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PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN THE HOT SEAT BY MONICA HECK
Public service broadcasting is both competing against industry behemoths and dealing with unpredecented political pressure, according to Noel Curran, Director General of the EBU. “The audience is core for us. Our weekly reach is still over 80% and with younger audiences our weekly reach is around 65%, and that is under different pressures,” he told the IBC Conference audience yesterday.
In the competition for eyeballs, Curran focuses on content creation. “I’m a content person, I was a TV producer; with all the money and technology in the world, if you make terrible programmes nobody will watch you,” he said.
Despite trust levels falling everywhere, the EBU is still the number one trusted source of news in the vast majority of European
countries, he continued. “We live in a more polarised world, with more aggressive articulations of one’s views through social media. Our
Noel Curran with host Sasha Twining
strong trust fi gures are hard won; we are competing against opinion. We have to be careful about entering the opinion space.”
NO APOLOGIES FOR PUSHING DIVERSITY BY ADRIAN PENNINGTON
Despite the recent rollback of DEI programmes due to ‘anti-woke’ rhetoric and misinformation, leadership in the industry remains fi rmly behind diversity. At yesterday’s ‘Industries of
Tomorrow: How to embrace change and ride the wave’, IBC heard inspiring stories of women making a difference, sometimes against the odds.
Moderator Muki Kulhan, UK Ambassador, Women in Immersive Tech (WIIT), emphasised the importance of staying strong. “We wanted to come back to IBC and be unapologetic about who we are. We want to burst these doors open and keep the conversation going,” she said.
Shariat Hussain, a computer scientist and UI/UX designer, initially from Pakistan, now works in Austria despite facing multiple visa cancellations while pursuing her studies in Europe. Her
Recent tensions around Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, are “some of the most diffi cult issues we have faced”, according to Curran, who describes a democratic decision-making process within the member organisation. “It’s a member decision. We understand there are different views and must manage that, but it’s tricky as views are diametrically opposed.” The impact of global political changes, in the US in particular, media sovereignty and the need for European companies to balance relationships with American tech giants have emerged as issues in the past eight months, according to Curran. “We want to work with American companies. We are looking at what our members will require from them in terms of assuaging or easing these concerns that they have around sovereignty.”
(L-R): Muki Kulhan, Tori Bai, Shariat Hussain, Oana Camelia Burca and Carol Bettencourt
Instagram account, showcasing her experience, has garnered over six million views and 7000 followers. “It’s been a long journey. I’ve achieved much and lost much. What matters most are my supporters, my father, my professor and WIIT. It makes me so happy that I inspire others,” she said.
Oana Camelia Burca, Creative
Technologist, Monks, grew up in Moldova, “facing preconceptions about what women and men
should do. I wanted to prove them wrong.”
She applied for a tech-heavy degree and ended up in male- dominated environment, so moved to “the intersection of tech and art which was more inclusive. “Internal resilience is importance but so is how we shape where we work,” she said. Tori Bai, Associate Director of Software Platform Management at Shure, began her career as a software engineer in the US 18 years ago. Despite the challenges
of career change, she advises perseverance and fi nding a company’s culture that aligns with one’s values. Carol Bettencourt, VP Marketing at Chyron, has had a diverse career, from classical ballet dancer to research analyst, tech writer and systems integrator. She now values every life and work experience of her teams. “I hire people I trust, with good energy and a willingness to learn. Those things are harder to teach, but necessary,” she said.
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