Tag Archive for: Meetings

Spectacular Shanghai General Assembly 2024

Shanghai: ENEX’s first conference in Asia took place against the spectacular backdrop of China’s most populous mega-city.  Two days of intensive discussions and debates about the future of media and the challenges and opportunities of reporting in China were enjoyed by the more than 70 delegates.  You can’t have a journalism conference without talking about AI and the 31st ENEX General Assembly was dominated by the topic.   Behind the talk of regulation and whether newsrooms should adopt Generative AI, many newsrooms are pushing ahead.  Mark Egan, from Purple Bridge Media, a top AI coach, trainer and consultant gave the ENEX assembly an overview of which organisations have already put in place AI assisted workflows and the opportunities it has opened for increasing the diversity of output across multiple platforms.  A great example was found in the newsroom of ENEX’s co-hosts, Shanghai Media Group (SMG) which makes parts of its output available in multiple languages translated and voiced by AI technology.

Jamie Angus, COO of Al Arabiya hosted a further panel on whether there is threat or a commercial opportunity for broadcasters and publishers protecting or selling rights to their IP to Large Language Model (LLMs) companies looking to train their AI?  Some English language entities like the New York Times have threatened to sue AI companies from ‘crawling’ their websites.  Alternatively, other companies such as Axel Springer in Germany and the Associated Press have sought to reach commercial deals with LLMs.  How will non-English speaking publishers be affected? 

Madhav Chinnappa former Google executive and now Vice President for Human Native AI argued for the media industry to quickly develop a strategy. Graham Lovelace a writer and expert on the subject contributed via zoom, drawing on the news from his own highly successful substack blog on the issue https://grahamlovelace.substack.com/  Aleksandra Subotic, CEO of United Media Group, which owns news entities across South East Europe including the successful N1 news channels in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina, said her organisation was nervous about which media outlets would be crawled in Serbia where most media is aligned with the government. 

Lastly, on the theme of AI, Simon Hof, RTL Germany, Aslaug Henriksen, TV2 Norway and Tristan Noblia, Telefe Argentina, compared notes on how their organisations are rising to meet the challenge of AI. Panel moderator, Mark Egan referred to the EBU’s excellent recent report about trusted media in the age of AI.

https://www.ebu.ch/guides/open/report/news-report-2024-trusted-journalism-in-the-age-of-generative-ai

Last year’s ENEX General Assembly held in Luxembourg was disrupted by the October 7th massacre of Israeli residents in Kibutzim near Gaza. Arad Nir, International Editor of Channel 12 News Israel spoke via zoom into the 2023 conference as the full horror of the attacks became clear.  Since then, some 60,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed as Israeli forces have moved into Gaza and destroyed much of it.   A new front has opened in Lebanon as Israeli forces look to disable Hezbollah.  Somewhat forgotten has been the plight of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. Niva Verkert, whose son is one of the captives, joined Arad and moderator ENEX Head of News, Mark Evans to discuss the situation.

Every year the ENEX GA discusses topics relevant to the location of the event. China is one of the most challenging stories for news organisations to cover with most news providers unable to support their own reporters and cameramen in Beijing.  ENEX supplies Chinese video to its members from those few companies who do support bureaux in the country. ENEX has also been fortunate to receive footage from Shanghai Media Group’s journalists who upload material to the ENEX video distribution platforms daily. 

Just a few days before the conference, Shanghai fell victim to a violent tropical Typhoon which saw widespread floods and disruption.  ENEX also takes special video material from CCTV+ to support its coverage of China especially focusing on business and technology.

Visa permissions are not always available for journalists who want to report in China.  Steven Jiang, CNN China Bureau Chief told the conference that far fewer foreign journalists are now based in China than 5 years ago. The panel covered many of the frequent themes of reporting the world’s second superpower and was completed by John Ruwitch, International Correspondent for NPR and Leonard ‘Bud’ Pratt a long-time China journalist and business expert who has collaborated on projects with SMG. 

Continuing with China, a special session looked at the emerging dominance of Chinese manufactured electric vehicles.  More than 200 manufacturers are involved in EV production in China. The new variants have huge range are quick charging and incorporate many advanced smart technologies.  So successful has the sector been that both the European Union and the United States are considering imposing large tariffs on the sector as the price point for comparable EU or US built cars is much higher. 

Kevin Chen, Global PR Director of Geely Holding Group (owner of Volvo, Polestar etc) hoped their manufacturing bases within the European Union would help offset the effect of tariffs if they were imposed.  Weisi Xie, Director of the Economist Intelligence Group Shanghai, explained the supply chain advantages open to Chinese EV car makers. The panel was expertly chaired by Yin Fan, a leading business presenter for SMG.

On the final day of the meeting, delegates had the chance to experience the thrills of driving some of the latest Chinese made EVs when they visited the design and research headquarters of SAIC owner of the MG brand.  ENEX attendees were allowed to test drive several new models including the new MG Cyberster sports car:
https://www.shanghaieye.cn/detail?postId=123993

Tim Singleton, Head of International News, Sky News UK, interviewed Fin Gomez, Political Director of CBS News.  Gomez dialled in via zoom in the late evening from Washington DC where he spoke about the forthcoming Vice-Presidential debate and which way momentum was turning in the race.

Last, but certainly not least, Jo Schmaltz, Advisor to ENEX outlined an exciting new initiative called the Media Innovation Exchange which looks to pair the very best and latest technologies with ENEX’s own technical experts. So much of news production and innovation is today led by technology and the sector changes rapidly.

