09 Feb EU – public policy has to remain neutral to technological solutions
The European Commission has said that the future of radio distribution will be multi-platform and public policy has to remain both neutral in terms of technological solutions and sufficiently flexible to adapt to future evolutions. This has emerged from the response of European Commission to the letter sent by The Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE) and AMARC-Europe, the European section of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters.
Director Audiovisual, Media, Internet, Information Society and Media Directorate-General European Commission, Mr Gerard de Graf, responded to the letter in which CMFE and AMARC had expressed concerns about the impact on local and community radio of the adoption of a single standard for digital radio.
He said that: “the European Union does not currently have a common policy on radio broadcasting” but “there seems to be a consensus that the future of radio distribution will be multi-platform, including internet distribution but terrestrial distribution is still the sole platform for truly mobile reception”. He says in the letter: “We note that building multiple standards into radio receiver chips is becoming a reality and that software implementation of radio receiver standards is evolving into a mass-market phenomenon. Public policy has to remain both neutral in terms of technological solutions and sufficiently flexible to adapt to future evolutions.”
The full text of the letter can be read here:
Commenting on this letter, Pieter de Wit, President CMFE says: “CMFE is happy that the European Commission is recognizing that the future of radio distribution will be multiplatform. We also welcome its statement that public policy should be technology neutral. This will help community media in their calls on national governments and regulatory bodies to include DRM+ in their radio digitization progress.”