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What should be the future of the technology for terrestrial television broadcasting? A large number of companies from across the world met this week in Shanghai, China to take a common step forward. The meeting was part of the ‘Future of Broadcast television (FOBTV) initiative, of which the EBU is a founder member.

Terrestrial television broadcasting is a highly efficient way to serve viewers, and a key element of EBU Member’s services. On a worldwide level its past has been hindered by the many different television standards and policies used by different countries. Even in the digital television environment there is much fragmentation of standards, which has served very little purpose.

Experts from around the world discussed a strategic direction

The aim of the FOBTV initiative is to examine whether there can be common policies for digital terrestrial television across the world, which may eventually lead to a future generation with a single standard used across the world.

“We don’t under-estimate the difficulties ahead of reconciling many different perspectives, but our first meeting shows that there is a promising degree of common opinion about digital terrestrial television throughout the world. Every journey begins with a first step, and we have clearly taken that" commented Lieven Vermaele, Director EBU Technology and Development.