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Published: 10 January 2019

The Future of Regional Media - FoRM

What FoRM are we striving for was at the centre of our 37th Annual Conference 2019, held in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia, on 30th and 31st May 2019, hosted by RTV - Radio Television of Vojvodina.

Quality content, dynamic and meaningful bonds with our audiences and ... look straight in the eyes of the digital technologies: are they our friends or are they a foe that is always attacking us?
Strategies predict a technology-driven future – from the rise of robot reporter machines, applying artificial intelligence in the newsrooms to real time analytics of content consumption and successful business models. Will the regional media embrace it? Is that what we are really after?
Is it technology that attracts our audience or quality journalism deriving from diversity of life, enfolding it to provide a vivid and in-depth reflection on reality? Is it the news content based on meticulous fact verification or is it the content born out of constructive journalism to engage audiences in public causes?
Maybe it is relevant content created in a relevant new format to reach as many users as possible through a multitude of channels... In short – what are the 50 ways to form a better future for regional media?

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME & SPEAKERS

Thursday, 30th May

09:30 – 09:45 OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE

Jyri Kataja-Rahko, President of CIRCOM Regional
Mile Boca, Vice President of CIRCOM Regional
Dragana Milošević, Secretary for Culture, Public Information and Relations with Religious Communities
Dr. Miodrag Koprivica, Director General of RTV

09:45 – 10:15 Building audience and trust in public service regional journalism: FIFTY WAYS TO MAKE IT BETTER
Atte Jääskeläinen, Professor at LUT University, former Director of News and Current Affairs, Yle, Finland
Understanding our audiences, what information are they looking for, what are their needs and interests is the key for the success of regional journalism. Today many people feel detached from news in media. Atte will take us through some of the key issues which media are facing now in building trustworthy bonds with audiences and users and will provide practical examples on how to improve communication between media and audiences.

Atte Jääskeläinen is Professor of Practice at LUT University and a consultant specialising in AI in media. He is former Director of News and Current Affairs of the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle. 2017-2018 he was Visiting Fellow at Reuters Institute at University of Oxford and is Senior Visiting Fellow at LSE, London Scool of Economics and Political Science. He co-authored EBU News Report 2018, "50 ways to make it better: Building audience and trust", giving inspirational examples from 24 countries of solving the problems of audience engagement and trust.

10:15 – 11.00 CONSTRUCTIVE JOURNALISM IN CONSTRUCTIVE NEWSROOM
Anne Lagercrantz, Director of News and Current Affairs, SVT, Sweden
Cynara Vetch, Project Lead Constructive Institute, Denmark
Michael Lally, Lead Researcher at Galway Centre for Arts and Media, Ireland
What are the pro's and cons of reporting news that offer positive attitude and solutions? How does constructive journalism in a constructive newsroom work? Is it breaking away with the “if it bleeds – it leads” tradition and how does it fit within the perception of media as the fourth estate? Can positive thinking drive media and society forward?

”Constructive news must not be mistaken to be irrelevant or sleek news. It does work.”, says Anne Lagercrantz, Director of News and Current Affairs of the Swedish television, also involved in the digital transformation of SVT.

 

Cynara Vetch is Project Lead for the Constructive Institute where she develops international projects and partnerships.

 

Michael Lally is Lead Researcher of “Constructive Journalism & Public Service Media” at Centre for Creative Arts & Media in Galway, Ireland.

 

11.15 – 11.30 MEDIA MANIPULATION FOR GOOD OR BAD? BLUE ROOM
Jacob Markham, Melissa Wood and Shayan Sardarizadeh BBC, United Kingdom
The challenge we face is what can we do to know for sure if content is faked, manipulated or verified as authentic. The detection of content created to mislead and how it is spread is vital. Combining established research skills and emerging artificial intelligence offers the possible solution.

