Commonwealth Broadcasting Association

History

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 co-operated 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) and Nassau (2008).