Europe’s largest converged media festival, The Media Festival 2009, will take place in Manchester for a second year running on 18-20 November, with new opportunities for apps developers to exhibit, media companies to win recognition in a new awards section and SMEs to seek financial, management and legal advice through a number of surgeries, workshops and business advice clinics.

Shadow Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt confirmed to speak as The Media Festival 2009 explores the role of creativity within media in rebuilding the world economy

Festival Director, Louise Benson confirmed that following its successful augural year, The Media Festival (TMF) will again take place in Manchester - the location of the BBC’s new technologically advanced home.

Described by the Stephen Carter, Minister for Broadcast, Technology and Communication as “a fantastically productive and creative thing to do” the event will this year be focusing on creating a year round community for its delegates and encouraging networking in structured and unstructured environments. This will allow games developers to rub shoulders with advertising creatives, brands, broadcasters, technology providers, mobile, record labels, film makers and more. More information can be found here: www.themediafestival.com / www.twitter.com/mediafestival

Peter Bazalgette, the man behind ground breaking formats such as Big Brother and Deal or No Deal, will chair the Festival. He said “No media company knows precisely what its business model will be a decade. Now’s the time to learn from how others are tackling the digital challenge. Only The Media festival gets everyone in one place. I look forward to chairing for a second year!”

Last year, The Media Festival (TMF) attracted over 500 delegates and 70 speakers. In 2009 the Festival will feature more international thought-leaders, providing the UK media industry access to the best the world has to offer. Headed up by Peter Bazalgette, content development for the Festival is tasked to a diverse group of media visionaries including:

Peter Barron, Google
Peter Smith, NBC Universal International
Richard Deverell, BBC Childrens
Alex Connock, Ten Alps
Simon Nelson, Controller, BBC Vision
Dan Hon, Six to Start
John Cassie, BSkyB
Fred Bolza, Sony Music UK
Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy UK
James Kirkham, Holler
Kate Burns, Bebo
Mike Rawlinson, ELSPA
Catriona Campbell, Foviance

Full advisory board details can be found here: http://www.themediafestival.com/advisory-board.cfm

At this early stage, speakers confirmed include Krishnan Guru-Murthy - Broadcaster, Andy Anson - Former Commercial Director, Manchester United, now heading up the British bid for the World Cup 2018, Stephen Shakesphere, Founder, YouGov plus Jeremy Hunt, the shadow Culture Secretary, who will make a pre-election speech at The Media Festival.

Peter Bazalgette added “In its first year, The Media Festival proved that folk from wildly different content sectors – from adult to kids, from radio to video downloads, from gaming to advertising — all got a huge buzz and genuine benefit from sharing their digital triumphs and disasters. The organising committee has ambitious, successful practitioners in the form our Advisory Board with a wide circle of contacts which they will be mining for the event. Post Digital Britain with a possible new government on the horizon, November will be the time and Manchester the place to learn about the latest business models and debate the future with the digital movers and shakers.”

Media publications New Media Age and Wired will be supporting The Media Festival (TMF) this year with political guidance from Dehavilland and educational support from the Met Film School. Regional expertise will come from partners, North West Development Agency, Marketing Manchester and North West Vision & Media as well as endorsers, Manchester Publicity Association.

Once again, The Media Festival will be supporting Exposures Student Film Festival, with collaborations to be announced shortly.

For full information please contact:

Joanna Pocock, Senior Marketing Executive, The Media Festival

e: joanna.pocock@emap.com
t: +44 (0) 20 7728 3917

Follow us on Twitter - www.twitter.com/mediafestival

Note to editors:

The organiser of The Media Festival is Emap Ltd who run a number of other Festivals including Cannes Lion, Eurobest and World Architecture Festival. It also publishes trade magazines Broadcast, Screen International and shots.

www.themediafestival.com
www.emap.com
www.broadcastnow.co.uk
www.screendaily.com
www.shots.nets