Members of the Korean National Assembly and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning visited the EBU to discuss opportunities and challenges facing the broadcasting sector, including the convergence of ICT.
Accompanying the delegation, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea drew attention to the EBU’s work on UHDTV and HbbTV, highlighting the importance of understanding different markets as Korea moves forwards with important decisions affecting the Media Industry. In particular, the Korean National Assembly has formed a committee entitled “Science, ICT, Future Planning, Broadcasting and Communications Committee” to address convergence issues.
EBU Director General, Ingrid Deltenre, welcomed the visitors and gave a short introduction about the EBU, the role of public service media in Europe and the game changing developments taking place in the broadcasting industry. She touched upon the increasing globalization and concentration within the media industry, topics related to multiplatform production and distribution and the opportunities of understanding and serving the audience better in order to remain relevant in the on-demand-world.
“Vertical integration of platform operators with broadcasters and production companies is changing the game,” Ms Deltenre continued. “This is why the policy objectives of the EBU are to ensure media diversity and net neutrality, as well as the access and findability of great content.” The Director General also pointed to the fact that the existing copyright rules did not reflect the ever greater mobility of people and the accessibility of content on all devices. “For the EBU, these topics are of key importance.”
For the Korean Delegation, UHDTV was of particular interest. Hans Hoffmann, EBU, described the EBU’s recent developments including those related to high dynamic range and higher frame rates. “It’s not only about more pixels, but better pixels, sound and applications,” he said. Members and global audiences look forward to these developments in quality and the next generation of immersive TV systems.
Finally, the importance of DTT in Europe and spectrum frequencies took a central role in the discussions. Today, the most important platform in Europe remains terrestrial with 250 million viewers relying on it. As a result, frequency regulation remains of utmost important to the EBU and Members.
The EBU has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Korean Broadcast the Engineers Association (KOBETA), and has recently organised a visit of prominent EBU Member technical experts to Korea to investigate technology trends relevant to the media industry. Today’s Korean visit builds on these activities, and helps foster a closer relationship between the media industries of Korea and Europe.