[ecrea] Workshop: Community Television and Digital Transition in Europe

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COMMUNITY TELEVISION AND DIGITAL TRANSITION IN EUROPE
31 May 2012 - 16h
Faculty of Communication Sciences (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

ORGANISED BY: 						WITH THE SUPPORT OF:
UNESCO Chair in Communication InCom-UAB 			Community
Media forum Europe (CMFE)


--16h WORKSHOP COMMUNITY TELEVISION AND DIGITAL TRANSITION IN EUROPE.
PRESENTATION
Broadcasting digitalisation multiplies the information channels but also can
work as an access barrier. This is the case of TV stations promoted by civil
society organisations in many European countries where they don’t benefit
from digital frequencies allocation. However, significant differences exist
between northern and southern countries, as northern developed proper legal
frameworks and frequencies planning.
This workshop intends to gather scholars and community media representatives
in order to debate the trends, threats and opportunities of TV
digitalization in Europe. The speeches will focus on northern countries,
where community media first migrated to digital; it will have as main
background European institutions pronouncements to ensure that community
broadcasting media are not disadvantaged after the digital transition.
The debate will revolve around the impact of digitalisation on community TV
stations and compare different countries’ contexts; other issue of special
interest will be how different media ideologies – i.e. public access vs.
local television- have impacted on community television organisation and
policies in European countries.

--16.15H COMMUNITY TV DIGITALISATION IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES (CHRISTER
HEDERSTRÖM, COMMUNITY MEDIA FORUM EUROPE)
In contrast to public television, Community TV in the four major Nordic
countries differs quite a lot from each other when it comes to organisation,
financing and distribution channels.  Like Australia community TV in Denmark
has from the start been accessible on air, first analogue and today digital
(DTT).  Norway has no local community television but a national community
channel “Frikanalen” on the DTT network. Sweden is still only on cable but
now both analogue and digital and the Open Channels have a decent good reach
in major cities. In Finland community television is mainly run by the
Swedish-speaking communities along the East coast mainly on cable but now
also on DTT.
An overview of community television in the Nordic countries will be
presented. This will include some historical background, the situation today
and possible future developments.

--17H COMMUNITY TV DIGITALISATION IN NETHERLANDS (PIETER DE WIT, COMMUNITY
MEDIA FORUM EUROPE)
Digitalisation of television in the Netherlands concerns two broadcasting
networks: cable and terrestrial broadcasting.
Cable reaches many people; about 85% of all Dutch households have a cable
subscription. Local (community) television is, since its introduction in the
eighteens, only distributed by cable. The distribution is based on ‘must
carry’, but when cable became more and more digitized, it was urgent to
translate this ‘must carry’ also to the digital cable distribution.
Since there was no terrestrial distribution for community TV, the sector was
left out in this development. Protests increased against this exclusion,
because terrestrial TV was introduced not only to replace the analogue
terrestrial distribution, but also to bring competition to cable
distribution: to give viewers a choice. Community stations argued that,
since this meant viewers were stimulated to choose between digital
distribution networks (instead of having both analogue terrestrial and cable
reception until then), they could lose a lot of potential audiences. More
and more the urge was felt that presence on different distribution networks
was necessary to serve local audiences. The sector argued that technical
obstacles should not stand in the way of these developments: technics should
serve media policy, not dictate it. And there are technical solutions: three
small scale Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) -trials two years
ago proved it to be possible to reuse DVB-T frequencies in small multiplexes
without disturbing the signal from the bigger ones.
Now the discussion is if the Dutch government will allow for further trials
and eventually be prepared to renegotiate international agreements regarding
DVB-T allotments.

--17.30h. DEBATE
-What are DTT challenges, opportunities and barriers for Community TV in
European countries?
-What does a community TV need for a proper/sustainable digital transition?
-What are and which is the impact of European recommendations on CM activity
in the digital environment?
-What are the best examples of public policies on community TV digital
transition? Why?

--FREE INSCRIPTION:
http://www.portalcomunicacion.com/catunesco/esp/form.asp?id_evento=10

--MORE INFORMATION:
(unesco.incom /at/ uab.cat)




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