This new programme will allow technology mangers and newsroom directors to make sense of which trends and technologies are taking hold and how they can help them improve their output and achieve more effective workflows. Two ‘taster sessions’ were included with Jeff Kofman, CEO and Founder of Trint and Mansoor Ahmed, CEO of Open Origins.

An ENEX meeting could not wrap up without ENEX itself bringing its membership up to date with ENEX’s own company news and future plans. 

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ENEX Technical Committee Meeting at Red Bull Salzburg / Austria

ENEX Technical Committee brought together the technology leaders from global commercial TV stations in Salzburg, Austria on May 4th and 5th, 2023. Over 50 ENEX partners met at the Bulls Corner at the Red Bull Arena, home of FC Red Bull Salzburg coming from Mexico to Kurdistan.

The conference started with the welcome from the organizers from Servus TV and Red Bull Media House, both part of the Red Bull. Servus TV is the leading commercial TV station in Austria with a wide a range of activities in the Austrian broadcast landscape. Red Bull Media House provides world class global video production for the Red Bull brand.

During the event the discussion on the Technology trends panel brought together Hans Martin Paar, News Director Servus TV, Fabian Dorschel, Global Head of Media Techology & IT Red Bull, Frederic Bochart, Director of Technology RTL Belgium, and Martin Boronski, CTO BCE, and raised some question about the future of broadcasting. Technology could help the media industry under cost pressure by simplifying the production chain. Moving to IP and the cloud to use serverless microservices is the way forward. Challenges are the lacking competences needed for this transformation as well as that the cloud technology is dominated by the US providers.

After hosting the Technology trends panel, Sime Jurlina, ENEX Head of Finance and Operations said: “It seems that broadcast and broadband have finally met. There is an evolution happening and we are looking forward to excitement around new and improved ways of reaching our audiences. We would like to thank Servus TV, Red Bull Media House and Red Bull for providing us an opportunity to have this discussion in Salzburg.”

Gerry Collins, Director of Product Management Mobile Networks from Intelsat provided more information on the interesting topic of how 5G, IP and Satellite are converging to give us a seamless network for contribution and distribution of our stories and signals.

Also watch out for SaaS as a service! Is everything in the cloud built for the cloud and providing you optimal usage? CEO of Fonn Group, Haarvard Myklebust gave us some industry insights as the leading software developer for newsroom production systems.

Our partner 1+1 from Ukraine closed the conference with their impressive presentation on how they are using Starlink terminals to cover the frontline, but also all other news in Ukraine. They see it as very resilient and reliable and are sure it will improve with more satellites in orbit. Ukrainian media received the terminals for free and is not paying any service fees.

There were many networking opportunities, from drinks and dinners to teambuilding exercises. The most exciting one was the Red Bull Gravity Challenge! 12 different teams had to land an egg unharmed from the height of 15 meters. It was a real team effort and… something really unbelievable happened. Two teams actually landed the egg uncracked on hard cement path in the FC Red Bull Salzburg stadium. “The Omellets” took the win with a minimum advantage.

To get ready to jump into the rich day full of new information and exchange of views we needed some help. And the perfect recipe was breakfast on the 15th floor of hotel Cool Mama with the most wonderful view of the Alps.

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ENEX Coordinators Meeting Sofia, Bulgaria

bTV, Bulgaria proved to be a wonderful host of ENEX’s annual coordinators meeting on March 30/31.  The meeting was attended by over 60 editorial representatives from across the ENEX partnership including many ‘first-timers’.  In a busy two-day schedule, Sky News presented the first plans for the Coronation of King Charles which will take place on May 6 at Westminster Abbey in London. 

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ENEX held its latest Editorial Meeting in Cologne, Germany

ENEX is an association of the world’s leading commercial TV broadcasters with a collaborative approach: members share content and resources to provide each other with trusted and verified news. This is particularly useful during breaking news situations, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine. On Thursday 9 June and Friday 10 June, ENEX members travelled to RTL Deutschland’s main location in Cologne, Germany, to meet each other face-to-face and exchange on key topics.

“The core of ENEX is networking and collaboration”

The Editorial Committee Meeting was opened by Sonja Schwetje, Editor-in-Chief at NTV and RTL News and Chair of the Board of Enex. Sonja welcomed the attendees to RTL Deutschland and praised all members for remaining close to their audiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. She also mentioned the ongoing war in Ukraine, in which Enex and its members are doing their best to fight disinformation, uphold independent journalism and maintain media coverage in Ukraine.

“Video material is the lifeblood of Enex”

The meeting continued with a welcome and editorial update from Mark Evans, Head of News at ENEX. Mark covered the latest trends and developments since the last editorial meeting in Belgrade, which took place over two years ago. 

Thanks to Donald Trump, 2019 was a highlight year for ENEX in terms of editorial content, with the upward trend of “hits over time” (when a partner uses content) continuing into 2021. Clear peaks could be seen for the Covid-19 pandemic, with a total of 2,300 stories published in April 2020, followed by further peaks for the US election and Russian invasion. The most popular videos between March 2020 and May 2022 were from hospitals in Bergamo at the beginning of the pandemic, provided by Sky UK, followed by footage of a baby being rescued in Beirut, also provided by Sky UK, and a massive explosion in Beirut, sourced by ENEX.

ENEX provides its members with two types of content: content from other partners, and content which is sourced directly by ENEX news editors. Using the Russian invasion as an example, Mark showed a moving video with footage from Ukraine – showing stories which would have otherwise remained untold. After sourcing and seeking permission to share the video, ENEX verifies the information to check it is true and accurate. The content is then published for all Enex members to use on their news channels.

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