WESSBERG TO LEAD EBU CONFERENCE

ARNE Wessberg, incoming President of the European Broadcasting Union, will give the keynote address at VLV's seventh International Conference.
The conference will be held at the Royal Society of Arts in London from June 6-8. Mr Wessberg, Director General of YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation, will be giving his first public speech in London since becoming the EBU's President earlier in the year. The theme for the conference in 2001 is 'Public Service Broadcasting and Citizenship in the Global Information Society'. Mr Wessberg will outline his vision of the role which public service broadcasting can play in e-Europe and the contribution which it can make to fostering cultural diversity and the development of active citizenship. The conference will bring together more than 100 broadcasters, regulators, academics, journalists and representatives of citizen and consumer groups from Europe, the British Commonwealth, North America, Africa, and the Pacific. Sessions will cover ways of developing active citizenship, the effect on audio-visual services of WTO moves to liberalise world-trade, the protection of children, and the funding of original and indigenous programmes, education and lifelong learning.
(GB)