DMA Riverside Review October 2017 Riverside Review USE THIS 30 Oct

October 2017
Volume 3, Issue 4
BC Hosts AFNers from Around the World
George A. Smith
programming is selected and promoted. It was
“crack open the vacuum seal-fresh new
information” for most participants. Four out of five
attendees said they are currently on their first tour
with AFN. Despite this, according to a survey at
the end of the workshop, every participant said
they had learned more about AFN’s military
broadcast heritage.
Military broadcast journalists and leaders from
around the world said they appreciated our
welcome during last month’s 75 th Anniversary of
American Forces Network (AFN) Workshop.
Many of the 100 attendees gave positive
feedback even though the Defense Media Activity
Riverside building was getting nipped, tucked,
tweaked, gutted and refurbished during the
biggest facility renovation in decades. The key for
generating these positive feelings was every
organization in the building prepared for the
workshop with a number of people willingly
volunteering to go beyond their normal duties.
For more than 90 percent of attendees, the
event was their first trip to the AFN Broadcast
Center (BC). Now they’re back in Korea, Japan,
Germany, Bahrain and Belgium, cracking their
microphone as DJs and producers, with newly
acquired knowledge of how radio and TV
The workshop focused on ways to better serve
the military with entertainment, news, sports, force
protection messages and command information
messaging on radio, TV and social media.
Attendees also heard the latest from AFN
Headquarters on two major improvements coming
in the next weeks for the overseas audience: TV
services in High Definition (HD) and a new
decoder with a built-in DVR.
Another highlight of
the three-day collabora-
tive effort was interacting
with Walt Disney execu-
tive Martin Sansing on
cutting-edge broadcast
industry trends and his
forecast for the future.
Disney’s Martin Sansing,
(right) shares thoughts with
attendees on where he
thinks the broadcast indus-
try is headed (Photo by
MC2 Hansel Pintos as well
photos rotating above left).