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Week ending December 12, 2009

EBU calls for stable funding for Polish public service media - December 11, 2009
from Avril Mahon Roberts/EBU

Geneva, 11 December 2009 – The EBU today called on decision-makers in Poland to ensure stable funding for the country's public service media.

“The EBU urges all decision-makers to provide appropriate, secure and transparent funding for Poland's public service broadcasters and to guarantee the means necessary for them to accomplish their mission,” said the EBU President, Jean-Paul Philippot of RTBF, Belgium.

The alarming drop in licence fee revenue in Poland over recent years, coupled with a change of policy on who should pay the licence fee, means insufficient financing for public service media in the country.

“Urgent measures are required to stabilize the public funding of Poland’s public service media, and in particular through improvements to the system of licence fee collection and compensation from the State budget for the shortfalls”, added Mr Philippot.

The current situation in Poland is not in line with the standards established by the Council of Europe, in particular the 1996 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers on the guarantee of the independence of public service broadcasting and the 2009 Recommendation of the Parliamentary Assembly on the funding of public service broadcasting. Whereas the first Recommendation regards as a prerequisite for independence an appropriate, secure and transparent funding framework which guarantees public service broadcasting organizations the means necessary to accomplish their missions, the latter Recommendation calls on national legislators to ensure that public service broadcasters have adequate long-term funding possibilities for fulfilling their mission.

"Properly-funded public service media are a vital bedrock of every democratic society in Europe," said Mr Philippot.

RAJAR PUBLISHES FINDINGS OF MIDAS 5 - December 10, 2009
from Penelope James for RAJAR

RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd) releases findings of its fifth survey of internet delivered audio services today, December 10, 2009, and reveals that one third of the UK’s adult population now claims to have listened to the radio via the internet; while the number of users of Personalised Online Radio has increased from 3.9 million to 4.5 million since May 2009. In addition, 8.3 million adults now claim to have heard of WiFi radio.

The RAJAR Measurement of Internet Delivered Audio Services (MIDAS 5) was conducted during November 2009 by Ipsos MORI. The sample consisted of RAJAR respondents, drawn from the main RAJAR survey over the previous 6 months, who had claimed to listen to the radio via the internet or downloaded podcasts, alongside respondents from the two previous MIDAS surveys (conducted in October 2008 and May 2009). The survey findings are based on the responses of 977 respondents.

Christel Lacaze, research manager, RAJAR comments:

“The fifth MIDAS survey shows that Personalised Online Radio is the fastest growing internet delivered audio service, with 4.5 million people now claiming they have used such a service. Listening to Podcasts and to the radio via the internet (live and using Listen Again services) also continue to grow, but at a reduced pace”.

Top line findings:

Listening via the Internet

One third (33.9%) of the UK’s adult population (15+) or 17.4 million people claim to have ever listened to the radio via the internet, compared to 16.9 million people in May ‘09. This includes 16.2 million listening live and 13.9 million listening at a later time using Listen Again services.

74% of those Listen Again listeners said the service has no impact on the amount of live radio to which they listen; while half said they are now listening to radio programmes to which they did not listen previously. The average user of Listen Again services listened to 1.6 programmes in the previous week.

8.3 million adults have heard of WiFi radio (a standalone radio set that connects wirelessly to the internet and is able to play any internet radio service), but just under a million adults claim to own one.

57% of internet listeners are men and 47% are aged 15-34 years.

Listening to Podcasts

8.1 million people have downloaded a podcast (up from 7.8 million in May ’09), while 4.4 million say they listen to podcasts at least once a week (up from 4.2 million in May ‘09). However, only 24% find time to listen to all the podcasts they download.

78% of podcast users said that listening to podcasts had no impact on their live radio listening habits.

The typical podcast user subscribes to 5.9 podcasts per week (up from 5.2 podcasts in May ’09) and spent about an hour listening to them in the previous week. As in the four previous surveys, comedy and music remain the two favourite genres.

iTunes continues to be the software of choice, used by 75% of podcast users to subscribe to podcasts, while 18% simply download directly from a website via their browser. 79% listen to podcasts on their home computer and 66% listen via a portable audio/mp3 player.

