2010 European Radio & Television Symposium

We ll once again report on the technological developments that are transforming the way we think of broadcast media. As these evolve, the industry needs to have a greater understanding of the extent to which the technologies are affecting the way consumers use these media. TV and radio on demand via broadband services are now widely available for individuals to catch up with programmes they had missed. What are we learning about the demand for these services? How is the move to analogue switch-off progressing across Europe and how are broadcasters responding to the range of opportunities digital broadcasting presents? New formats are emerging that seem to put the consumer at the centre, but is the only model still essentially linear albeit with programming sliced and diced by the viewer in any number of ways? What progress and take-up of IPTV is in evidence, of mobile and social media?

As consumers take command, our need to understand the ways in which they are consuming broadcast media becomes more urgent. With all the broadcast media capable of being listened to and viewed on multiple platforms, whilst audio and video may be downloaded and viewed at any time, the audience measurement community continues to seek to find reliable ways to measure all these audiences. This remains the key sticking point.

What can we know reliably and what do we need to know? For it is not just the how that is problematic, there is also the question of what it is we should/need to measure. All of these problems are, of course, shared by advertisers and their agencies as it is not just a question of establishing a reliable currency for the broadcast media, but a question of understanding where broadcast sits in the consumer s mindset.

As ever, these problems will be closely addressed at the conference.

Very best wishes,
Mike Sainsbury
asi