1969-2019- Fifty Years of Communications Commitment by Richard Hooper

1969-2019- Fifty Years of Communications Commitment

By Richard Hooper

Four public-service broadcasters launched the International Institute of Communications (IIC) in 1969 – ITN in the UK, CBC in Canada, NHK in Japan and ABC in Australia. In that year, audiences in the UK, for example, were able to watch three television channels within a regulatory framework of spectrum scarcity and a commercial reality of semi-monopoly. Now in 2019, UK audiences enjoy hundreds of television channels, broadcast from terrestrial and mobile antennae and satellites, and streamed via broadband over submarine cable, coaxial cable, copper and optical fibre – all within a regulatory framework of competitive profusion and a commercial reality of digital disruption. In this, its 50th anniversary year, the IIC no longer focuses on just broadcasting but covers the whole converged landscape of technology, media and telecommunications (TMT).