From On Air - Fall 2003

Prepartions for Entertainment Summit

PCI’s annual entertainment summits have become a staple in the serial drama community as a forum on how entertainment can be used to educate the public. PCI’s programs teach millions around the world about HIV/AIDS prevention, gender equity, environmental awareness, family planning and reproductive health. This year’s 10th anniversary summit aims to be our biggest yet.

With the growing international awareness of the critical role entertainment can play, PCI has widened the scope of the summit to include a much larger spectrum of the creative teams who can bring their talents to bear on HIV/AIDS. On Tuesday, November 18th, at New York City’s Columbia University, we will bring together key players from the worlds of entertainment, public health, business, advertising, and the political and UN communities to learn how and why entertainment programming is impacting the cultural and social aspects of HIV/AIDS.

Joining PCI as the event co-sponsor will be The Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (CONGO) along with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), have also agreed to lend their support. Understanding the great promise in unleashing the power of entertainment has convinced the BBC World Trust, UN Foundation, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Communications, The Ad Council, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to join us in this effort.

In the past, PCI worked principally with the serial drama community to encourage them to consider using the magic of story telling to change attitudes and behavior on health and social issues. Times are changing at PCI.

Participants from around the globe will share their experiences working on innovative and successful radio and television serial dramas.

Based on the concept of our domestic summits, the first African Soap Summit® — underwritten by the Ford Foundation — was held in Nairobi, Kenya this past June. For a week more than one hundred writers, producers, executives, government officials and others heard presentations, engaged in panel discussions, exchanged information and developed a sense of community that led to the proclamation included in this issue of On Air (see Nairobi Declaration).

In March 2004, PCI, in partnership with the BBC World Trust, will be presenting the first India Soap Summit with the most important network and production entities in attendance. We are in the process of creating an award for achievement in providing health messages through popular dramas. The GE Foundation and the JP Morgan Foundation have already committed funds for this undertaking.

Because our model has successfully grown to include players not only from government and the international NGO community, this year’s audience will include communications professionals from a wide spectrum of industries and will look beyond serial dramas and into the future possibilities of using mass communications for social change. The event will show those in the media how to enhance audience share while changing lives for the better through educational entertainment.

Participants from around the globe will share their experiences working on innovative and successful radio and television serial dramas. This is the first time international soap stars will be present at a Soap Summit and it is sure to add a very interesting dimension to the experience.

Sonny Fox, PCI Senior VP and organizer of the annual event said the overall objective was “raising the profile of entertainment for social change.” He went on to explain how this year’s event was really an “expansion of the Soap Summit and was going to implore the participants to change -- show how they can make a difference. They have that magic.”

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