Podcast users are more likely to be men (65% of users) and in the 15-34s age break (54% of users).

83% of podcasts users listen to podcasts that are more than a week old.

Podcasting appears to have a positive effect on radio listening with 33% saying that they now listen to radio programmes to which they did not listen previously.

Only 5% of podcasts users have ever paid to subscribe to a podcast.

59% of respondents said they would be interested in downloading podcasts containing advertising if they were free, while only 33% responded positively to the idea of podcasts without adverts that had to be paid for. (These figures have remained stable when compared to similar data reported in MIDAS 3 and MIDAS 4.)

DigiTAG - Spectrum Regulators must not overlook the importance of the Digital Terrestrial TV platform - December 7, 2009
from Ed Wilson DigiTAG/EBU

DigiTAG, the Digital terrestrial TV industry-forum, is calling on European and national regulators to guarantee the future of broadcast services on the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform. DigiTAG is very concerned about a report prepared for the European Commission which has called on European Union Member-States to make the frequencies 790-862 MHz in the UHF broadcasting band available for non-broadcast services. DigiTAG cautions that this could potentially have severe adverse consequences for TV viewers throughout Europe.In many countries, the frequencies in question are currently in use for the provision of broadcast television services. The migration of these services to other frequencies would require significant investments to rework frequency plans to find alternative frequencies,solve interference issues, and modify transmission and reception equipment. Testing is currently underway to determine how badly affected the millions of television sets and set-top boxes currently in daily use in homes would be by the introduction of nonbroadcast services in the UHF band, and early results are causing grave concerns.Viewers depend on the DTT platform

The conversion from analogue to digital technology has allowed viewers in most countries throughout Europe to benefit from new television services. It has provided near-universal coverage of free-to-air broadcast services and has encouraged renewed competitionbetween television service platform operators. The sale of over 90 million DVB-Treceivers testifies to the overwhelming success of the DTT platform.In many homes, including those that subscribe to cable, IPTV, or satellite services, theterrestrial television platform is used for the majority of secondary television sets. In Europe there are on average 2.2 television sets per household, and whilst the primary TV may use satellite, cable or IPTV services, in most EU Member-States at least one television set per household relies on the terrestrial television platform services.In the United Kingdom, where more than 10 million households, out of a total of 25 million, rely exclusively on the DTT platform, it is estimated that in a further 8 million households, viewers also watch DTT services on at least one television set. The significance of the terrestrial television platform is therefore much greater than may befirst assumed from the number of television households in which the DTT platform provides the primary television services.

The market for DTT services is further augmented by the inclusion of the DVB-T standard technology in all flat panel digital television sets. At this stage, DVB-T is de-facto present in nearly all television sets sold in EU Member-States, and legislation in several countries reinforces this market reality.

Over time, the use of improved technologies in video compression and transmission can make more efficient use of radio frequency spectrum. The development and adoption of new technologies, such as MPEG-4 AVC and most recently the DVB-T2 standard3,demonstrates the broadcast industry’s continued confidence in the terrestrial television platform.

However, the conditions under which new technologies are introduced must be carefully balanced to allow viewers to benefit from new services while also avoiding any destabilisation of existing services. Changes in technology will have a financial impact on both broadcasters and viewers. Many viewers have recently been asked to invest in new equipment as part of the switch from analogue to digital technology. Demands for further financial investment cannot be repeated at short intervals nor be considered acceptable without an offer of new services.

The introduction of new services and the roadmap for doing so will depend strongly on the local market conditions, which vary widely across Europe. However, the broadcast industry must continue to maintain sufficient flexibility to allow for the introduction of new services and the further evolution of the DTT platform.DigiTAG issues Position Paper

DigiTAG has this week issued a Position Paper on ‘The Digital Dividend and the Future of Digital Terrestrial Television’ which examines in detail the possible impact of allocating the ‘800MHz band’ to non-broadcast services, the cost of migrating existing services to new frequencies, and the significant interference problems which may result. The Position Paper also provides further information on the introduction of new broadcast services.This Position Paper is available for download from the DigiTAG website at:http://www.digitag.org/DTTResources/DigiTAG_Position_Paper%201.01.pdf