The research, conducted in 2004-2005 under a UNESCOP project and presented in this book, provides an overview of the main trends in the broadcasting and audiovisual industry worldwide, with a focus on regional patterns of production, consumption and trade in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The economic and regulatory analysis of cultural industries remains complex and data, whether on market trends or on regulatory regimes, is largely deficient, especially in developing countries. Mindful of this reality, UNESCO has promoted the project “Harnessing ICTs for the Audiovisual Industry and Public Service Broadcasting in Developing Countries”. The collection of background papers prepared under it confirms that treating cultural products like any other product is no more realistic in a developing country context than it is in developed countries.

The project’s findings, even if preliminary in nature at this stage, draw close attention to some of the policy and rule-making considerations that underlie ongoing efforts at negotiating a UNESCO Convention on the protection of the diversity of cultural contents and artistic expressions, a central aim of which is to strike an acceptable balance at the trade-culture policy interface.

This summary aims to delineate some of the key policy challenges that the audiovisual industry poses for developing countries and to highlight a number of key trends in industry development. It does so with a view to sketching out a range of issues that may warrant further analytical attention and call for specific capacity building activities in developing countries. The sample of countries was selected so as to represent contrasted audiovisual landscapes, some of the studied countries boasting tremendous audiovisual trade volumes while others have very limited production