On the occasion of hosting the BEREC Plenary Meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia's convergent regulatory authority APEK organised on 6 March 2013 a workshop to address opportunities and challenges for European media services in the connected digital world. The workshop, which gathered representatives from regulatory authorities and stakeholders, provided an opportunity for media players and their counterparts from the field of electronic communications to engage in a dialogue.
The seminar, which was opened by APEK's Director Franc Dolenc and moderated by Tanja Kerševan Smokvina, brought together high profile speakers including EPRA Chairman Jean-François Furnémont, Lorena Boix Alonso (European Commission), Ingrid Deltenre and Peter Mac Avock (EBU), Lisa Di Feliciantonio (Fastweb), and Caroline Pauwels (Free University of Brussels).
During his presentation, Jean-François Furnémont highlighted the challenges currently faced by media regulators. Most of them still revolve around values, such as protecting viewers from harmful content, or ensuring the right balance between public and private broadcasters. However, new challenges are emerging, such as how to manage the increasingly complex regulatory matrix or how to adapt to the far-reaching changes concerning consumption and delivery of content. In his view, the cooperation between media, telecom or competition regulators should increase, no matter what regulatory structure is ultimately chosen. He also advocated for the same legal requirements concerning the independence of regulators applicable for both media and electronic communication regulatory bodies.
NEW: see below for additional speakers' presentations