‘Radio – Unity and Diversity’ is the theme for this year’s RadioAsia Conference.

The conference, organised by Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan from July 10 to 12.

It will address in very practical ways one of the greatest challenges facing Radio in the Second Digital Age as broadcasters around the world venture deeper and deeper into areas where new technologies, platforms and production methods become increasingly flexible and volatile, where convergence one minute becomes divergence the next.

It will address how can radio broadcasters maintain their essential public service role as mass media unifying society while at the same time addressing each citizen-consumer’s individual, personal information, education and entertainment needs?

The event will bring together experts and practitioners from across the region and around the world to help chart paths through this increasingly complex landscape. The conference typically attracts more than 300 radio, technology and new media industry professionals to share challenges, seek solutions and witness what actually works in everyday broadcasting.

Two more key ABU events – Radio Song Festival and the cross-continental Media2020 Dialogue on radio, TV and new media, will also be held along with RadioAsia 2018 Conference.

With experts predicting that 2018 will witness dramatic, epoch-changing transformations in new media and social media, both conferences will keep these issues high on the agenda.

 Media2020, established in 2015 by the ABU and Radio Romania, and this year titled “Looking beyond the horizon”, will examine today's broadcasting from three perspectives: Are digital media developing in the way predicted earlier in the Second Digital Age? What has proved successful and what is failing? What is coming over the horizon to hit us, as we get closer to 2020?

The ABU Radio Song Festival will feature performances by Asia-Pacific's best young up-and-coming talent.