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Monday Nov 25, 2024
Thursday, 13 November 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
EAP Broadcasting Company Ltd., Director Engineering Lasantha Samaranatyake (left) with the prestigious award presented by Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Secretary General Dr. Javead Mottaghi in Macao
ABU established in 1964 is a non-profit, non-government, professional association to assist the development of broadcasting in the region. The ABU promotes the collective interests of television and radio broadcasters and encourages regional and international co-operation between broadcasters and works closely with the regional broadcasting unions in other parts of the world on matters of common concern, and with many other international organisations to exchange information on the latest developments in broadcasting and undertakes activities to improve the skills and technologies of its members.
With a mission to assist all members wherever possible, the ABU provides rights-free content acquisition for developing countries, organises seminars, workshops and training courses and offers annual ABU Prizes for radio and television programs.
Each year the ABU recognises in the fields of broadcasting technology and engineering with a growing raft of awards. These awards are open to staff or former staff of ABU developing broadcaster members within the ABU region. Candidates are nominated by 265 ABU member organisations and winners chosen by a panel of experts.
In 2013 the ABU introduced another new prize, the ABU Developing Broadcaster Award for Excellence. This award is sponsored by SONY an award which is conferred annually, to recognise contributions of an outstanding nature in broadcast engineering made by an individual in a developing broadcasting organisation, including management of technical resources, and related disciplines.
EAP was awarded the ABU Developing Broadcaster Award for Excellence 2014, for benefits accrued to the industry through his work, including Operational savings, enabling new services, improved resource management, research activities and work in the area of green initiatives. With the use of very limited resources and minimum funds Lasantha Samaranaayke has achieved the Re allocation of FM Frequencies projectin Sri Lanka on time. The planning was excellent, having very minimum off air non availability to the listeners at all stations (10 minutes only). The use of new SFN techniques was very helpful to minimise the interference zone.
In addition to receiving the above award, he was also appointed as one of the Vice Chairmen (out of three) of the Technical Committee Bureau from 2014 to 2016. The Chairman is the Head of NHK Research and Development Department Japan. The Technical Bureau, comprising 18 members representing all categories of member broadcasters in the region, assesses activities proposed for the ensuing years, in terms of relevance to members and the industry as a whole. All policy matters are decided by the Technical Committee.
