A Walk Down Memory Lane

By Tan Hock Guan, former AVN senior editor (2001-2019)

I was enjoying my afternoon tea when my cell phone rang. It was a pleasant surprise to see it was my former colleague Prema who called.

She asked if it was convenient for me to contribute an article about my time with the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) for this newsletter.

A walk down memory lane, of course I would. I joined the ABU’s News Department in 2001 and retired in 2019. After my retirement, I continued to work with the ABU on a part-time basis for about three years.

The ABU News runs a news exchange platform called Asiavision (AVN) with TV broadcasters from across the Asia-Pacific and Europe participating as members.

I was a print journalist with the Malaysian National News Agency BERNAMA prior to joining the ABU. Switching from print journalism to broadcasting was not too difficult. Afterall, a journalist is still a journalist and we still chase after breaking news and major developments.

I must thank the former AVN managing editor Alan Williams and the late AVN senior officer Humayun Chowdhury who helped my transition into broadcasting a smooth one.

The AVN started as a daily TV news exchange program where members contribute news items which were transmitted via satellite at a specific time of the day. AVN ended the satellite transmission in 2015 and switched over fully to file exchange.

The toughest times I had when working with AVN were when it was using the satellite for transmissions. Members upload on their own to members uplink. Every now and then a member would inadvertently increase their power in order to get a lock-on on the satellite. A short burst of high power would affect the transmissions on other frequencies on the satellite transponder.

And the satellite operator would call the AVN Centre in Kuala Lumpur to report when this happened.

Life is full of ups and downs and the good times I had with AVN include the many times we were able to compete with the TV news agencies in covering breaking news. The AVN membership is very diverse and we have members in countries that TV news agencies do not have an office in.

There were also many good times with the satellite transmission. Apart from the daily scheduled satellite transmission, AVN also carry out ‘news flash’ when breaking news occur in AVN member countries.

There were many times when I had to arrange for these news flash transmissions — some in the morning and some even close to midnight.

Things change over time and now I think a presence in social media is essential for broadcasters. I am sure the ABU and AVN have also adapted to the changes.

Here’s wishing everyone in the ABU the very best and every success.