SINGAPORE: As the downpour continues in Singapore, Day 2 of Broadcast Asia 2006 kickstarts at the Expo City. The first session addressed the issue of capacity building of the broadcast sector.

In the fast changing world of technology, broadcasters have to move twice as fast just to keep to where they are. The question then arises - How will they keep up with the explosion of new technologies and report on a world that is changing so fast? Engineers, programmers and managers in a broadcasting company are quite similar. The answer to this lies in training!

Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) in Malaysia has been training broadcasters for the last 30 years. According to AIBD programme manager K P Madhu, there are five core components to training. These are:

1) Need assessments - Current deficiencies, future requirements, assessment of training readiness, training objectives and training needs analysis.

2) Design - Courses/programmes, media - methods/needs, planned activities, evaluation schemes, target group specific training.

3) Preparation - Presentations, leading discussion, management of practical session, evaluation of feedback, logistics.

4) Training Evaluation - Training appraisals by trainees, analysis of adequacy, results.

5) Feedback to Management - Human resources, assessment of future training needs.

"We need to look at the developmental needs of broadcasters and there has to be sustained action for capacity building of broadcasters in the region. These need to be revisited and revised every year. Summits, conferences, workshops, courses, dialogues to address different group of people like managers, programmers, executives, producers etc need to be held for capacity building of broadcasters," said Madhu.

However, one of the major challenges that AIBD faces in training is that there has been a huge boom in the media space and training needs have multiplied manifold. Hence, in spite of all the facilities and training requirements that AIBD has, it has been difficult to keep pace with the ever changing media scenario. "The needs are much more than we can meet," said Madhu.

He further added, "One of the biggest hindrance for us here is funds. While the government and the broadcasters are ready to pump in money in a whole lot of other things, they are not very keen on investing in training. To convince them to put in funds for training is our biggest challenge."