[cma-l] European Digital Dividend for TV and radio - community media response

[Jaqui Devereux]

Dear all,

The Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE), of which the CMA is a member, 
has responded to the consultation, held by the European Union, on 
"Transforming the digital dividend opportunity into social benefits and 
economic growth in Europe". The CMFE stresses in this contribution, in 
line with recent declarations and resolutions from the Council of Europe 
and the European Parliament, the important social and cultural need for 
European citizens to benefit from the opportunities the digital 
developments offer. CMFE sees in the proposed strategy to much focus on 
economic needs. Not enough attention is being paid to the problems of 
Community Media in the process of digitalization of broadcasting 
frequencies. The chosen technologies, e.g. DVB-T, DAB and HDTV, still 
threaten the possibilities for CM to survive in this new technological area.

Community media need extra guarantees for participation in the digital 
broadcasting era to also profit from the ‘Digital Dividend’. New digital 
technologies need to offer challenges instead of treats to the community 
media sector. This needs extra attention because until now only large 
scale broadcasters and commercial media- and communication services tend 
to profit from the chosen digital technologies. CMFE urges to set aside 
sufficient spectrum for the further development of local and community 
television and other community media services in every country. New 
technology and also digitalization is meant to make more possible, not 
less !!!

CMFE’s contribution can be found on 
<http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/radio_spectrum/_document_storage/consultations/2009_digitaldividend/replies/113_cmfe.pdf> 
and will soon also be published on www.cmfe.eu.

For a complete list of contributions, also including the contributions 
from Amarc-Europe and SNRL (Syndicat National des Radios Libres, 
France), see 
<http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/radio_spectrum/topics/reorg/pubcons_digdiv_200909_resp/index_en.htm>


-- 
Jaqui Devereux

Director
Community Media Association

15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield
S1 2BX

+44 114 279 5219


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