Television is OK

Michael Hedges April 20, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Digital television is fast arriving, bringing more channels and more competition. TV on the Web is fast approaching, bringing even more channels and even more competition. With that stress and more, Eurovision TV director Bjorn Erichsen says, “Television is OK.”

“The viewing time in Europe for television is truly stable,” says Bjorn Erichsen, who has headed the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) television department since 2002. He is no stranger to statistics. “It even last year increased by a minute, three hours and twenty-one minutes on average in Europe.”

He is also no stranger to new – and not so new – technologies, which largely benefit television broadcasters and consumers. “People certainly spend more and more time on the internet, but they don’t take it from the television. Where do they take the time from? It’s probably their children, meals, books but it is not television. Everybody thought that because people can go on the Web, streaming this or that, television viewing would go down. That hasn’t happened.”

“There are still only 24 hours in the day. And we can see that they are spending more time on the Web. They don’t take it from television.”

“I see the online services as additional ways of watching television. Television can be seen on a television screen, on a laptop, on a mobile phone and that’s fine.”

Watching television, he says, is not bound by screen size. “Now you can watch television on your mobile phone. You can watch on your laptop. It’s still television.”

“And now with the new generation of televisions that will come, which will have built-in processors so we can see all the online services at the same time.”

For viewers, putting television together with the internet – convergence, if you will – has happened slowly, he observes. “It took much longer before these things started to happen.”

“When you see the success of systems like the BBC iPlayer, where people can see the last seven days of programs, people find the technology useful. It’s a huge success.” The BBC iPlayer, considered both revolutionary and controversial, was launched in 2007.

“With the Olympic Games we (EBU) delivered 14 streams, something like that.  It was up to the member (broadcasters) to choose. In Denmark, we are very good in handball and DR (Denmark public television) carried that and we cannot play ice hockey at all so nobody was interested. The BBC said they’d carry all the streams.”

Not all highly touted technological virtues turned on the viewers. “Generally, the old idea of interactive television was a fake. There was so much hype and everybody talked about it. There was nothing to it.”

“For many years in public service television we talked about electronic program guides. It came to nothing. It never took off.”

Erichsen is “skeptical” of mobile TV. “When you look at the user situation, where you would use this service, you wouldn’t use it at home where you have a regular television. You wouldn’t use it there. You wouldn’t use it at work because you have a computer on your desk or you are organized is such a way that you cannot use the mobile. It’s for out-of-home situations, where you are waiting somewhere and your favorite soccer team is playing you can see something right now. “

If technology is advancing, so too is the march of time, with perhaps an even wider affect on television, public service television in particular. “The EBU covers 640 million people. In Europe there are 400 million. We have seen dramatic effect of digital in the more advanced countries, the northern countries, the UK. It’s also a question of generations. New generations always have new way of consuming. Then it’s a question of family status; forty percent of the people in Europe live alone.”

“It’s a combination of available technologies, new generations and family status.”

Erichsen’s major concern is public service television. And he follows the numbers carefully. “This year public service (broadcasting) is below 28% market share. It’s been falling for thirty years. We may have lost a generation, perhaps a missed chance.“

“If you are pessimistic, you say it’s the natural progression of free market choice. That would be wrong.”

He shows a chart of market share and trends for European public television broadcasters. The picture is good for a few and not so good for others. “In the good corner you have only two or three, strong share and growing. VTR (Belgian Flemish public television) is improving over ten years. They have all this competition from the Dutch channels and yet they have doubled their market share.”

The chart’s opposite corner shows Erichsen’s “problem kids.”

“In Sweden, they have totally switched to digital television last year. SVT (Swedish public television) lost three or four percent simply because suddenly the Swedes could see not only the four or five channels that were on the analogue networks but suddenly they had forty to choose from.”

As Europe’s senior executive in public service television Erichsen is acutely aware of financial issues. He speaks of public broadcasters need for sustainable funding, particularly when economic times are difficult. “I’m going to Riga, Latvia. (The public broadcaster) just got their budget cut 30%. They don’t have a license fee; never had one. That means when a country is hit by a (financial) crisis (the government) looks for savings.”

There is no pan-European model for PSB financing. Only in four countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the UK – is public broadcasting funded solely through the license fee. All others use mixes of licensee fee, advertising and direct State funding. In the current economic climate, those PSBs budgeting significant revenue from advertising are feeling considerable pain. Erichsen mentions that half the budget revenue for Irelands public broadcaster comes from advertising, causing considerable pain today. By contrast, advertising contributes only 7% to the budgets of Germany’s public television networks ARD and ZDF.

Erichsen and EBU CFO Julian Ekiert met with Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis (April 17) to offer input to the funding dilemma at Latvian public television and public radio, which are facing almost certain reductions in service. Latvian National Broadcasting Council Chairman Abrams Kleckins said the visit was “remarkable because they have arrived to share with us other countries' experience, which will allow us to get out of these problems together."

The EBU has reached out to member broadcasters and government leaders in recent months, seeking to shore up defenses.  Speaking before his meeting in Latvia, Erichsen said PSBs in smaller countries are at particular risk: “If this trend continues (PSBs) will be totally marginalized. There are reasons to be concerned.”

Eurovision will host its second television summit for public broadcasters in Lucerne,Switzerland during the first week of May. New media is high on the agenda, as is finance. But so too are programs and ratings.