The ABU guided Pacific radio and television professionals on a journey through the exciting world of broadcasting apps during the 12th Pacific Media Partnership Conference.

The two-hour Zoom forum on 23 June was described by PMPC chair Faiesea Matafeo as “one of the most useful conferences ever”, thanks to the participation of Pacific Islands media leaders and experts in the field of broadcasting apps.

ABU Secretary General Dr Javad Mottaghi spoke of the history of the PMPC since its inauguration by 25 Pacific Islands member organisations in 2010. He said he looked forward to being able to hold the next forum in person after two years of meeting online.

Among the leaders who addressed the forum were Ms Matafeo of SBC, FBC’s Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the ABC’s Claire Gorman, the SIBC’s Johnson Honimae and the VBTC’s Warren Roberts. They all spoke of how COVID-19 had hit their operations.

Steve Ahern, Head of the ABU Academy, moderated the next session, a look at broadcasting apps, what they are and how they can be used to better run the business and serve audiences.

He went through the value of apps in keeping up with audiences who are spending more time on their mobile devices, in connecting with younger people, for reaching populations in more remote areas not covered by terrestrial transmission and for obtaining analytics data about who was using their services.

Mr Roberts of VBTC said the app-based approach had proved cheaper than having broadcasting transmitters in outlying islands and it had also sparked interest from NGOs eager to share content with their website.

FBC had built its own app and Digital Media Specialist Calvin Prasad demonstrated to participants how it worked and how it connected to audiences and advertisers.

There was also a presentation from Richard Phelps, Senior Digital Producer at All in Media, a company that has to-date developed apps for more than 8,000 radio groups around the world.

The final speaker was Stephanie Park, YouTube’s Singapore-based Asia-Pacific Program Manager, who led the conference through the essential aspects of YouTube’s news channel.