Jacob Markham is a technologist currently working with the BBC Blue Room in London.  He spends time exploring new consumer technology and how it alters audiences behaviour in finding, consuming or creating content. Additionally, much of his research focus is on big data and the influence it can have over the individual. During his time with the BBC he has worked across several BBC departments as well as with industry partners including ITV and Arqiva. In his spare time he most enjoys spending time on a mountain, teaching people to ski.

 

Having always been fascinated by tech, user centric design and hearing stories of innovative tech start-ups Melissa Wood has been interested in providing insights on the impact tech has upon audience. Melissa firmly believes that experiencing for yourself how your audience consume, interact and create content is invaluable knowledge for the service you work on to provide.

 

Shayan Sardarizadeh is a journalist with the BBC’s Monitoring service, based in London. He is a member of the Disinformation & Fake News Team, tasked with verifying content on social media and global broadcasts, spotting, debunking and analysing global state propaganda, disinformation on digital platforms and social media manipulation. 
Previously, he worked with the BBC’s UGC Hub, which verifies social media content for all BBC News output, runs the verified social media accounts of BBC News and deals with audience interaction. He also covered Iran and the Middle East for BBC Monitoring and spent a short stint at the BBC Persian service. Prior to moving to the United Kingdom, he worked as a journalist and interpreter for Iran’s state TV and radio.

11:30 – 12:00 ADVANTAGES AND DOWNSIDES OF REGIONAL JOURNALISM IN THE NEWS VERIFICATION 
Carlo de Blasio, vice Director of TGR – RAI Regional, Italy
Is it possible to consider regional jorunalism easier to be protected against the widespread phenomenon, the so-called FAKE NEWS, compared to national and international journalism? In a way, the element of proximity to our audiences seems a very good antidote against fake news because it allows a quicker, "hands on" fact-checking. In another way, such closeness might make it difficult to maintain impartiality and distance. The web and social networks make it even more complicated. One of the journalists’ challenges today is to make their work distinguishable from the huge amount of communication - and they should do it through credibility and reliability of what they say or write.

Carlo de Blasio is deputy editor of TGR, the regional newsroom of the Italian Public Broadcaster RAI, in charge of the development of all web & social news activities. He has been working as Italian correspondent from New York after the 9/11/2001 events. Before joining RAI, he was based in London and worked seven years for the BBC, particularly in BBC NEWS24 and BBC WORLD. He also had a managerial experience at the beginnig of his career working as product manager in the international record company RCA (Rome and London). Graduated in Philosophy, he sometimes holds small conferences on the Greek and Roman philosophies of pre-Christian times.

 

12:00 – 12:30 NEW FORMATS OF STORYTELLING AND NEW TRENDS IN JOURNALISM
Guillaume Kuster, CIRCOM Media Expert, trainer, journalist and consultant, Finland
Presentation of international examples of new formats that TV stations are using to shift from a linear television model to an all-platforms media organisation.

Guillaume Kuster is a trainer, journalist, podcaster and consultant specialized in mobile journalism, data journalism and media strategy. He has trained over 700 television professionals to the techniques of shooting, editing and transmitting news from a mobile device, in France and internationally. Formerly, Guillaume was working for nearly 20 years for the French public service broadcasters Radio France and France Télévisions as a video journalist, news anchor, editor, web writer and talk show host. He also assumes the function of Media Expert, taking care of training CIRCOM members' staff in new storytelling techniques, and always monitoring new trends and trials in a rapidly changing media landscape.

13:30 – 14:15 DIVERSITY
Anna Jaškova, Deputy Editor in Chief of RTV2, RTV, Serbia
Daniela Draštata, Editor, Producer in HRT Croatia and Chairwoman of the EBU Intercultural and Diversity Group
Markus Nikel, Senior independent consultant at RAI CULTURA, Italy

With almost 15 years of experience at the RTV language departments, Anna Jaškova has lots of insight on being a journalist in a multilingual environment.
At the conference Anna will tell us how inspiring and rewarding is it to work with young journalists on common projects for local TV channel as well as some co-oproductions with partners from the region and Europe. “I grow strength from my young colleagues, their energy in diversity is our bright future. Proud to be part of it”, says Anna.

