Tunis, December 19, 2009 – ASBU General Assembly wrapped up Friday in Tunis its twenty ninth regular session, held with the participation of member corporations, the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States, ASBU’s permanent bodies and a number of observers. The session was chaired by ASBU President, Dr. Riyadh Kamal Najm, and attended by the Director General, Mr. Slaheddine Maaoui.
 
Opening the meeting, Mr. Maaoui reviewed ASBU’s achievements in 2009, mostly the use of the MENOS-ASBU system (Multimedia Exchange Network Over Satellite) in all radio and television program and news exchanges, the system winning the Prize for most innovative projects in content delivery and the 2009 Judges’ Prize, both awarded by the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC), held in Amsterdam,

He also expressed ASBU’s pride and honor for having been congratulated on this occasion by President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and the Secretary General of the League of Arab States, Mr. Amr Moussa.

Dr. Riyadh Najm has focused his opening statement on "the important challenges facing the audiovisual sector, both worldwide and in the Arab region”. Traditional broadcasters have now to compete with the rapidly growing amount of audiovisual services provided by NTICs, such as Internet, mobile TV and TV over the Internet Protocol. He called upon “traditional broadcasting organizations in our region, public and private, to adapt quickly to this situation and try to reach their audiences, at least partly, through such means.”

In addition to adopting ASBU’s work plan and budget for 2010, the General Assembly validated the strategic study that will enable the Union to attract more satellite channels and private radio stations. Accordingly, ASBU will start the official partner program in 2010, organize the 15th  session of the Arab Song Festival in Egypt during the first term of the year, hold the tenth session of the Radio Song and Music Clip Contest in Iraq, accept membership of nine radio and television channels, which are the following: a Jordanian private radio station, Egypt’s satellite channel “Al-Sa’a”, the Tunisian private satellite channel “Nesma”, the Tunisian private TV channel “Hannibal”, Radio Netherlands, “Russia Today” TV channel in Arabic, Jordan’s “Sawt–Al-Medinah Radio, Sudan’s government radio “Saheeroon” and Syria’s private Radio “Samar”.

The General Assembly welcomed Sudan’s invitation to hold its thirtieth regular meeting, along with the Executive Council’s eighty-fourth session and associated meetings in Khartoum.