On 15 February the Public Media Alliance celebrated its 70th birthday. It was founded in 1945, months before the end of World War II, as the Commonwealth Broadcasting Conference. Starting with six founding members, we now have 102 members in 54 countries

Our origins were born out of a desire for increased cooperation between public service broadcasters around the world. The idea of bringing several large broadcasters together for a meeting came from the BBC’s Overseas Service (now the World Service), and in 1944 the BBC invited chief broadcasting executives from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa to London. National broadcasters from these countries, as well as the BBC, have remained core members ever since.

We’re proud to be continuing the work of facilitating cooperation between broadcasters all these decades later. In so many places in the world, the idea of a trusted and shared public media space still has to be fought for – whether it is due to funding cuts or digital convergence. Public broadcasters will need to adapt to survive, and learning from each other through a global network helps. So we look forward to working with broadcasters as they evolve into public media organisations for many years to come.