IBT’s July newsletter with an update on our work and relevant news from the broadcasting industry.

Campaigning about the future of public service broadcasting
IBT has now made its submission to the Ofcom review on the future of psb and in the autumn we’ll be organising a series of events to underline our call for new thinking about psb. The Government says it wants a real debate which gets to the heart of what psb is for. We’ll be arguing that in our globalised and interconnected world broadcast media has a key role to play in informing UK citizens about the wider world so they can become active global citizens. It’s a message that’s gone down well so far in our discussions with regulators and civil servants. To see our full submission take a look at our website, or go directly to this link.

Screening the World
our new research report was successfully launched on June 12th at the One World Media Awards and received extensive media coverage. At the launch event we heard from Shahid Malik (DFID), Marie Staunton (Plan UK), Charles Badenoch (World Vision) and the Newsround presenter, Adam Fleming. The report’s findings highlighted the need for urgent action to enhance the international content of childrens’ programmes and reinforced our call to Government, broadcasters and regulators to strengthen public service broadcasting. If you have not received a copy of the report and would like one for yourself or extra copies for colleagues, please let me know. The report can be downloaded from the IBT website or directly from this link.

Real World Brainstorm
last week we held the latest of our annual Cambridge brainstorms with BBC executives on the theme of interconnectedness. The two day event aims to encourage the BBC to be more ambitious and innovative with its international content. There were small group sessions on the themes of resources, money, change, populations and things. The event was chaired by John Lloyd (producer of Black Adder and QI) and attracted a number of senior executives from BBC News (Helen Boaden, Director of News; Jon Williams, World Editor; Craig Oliver, Editor, 10 O’Clock News and Kevin Bakhurst, Controller, BBC News Channel) and from BBC Vision (Jay Hunt, Controller, BBC1; Liam Keelan, Controller, BBC Daytime; Mark Freeland, Controller of Comedy and Emma Swain, Head of Commissioning, BBC Knowledge).

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On the non media side, there were specialists from a range of disciplines and countries. Several travelled specially to take part – from India, Nepal, South Africa and the US. By emphasising the theme of interconnections, I feel that we are finally getting through to the BBC that it needs to think much more imaginatively about its international content. On the minus side, IBT’s membership was under-represented. Please bear in mind that this really is a fantastic opportunity if you have staff based abroad who are willing to take part. The next brainstorm will take place in summer 2009.

Guardian Films proposalT
he film unit of the Guardian and Observer is looking for new ways of widening the international agenda of broadcasters. At a meeting with NGOs last month, Maggie O’Kane, the Editorial Director of Guardian Films, suggested that her unit would like to collaborate with NGOs to make films about issues excluded from the mainstream news agenda, such as the crises in Somalia and Darfur. One of the aims of the initiative is to make the Guardian Films website a more significant resource for international content. NGOs who attended included IBT, Christian Aid, Unicef, War on Want, Panos, Save the Children and Global Witness. The initiative is in partnership with the journalists’ network, the Frontline Club. A follow up meeting is planned for the summer. To find out more, contact Duncan Furey at Frontline.

New MA in Development Education
The DFID funded Development Education Research Centre at the Institute of Education has launched a new MA in Development Education which will start in October. It is aimed primarily at NGO practitioners and you can apply to undertake the full masters course on a part time basis – it is mainly by distance learning. The course is available in separate modules for anyone who finds the idea of a masters too daunting. Further information from the Institute of Education.

Best wishes

Mark