 

Daniela Draštata is a journalist and producer at HRT, Croatia, and currently a chairlady of the Intercultural and Diversity Group of the EBU. She’s been strongly involved in international documentary co-productions dealing with diversity and multicultural issues. For the third year running, she is an executive producer of the international series New Neighbours. This multicultural documentary series, that she initiated together with F. Jennekens from the NTR, has developed into an EU founded project that galvanizes media and civil society into fostering intercultural understanding between migrants and host communities in Europe. At HRT, Daniela works as an editor-if-chief, reporter and presenter of a weekly multicultural magazine and produces documentaries on human rights. For many years she has been running the HRT Diversity Department. She won several awards, including the one for the best TV journalism in Croatia in 2017.

For Markus Nikel, making Diversity great again is one of the most important missions of Public Service Media! In difficult times even open societies have a natural tendency to close themselves against everything that’s different. But in a globalising world, media can and should contribute to open minds again, for the advantages and the beauty of being diverse, thus helping tolerance and integration to take place. The most exciting results in this respect are possible when public media from different countries work together. Markus has had the privilege of working for 20 years on such cooperation projects.

 

 
14:15 – 14:35 CONTEMPORARY TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNGER AUDIENCES
Luca Milano, Director Rai Kids, Italy
It is quite an ambition to be on every platform targeting such a picky audience as children by providing accordingly packaged content. Furthermore, technology and fantasy widen the boundaries of creativity. So what are the challenges and what is so fascinating with transmedia storytelling for our youngest audiences? Luca will disclose the secrets on how to deliver content for children and younger audiences with the aid of contemporary transmedia storytelling.

Luca Milano graduated in Literature, with a specialization in Modern and Contemporary History. He worked in a foreign editorial office of the Quotidiani Associati. Luca joined RAI in 1992 as a manager at the Deputy General Management for New Services. In 1994 he joined the newly formed central Macrostructure for fiction, first called Rights Management, then Purchases, Productions, Coproductions, then Rai Cinemafiction and finally Rai Fiction, an area of activity in which he remained until 2017. In 2006, he was assigned the responsibility of Rai Fiction Cartoons Production. In 2013, he was appointed Deputy Director of Rai Fiction, with responsibility for Marketing, Planning and Cartoon. From 1 June 2017 he was appointed Director of Rai Ragazzi.

14:35 – 14:55 WETUBE
Luciano Lavagetti, Head of New Digital Projects, RSI, Switzerland
The digital revolution is shaping the media landscape and requires a continuous adjustment in terms of content, format and last but not least in terms of public service. What if we create a contagious and creative space where the media company meets the new young digital creators and talents can freely express themselves? Wetube is the place to be, a new form of public service close to the generation of young digital creators that offers space, technical equipment and workshops to develop skills and discover new trends and talent.

After his studies in Marketing and Communication and work experiences in Corporate PR Communication for international companies, Luciano joined RSI in 2001 as the Head of Marketing and Communication for the Radio. From 2007 till 2011 he was the Head of the TV Entertainment and Corporate strategy and Project Management. He is currently leading strategic projects and digital program innovation.

 

 

 
14:55 – 15:15 BRAVE YOUNG MEDIA, OPENS
Ivana Miloradov, RTV journalist and Opens PR, Serbia
OPENS is the acronym for “European Youth Capital Novi Sad” (in Serbian: Omladinska Prestonica Evrope Novi Sad). In this session Ivana Miloradov, communications officer for the OPENS, will bring the city’s flamboyant atmosphere in to the Conference hall. Within a year OPENS as the European youth capital managed to form a media team whose sole responsibility is to reach young people. They have made a television productions, TV and radio shows and trained young journalists, producers, editors and cameramen who produce and air a few hours of programme every week, following all media standards. OPENS2019 aims at creating space where the youth’s energy is celebrated, creativity is encouraged, ideas are being developed and where young people further improve discussions with policy makers.

