EPRA meets in Nuremberg to discuss the future of the digital media ecosystem

The 42^nd EPRA meeting took place in Nuremberg, Germany, from 28 to 30 October 2015 at the joint invitation of the German regulators. On this occasion, about 150 delegates representing the totality of the 52 regulatory authorities from 46 European countries gathered together in order to discuss issues related to media regulation and exchange information and best practices.

©Picture courtesy of the BLM

The meeting was also attended by several observer organisations (Council of Europe, European Audiovisual Observatory, European Commission, Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media) as well as guest speakers from industry and academia (EBU, Studio Hamburg, EFADs, VPRT, München Live TV, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism) and guest regulators from Morocco and Tunisia.

How to ensure a sustainable ecosystem for media in Europe that offers a plurality and diversity of content was the overarching theme of the meeting which encompassed several subtopics, such as:

• New approaches to helping fund public interest content or supporting the content industries and the involvement of media regulators (Plenary session 1);
   

• The regulators’ toolkit to assess the diversity of sources, output and exposure, with a focus on monitoring the transparency of media ownership, and analysing news consumption trends (Plenary session 2);
   

• Public service content in a multiplatform environment: from must carry to must-be-found (Working group 1);
   

• Product placement (Working group 2);

• Local/regional TV: financing models (Working group 3).

Sustainability, findability and transparency were the three recurring concepts in the debates between the regulators and the external speakers. How to effectively implement these three principles will be a key challenge for the ongoing reform of the audiovisual regulatory framework.

EPRA was set up in 1995 in response to the need for increased co-operation between European regulatory authorities. With its 20 years of experience and a robust network of working-level contacts, EPRA is the oldest and largest network of broadcasting regulators and is an ideal setting for the exchange of information, cases and best practices between broadcasting regulators in Europe.

The next meeting of EPRA will take place in Barcelona, Spain, on 25-27 May 2016 at the invitation of the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia (CAC).

©Roger Loppacher and Siegfried Schneider (Picture courtesy of the BLM)

Source: EPRA Secretariat