The CBA was founded in February 1945 at the Commonwealth Broadcasting Conference. The first meeting, held in London, brought together representatives of a number of broadcasting organisations that had cooperated closely in reporting the Second World War. It began with six members and is today an association of more than 100 broadcasting organisations in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Australasia, the Pacific, North and South America.
The title “Commonwealth Broadcasting Association” was adopted in Malta in 1974 as well as the CBA charter, which set out the principles and aims of the association stipulating that membership “shall be open to publicly owned national public service broadcasting organisations, or groups of such organisations, which are responsible for the planning, production and presentation of broadcast programmes in Commonwealth countries”. This was modified in 1995 to allow for membership of commercial companies with a commitment to public service broadcasting and to allow for affiliate membership.
Following the first conference in Britain in 1945, a subsequent meeting was again held in Britain in 1952 and then in Australia (1956), India (1960), Canada (1963), Nigeria (1965), New Zealand (1968), and then on a regular basis every two years continuing with Jamaica (1970), Kenya (1972), Malta (1974), Singapore (1976), Mauritius (1978), Australia (1980), Canada (1982), Hong Kong (1984), Britain (1986), The Bahamas (1988) Cyprus (1990), Botswana (1992), Canada (1994), Malaysia (1996), Gibraltar (1998), South Africa (2000), Britain (2002), Fiji (2004), Delhi (2006), The Bahamas (2008), South Africa (2010) and Australia (2012).
Previous Presidents
Laurent Picard
President, CBC — Canada
First CBA President (September 1974 to July 1975)
Sir Talbot Duckmanton
General Manager, ABC — Australia
Second CBA President (December 1975 to June 1982)
George Bako, OON
Director-General, FRCN — Nigeria
Third CBA President (June 1982 to November 1984)
Alasdair Milne
Director-General, BBC
Fourth CBA President (November 1984 to January 1987)
Sir Michael Checkland
Director-General, BBC
Fifth CBA President (March 1987 to September 1988)
Cheung Man-Yee
Director of Broadcasting, RTHK — Hong Kong
Sixth CBA President (September 1988 to October 1992)
Mohammed Ibrahim
Director-General, NTA — Nigeria
Seventh CBA President (October 1992 to November 1995)
Shashi Kant Kapoor
Director-General, AIR — India
Eighth CBA President (November 1995 to August 1996)
Dato’ Jaafar Kamin
Director-General, RTM — Malaysia
Ninth CBA President (August 1996 to May 1998)
Govin Reddy
DGCE, SABC
Tenth CBA President (May to July 1998)
George Valarino
General Manager, GBC — Gibraltar
Eleventh and Thirteenth CBA President (July 1998 to October 2000 and July 2001 to February 2006)
Robert Emmett O’Reilly
Executive Director, RCI and International Relations, CBC — Canada
Twelfth CBA President (October 2000 to July 2001)
Abubakar Jijiwa
Director-General, VON — Nigeria
Fourteenth CBA President (February 2006 to April 2010)
Previous Secretary-Generals
Alva Clarke
Secretary-General, CBA (1970 to 1992)
Stuart Revill
Secretary-General, CBA (1992 to 1994)
Elizabeth Smith
Secretary-General, CBA (1994 to 2010)