 

Ivana Miloradov is deeply fond of media and recently loudest advocate of the civil sector values. After a decade in Provincial public service RTV as a journalist and executive producer, she crossed over to PR sector trying to seize media attention and channel it to something non often talked about – youth.

 

 

15:30 – 16:00 FORGET „ONLINE FIRST“! OMNICHANNEL IS THE WAY
Rutger Verhoeven, Head of Digital of BNNVARA, The Netherlands
Erik van Heeswijk, Head of Digital at VPRO, The Netherlands

Rutger Verhoeven
Over 25 years of experience in digital media industry. Worked for various broadcasting companies and recent as Head of Digital & Innovation for BNNVARA. Created lots of new formats to enrich the RTV - experience with apps, second screen and interactive formats. TV presenter for over 3 years on Dutch National TV. Since 4 years co-Founder and CCO of SmartOcto | CleverLions a realtime content analytic system that helps newsroom to improve their online storytelling efforts. Works for large media & content marketing brands.

 

 

Erik van Heeswijk
Erik, former journalist, is specialised in data and real-time content analytics, working on making newsrooms more data driven.

 

 

16:00 – 16:30 CONNECTION BETWEEN CONTENT CREATORS AND AUDIENCE
Ilinka Todorovski, Ombudsperson, RTV SLO, Slovenia
The audience is at the heart of media work. Why then does it seem that journalists, editors and management (even at public media service) have such a problem dealing with viewers’, listeners’ or readers’ complaints about their decisions and work? How can we reshape critics, protests, questions and inquiries to use them as a mirror and learning tool rather than discard them as pressure and a nuisance? What are the challenges of open dialog between content creators and the public? Ilinka will share her ideas about dealing with the feedback and provide useful tips.

Ilinka Todorovski has worked in the media industry for more than three decades, being journalist, correspondent and editor in different departments in the Slovenian public broadcasting company RTV SLO and daily newspaper Finance. She has two years’ experience of managing complaints as an ombudsperson for RTV SLO.

 

 

You are invited to Watch The Winners, not just on your own in the self-service télétheque, but also on a large screen in cinema style. Watch the very best that regional public service has to offer. Each showing will be introduced by one of the judges.

Morning session: NEWS JOURNALISM
Hosts Nils Chöler (SVT), Carlo de Blasio (RAI)

10:30 - 11:00
NEWS REPORT - NRK Nordland: Involuntary Part-Time Job
VIDEO JOURNALISM - BBC South, UK: Samantha Everett
EUROPE - TVR Bucharest: Faraoani - The Village Spread Across Five Countries

11:00 - 13:00
NEWS PROGRAMME - Telemadrid: Good Morning Madrid

Lunch time special: CITIZENSHIP CO-PRODUCTION
Host Alexander Pletser, RTBF and co-production organiser

13:00 - 13:05 - RTBF 100PAP

After lunch session: CULTURE
Hosts Bas Treffers (RTV Oost), Mojca Recek (RTVSlo)

14:00 - 14:45
MUSIC AND ARTS - TVP3 Katowice: Dead Season

14:45 - 15:30
ENTERTAINMENT AND DRAMA - NRK Trøndelag: Ridiculously Smart

Tea-time session: CHALLENGING AUTHORITY
Hosts Gunnar Henrich (HRF), Wojciech Malinowski (TVP)

15:30 - 16:40
MOST ORIGINAL AND INNOVATIVE - RTV Oost: The Election Programme
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM - RTÉ: RTÉ Investigates – Steroid Ireland

All day till closing:

BBC Blue Room, demonstration of media content manipulation

Face Swapping
Swap your face with anyone on the internet. Showing how this is now clearly in the hands of the consumer.
Deepfakery
See how faces are superimposed onto bodies in the video using machine learning.
Make Me Multilingual
By exploiting advancements in machine learning, it is now possible to seamlessly reversion content in any language you want.
Trump Turing Test
Can you tell the synthetic fake from the real fake when it comes to this well-known voice?
How to spot a fake
Will we soon be at the stage where we will not be able to spot the difference between the real and the fabricated?

