from Community Relations Commission

New South Wales public servants who have responsibility for communicating with ethnic communities have been brought up to date on new media technology at a seminar organised by the Community Relations Commission For a multicultural NSW today.

Each year, as part of its annual Multicultural Marketing Awards programme, the Commission presents a seminar for government marketing and communications officials on the latest trends in non-English media.

In his opening address to the seminar, the Chair of the Commission Stepan Kerkyasharian, said: "In this field every year there is something new to learn about and discuss. We want to ensure that New South Wales public servants are as well equipped as possible to meet their responsibilities in communicating with our culturally diverse community. 

"Some participants in earlier seminars have become experts later turned up entering projects in the Multicultural Marketing Awards", he said.

The seminar heard a detailed  presentation from Ms Regina Boulos, the Chief Executive Officer of UBI World TV, Australia's largest multicultural subscription TV broadcaster. Ms Boulos gave a sweeping account of digital media already operating in Australia and the new waves about to break. She urged government officials to use locally-produced UBI programmes to communicate their important messages to the community.

UBI provides digital TV and radio programmes from many countries in seven key languages.

Participants also heard from three important radio stations which broadcast in Spanish, Chinese and Arabic.  Mr Oscar Aguilar, editor of Holahispanos Internet Radio emphasised the importance of programmes being produced locally.

"It doeesn't matter how many Spanish radio stations you can listen to 'live' or 'on-demand' on the internet. What¡¦s important is that the programme is Australian", Mr Aguilar said.

Janey Tham, Executive Director of Chinese Radio 2AC and David Pendergast, General Manager of Arabic radio, 2ME echoed that sentiment, emphasising how important it was for government agencies to speak to ethnic communities through their radio stations - because they were local media. Both managers urged government officials to send information and media releases directly to them and the material would be translated and broadcast as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, summing up the seminar, veteran multicultural marketing executive, Pino Migliorini, Managing Director of Cultural Perspectives urged attendees not to lose sight of the power and significance of the ethnic print media.

"Whilst the changes in technology are stunning, the print media also continues to grow and develop and remains a very powerful means of communicating with Australia's ethnic markets", he said.

The 2007 Multicultural Marketing Awards will be announced at a gala dinner hosted by the NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, at the Westin Hotel on Friday 16th November.