The RTÉ Audience Council will be addressing members of the public with a free public lecture in University College Dublin on July 15th.
Public Service Broadcasting: Innovating for the Needs of Tomorrow’s Audiences will be chaired by Press Ombudsman Professor John Horgan with a key-note speech by President and CEO of PBS Paula A. Kerger.Following Ms. Kerger’s address, the RTÉ Audience Council will open the floor for a panel discussion with audience interaction.
RTÉ first formed an Audience Council in 2003. It provides a voice for the viewers and listeners with regard to RTÉ’s output and delivery on its public remit.
The council comprises of 15 members and is chaired by Pauric Dempsey, Head of Communications and Public Affairs in the Royal Irish Academy.
Mr Dempsey said: “RTE Audience Council wants a full house so that we can hear and discuss as many peoples’ views on what the future of public sector broadcasting in Ireland should be’
Founded in 1969, PBS is the USA’s largest America’s largest public media enterprise and a private, non-profit corporation. The organisation’s 350 member stations are non-commercial, educational licencees and serve all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.
Ms. Kerger joined PBS as its sixth President and Chief Executive in March 2006. Since her arrival, she’s made strong commitments to the arts, news and public affairs, education, diversity and technology.
“Those of us who work in this business do so because it is good,” she told her National Press Club audience in 2006. “It is necessary. And our country is better for it…. We may no longer be public television—at least not in the conventional sense. Now it may be better for us to think of ourselves as public media. But whatever we call ourselves, the public will continue to come first in our name, and in all that we do.”