Teletheque, private viewing of all Prix CIRCOM 2019 entries

20:30 – 22:00 Prix CIRCOM Regional 2019 Gala Awards

 

Friday, 31st May

09:30 – 10:00 REVOLUTIONIZE MEDIA 
Darko Ratkaj, Senior Project Manager, EBU
Media organisations strive to deliver the best possible user experience, increase engagement and reach. Ultimately, this means providing the right content at the right time to the right person on the right device, and at the right cost. This presentation will cover the key aspects that drive the user experience in media, including innovative content and services, personalisation, user devices, and immersive media. It will also identify some of the main drivers behind the changing audience behaviour and expectations. Finally, the presentation will address innovative approaches and tools that programme makers and their audience need in order to make the best out of new technologies, devices and services.

Darko Ratkaj studies audiovisual media technologies and their impact on audience behaviour, with the main objective of ensuring that new technologies can meet the future needs of public service media organisations. His current focus is on wireless transmission systems, terrestrial radio and TV networks as well as mobile network 4G/LTE and 5G. He facilitate collaboration amongst EBU Members and with the industry, including interdisciplinary technical and regulatory studies, R&D projects, and standardisation. In his previous positions, Darko was involved in radio spectrum management and regulation at national, European, and international level. He maintains working relations with the broadcast and the telecommunications industries, market analysts, national regulators, and the European Commission, and often contributes to regulatory and standardisation forums and trade events. Darko holds a masters degree in electrical engineering from the university of Zagreb, Croatia.

10:00 – 10.30 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN NEWS PRODUCTION
Jarno Koponen, Head of AI and Personalization, Yle, Finland
AI for democracy: How to combine artificial intelligence, user experience design and content to create new tools news media. If the news media wants to affect how news content is created, developed, presented and delivered to us in the future, we need to take an active role in AI development. What does this mean concretely?

Jarno is Head of AI & Personalization, @YleUutiset News Lab. Previously Product lead @YleUutisvahti, personalized news. Co-founder @randomtheapp, predictive media discovery.
Last 8 years Jarno focused on creating innovative personalized experiences and technologies, such as a pioneering AI-powered news assistant Voitto, smart news notifications and an internationally recognized predictive discovery engine Random/Futureful. His work on predictive personalization has been covered by The New York Times, New Scientist, Vice Motherboard, Oxford Reuters Institute, Fast Company, Mashable, TNW and MIT Technology Review among others. He written expert articles about personalization, user experience, machine learning and AI on VentureBeat and TechCrunch.

10:30 – 11.00 THE RISE OF THE ROBOT REPORTER
Robin Govik, Mittmedia, Sweden
We never seem to satisfy our users’ need for local content. We can’t be everywhere all the time. One way of handling the constant need for more content is automation. Robin will show how media can use automation, AI, to both produce and distribute content.

MittMedia is known for its digital strategy and has invested a lot in its own platforms and systems. Robin Govik and his team have been internationally awarded, most recently by INMA Awards where they won four prices. MittMedia has managed to build a strong digital subscription business with journalism and data in focus.

 

 

11:15 – 11:45 REAL TIME ANALYTICS
Mario Maračić, Chief Product & Technology, UpScore GmbH, Germany/Croatia
Mario will present the advantages and the specifics of real-time analytics. This upcoming field of research is becoming a popular tool for successful user-data handling, as well as for working with user behaviour patterns.

