AMF always a challenge: DMI team

As more than 2,000 guests from more than 70 countries descended on Dubai to attend the ninth edition of the Arab Media Forum, a nine-camera team of more than 65 people from Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI) was busy covering the event for local and international exposure.

"I have been at every forum for the past nine years covering the event for DMI, but it's always a challenge every year, with increasing audience, larger participation and high-profile participation from international audience," said Akbar Khan Usman, Event Manager, DMI, who has been an integral part of the DMI team that's assigned the important task of beaming the forum coverage to viewers on various channels – local and international.

"Our responsibility is not just for our own channels of DMI, but in fact many other channels take the feed from us, for which we have to maintain a constant supply of quality coverage," explained Nada Sahab, Executive Producer, DMI, who teams up with Akbar to handle a team, of almost 65 people who work in double shifts to cover the forum.

"We have over nine camera crews, three roaming and six stationary – inside and outside the main hall, in addition, we also have two stages to conduct instant interviews and spot reports," said Khan on the responsibility of the DMI team that was doing live coverage of the event with recorded capsules for their own channels or for other international and regional broadcasters.

This year, Dubai Media Incorporated was the strategic partner for the forum and had undertaken additional responsibilities to help organisers for hosting the event and to beam all over the world from China to Brazil, through their dedicated channels like Dubai One.

The forum coverage was also a technical challenge, said Khan, but said with confidence: "At DMI, we have state-of-the-art technology available. We have the latest in cameras, including some ENG [electronic news gathering] cameras for making spot reports. These are assigned in teams of a cameraman, a reporter and a producer responsible for the capsule. "Outside the venue, we have a multi-million dirham van equipped with the latest in the technological innovations that allowed us to give an uninterrupted beaming of the forum."

Summing up the event coverage, Akbar described the DMI coverage as the "best way to display the local talent that all the speakers at the forum are highlighting as a concern to develop and mature local media".

Dubai Media Incorporated, one of the pioneering media organisations in the region, provided live coverage of the entire forum, including most of individual workshops and specialised discussions on its wide spectrum of broadcast and print media platforms that includes Dubai TV, Al Bayan newspaper, Sama Dubai, Dubai One, Dubai Sports, Dubai Racing, Noor Dubai Radio and TV, Emarat Al Youm Arabic daily, Emirates Business 24|7 English daily, and Masar Printing Press.

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