Mario Maračić has over 15 years of experience in technology and digital products. He has been living on the intersection of media and technology ever since he founded his first company as a teenager, back in the 1990-s. In the beginning, his main focus was developing the new technologies for live interactive TV game-shows. Among many others, he took part in the production of the longest living live TV game-show on HRT – "Upitnik", later acquired by King World International. 
In 2008 TCom hired Mario as technical director to run one of the top web portals in Croatia - tportal.hr. Later on he was technical director at another top Croatian portal - net.hr. During those 6 years, he learned what an amazing impact a proper tool-set may have on the performance of the newsroom team. “Ever since, I am doing the one thing that I am really passionate about: building the tools that enable digital media companies and editorial teams to understand how their content is resonating with the target audience and how to improve, grow and win!”, says Mario.

 
11:45 – 12:15 CONNECTED JOURNALISM
Dave Hedley, Felip Garcia, Tom Crocker, Sony
In an age where press freedom is declining, news broadcasters increasingly need their field journalists to be able to create stories without further constraints, and that starts with friction-less technology. After all, a journalist does not want to be tied to a desk! In this session, we explore the changing world of news gathering and broadcasting, and demonstrate the latest innovations and revolutions, including small changes with big impact such as instant access to content while it is being acquired. We reveal how the benefits of de-centralisation in news production is empowering news storytelling for many forward-facing news broadcasters, and how embracing IoT, the cloud, social platforms and the power of 5G can redefine teams to tell their stories first, fast and most importantly, from wherever it breaks!

Dave Hedley has worked in the media industry for over 35 years. Working initially on foundation technologies such as digital video tape recording, HDTV and workflow management since 2010 Dave has been responsible for enterprise orchestration solutions for media supply chain and cloud-native news production systems.

With a decade of experience in Asset Management, Felip Garcia specialises in finding ways to increase efficiency, so storytellers can do what they do best using the best technology available. Understanding customer's pain points, design and delivery of efficient news workflows is Felip's current focus.

Tom Crocker is senior consultant for strategic projects at Sony. Hi is currently focused on cloud-based workflows, with emphasis on migrating traditional thinking into a connected IoT world and helping customers to find and leverage benefits.

 

12:15 – 12:45 CIRCOM TRAINING PRESENTATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE CERTIFICATES 
Guillaume Kuster, CIRCOM trainer and Media Expert and the Trainees

12:45 – CLOSING CEREMONY

You are invited to Watch The Winners, not just on your own in the self-service télétheque, but also on a large screen in cinema style. Watch the very best that regional public service has to offer. Each showing will be introduced by one of the judges.

Friday session: THREE WOMEN
Hosts Dite Dinesz (TVR), Montse Armengou Martin (TV3)

10:00 - 10:10
YOUNG ONSCREN TALENT - CRTV Galicia: Alba Mancebo

10:10 - 10:50
DOCUMENTARY - NRK Rogaland: Survivors – The Girl From Utøya

10:50 - 12:00
MINORITIES IN SOCIETY - SVT Stockholm/Lokal: Who Can Save Sanne?

All day till closing:

BBC Blue Room, demonstration of media content manipulation

Face Swapping
Swap your face with anyone on the internet. Showing how this is now clearly in the hands of the consumer.
Deepfakery
See how faces are superimposed onto bodies in the video using machine learning.
Make Me Multilingual
By exploiting advancements in machine learning, it is now possible to seamlessly reversion content in any language you want.
Trump Turing Test
Can you tell the synthetic fake from the real fake when it comes to this well-known voice?
How to spot a fake
Will we soon be at the stage where we will not be able to spot the difference between the real and the fabricated?

Teletheque, private viewing of all Prix CIRCOM 2019 entries

 

Conference Venue

The conference and the Prix CIRCOM Gala Awards show will be held in The Congress Centre Master, a prestigious venue within Novi Sad Fair.

Host town

Novi Sad is the second largest city in Serbia, the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. Situated on the banks of the Danube River, the city of about 350 000 inhabitants is the political, administrative, economic, cultural and educational centre of Vojvodina.