View source for Connected TV – regulations and consequences – WS 05 2013

21 June 2013 | 11:30-13:00 <br />
[[Programme overview 2013|'''Programme overview 2013''']]<br /><br />

== People == 
'''Key Participants'''

A broad range of stakeholders contributed to this exchange, including representatives from European institutions, national governmental representatives (GMCS); European public service and private broadcasting organizations (EBU, ACT); national broadcasters (Portuguese radio and television); consumer electronics industries (Panasonic); viewers’ and consumers’ associations (Euralva- IC medianet); child on-line protection associations (InSafe – Safer Internet); specialists from academia (Goldsmith University) and ISP.

*Ross Biggam, Association Commercial Televisions
*John Carr, eNACSO
*Marianne Franklin, Goldsmith University London
*José Maria Guerra Mercadal, Euralva
*Sophie Kwasny, Council of Europe
*Antoine Larpin, Panasonic Europe
*Mario Rui Miranda, RTP
*Michael Wagner, European Broadcasting Union

'''Co-moderators'''
*Elisabeth Markot, EU Commission, DG Connect
*Pedro Bicudo, Journalist, RTP

'''Reporting team'''
*Elisabeth Markot, European Commission, DG Connect
*Giacomo Mazzone, European Broadcasting Union
*Sergio Silva, GMCS

== Messages == 
*Less regulation needed because there will be a shift in responsibility from the media to the citizens / viewers and to the intermediaries.
*Protecting through design and by default.
*Balancing regulation and self-regulation which is validated between European stakeholders.

== Session report == 
'''Disclaimer:''' This is a summary of the EuroDIG meeting, but does not represent the position of a specific organization or institution that attended the workshop.

The issues related to connected TV are so complex that the time available for the workshop was insufficient to cover all the topics outlined on the agenda. However, an exchange of views on most of the topics was possible, thanks to the massive participation of all the main stakeholders.

The exchange touched on, but was not limited to, issues addressed in the Commission’s Green Paper (Preparing for a Fully Converged Audiovisual World). A summary was presented to the plenary. The discussion revolved around the following points.

# One of the key elements discussed in relation to the audiovisual ecosystem (and especially connected TV), is bringing the citizen into the centre of the process. This involves the issue of citizens deciding what to access, when and from where on various platforms. However, in order to fully empower every citizen, a certain number of prerequisites are needed, such as access to media literacy tools and an understanding and full awareness of the role of intermediaries and/or gatekeepers. These tools were discussed in detail in this context. Media literacy is of crucial importance, especially in the medium and long term. It enables not only ‘digital natives’ but also the rest of the population to understand how to make the best use of the new tools and how to defend themselves from the new threats.When considering media literacy, it is necessary to go beyond definitions of technical skills alone. We need to look at the wider context of how young people use media, the provision of resources and curricula that encourage independent thinking, and literacy about media messages and production conditions. A more inclusive approach to media literacy acknowledges ways that audiences can exercise judgment about the provenance and types of content they consume. Media literacy therefore includes an understanding of protection and enablement in order for audiences and consumers to make informed choices when engaging connected media provisions in the context of social, cultural, and technological change. Understanding the role of the gatekeepers and intermediaries is fundamental. In the conventional TV world the relationship was bilateral: broadcasters to viewers or listeners, with the former deciding what to offer and the latter only able to decide whether they accept or refuse the offer and choose something else. Now the relationship is a lot more complex, with gatekeepers in the middle (for example, the providers of the device, network or software) that might decide what to highlight for the attention of the viewers, whether to alternate the signal, or prevent access to certain offers or provide access to others, etc. 
# The intense debate among all stakeholders has illustrated and confirmed the need to give special attention to some fundamental rights and values underpinning audiovisual policies, such as child protection, data protection, accessibility, media pluralism, cultural diversity, and vulnerable groups (elderly, not affluent). Child protection was recognized by all participants as by far the biggest issue. The safe haven that linear TV was considered as offering to families is no longer available in the world of connected TV. Protection needs to be discussed. Data protection is also one of the key issues, because applying various legislations to the connected TV screen (some of them outside of the European legal space) could endanger European viewers who expect the TV experience to give them the high level of protection that exists in Europe. Media pluralism and cultural diversity also need to be addressed, because the guarantees currently existing for media in the European area could be easily circumvented. 
# The workshop also identified the fact that there are huge opportunities arising from connected devices that could offer new solutions to long-existing problems, such as accessibility or language barriers. But in order to take full advantage of these opportunities, a certain number of conditions have to be met, and results could be achieved only through sincere and planned stakeholder cooperation.

'''Conclusions:''' We know little of the real consequences of this promising new media development resulting from the merger of broadcast and broadband. We are using conventional models of mass media analysis to look into a still emerging media process. 

Connected TV represents a new frontier. So we are faced with a dilemma. It is too early in the game to forecast anything but it is not too late to avoid repetition of the old pitfalls of traditional TV. At the same time we are faced with a ‘fast & furious’ changing media process.

The final question that the workshop wanted to address was, in the light of all these considerations, how to regulate? Through hard laws, co-regulation or self regulation? From the consumers’ or citizens’ perspective, we could look into less regulation and/or greater self-regulation. Or even better, we could use rules of principle instead of fixed laws. That way we can adapt faster to this new media ecosystem and avoid the risk of establishing laws that become obsolete the very day they are enacted.

The general feeling was that this new world probably needs less regulation because there will be a shift in responsibility from the media to the citizens/viewers and to the intermediaries. But Europe cannot give up certain values and principles (such as the protection of minors, minorities, vulnerable groups, cultural diversity, media pluralism and privacy) that are pillars of its societal model and its lifestyle. Protection by design and by default could be one of the ways to achieve such goals. Consequently, applicable jurisdiction must remain firmly based on European principles. The issue of how to balance regulation and self-regulation is a process that needs to be decided between the European stakeholders, because it will shape the future of their citizens.

== Transcript ==
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''This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.''



>> PEDRO BICUDO: Good morning. I would love to have your attention, please. We are going to try to move everyone into this section for one very basic reason. We have a camera back there and a pillar in the middle of the room. We would like to be as inclusive as possible, and we would really appreciate if you could sit down and be on this side. 

My name is Pedro Bicudo. I’m a journalist for the Portuguese television RPT and I will be one of the moderators. We have Elisabeth Markot as a co-moderator. We will try to go through different subjects and try to have your opinion, expertise, commentary, basically proportionate, a debate for ideas to be collected.

We are very much focused into a very basic question, which is basically the connected television, regulate or not regulate the merging and the process. We have different experts here in the room, and we will try to give basically 8 to 10 minutes per theme in order to try to cover everything. It is difficult because the themes are all intertwined, and sometimes we are in one team and we will have commentary coming from another direction. It’s okay. This is a complex matter and we will try basically to proportionate the dialogue and the debate as possible, as inclusive as plural with all the opinions being on the record.

Elisabeth.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Thank you very much. Good morning from me as well. Thank you for being here. As Pedro just mentioned, connected TV is basically a subject that encompasses a wide range of subjects, which are different, though interlinked and so to say connected. And maybe just two words from me from the beginning, when we speak about Connected TV in the session, we don’t want to talk only about TV devices with added Internet connectivity, which we have seen recently – actually, since a couple of years appearing. I guess Antoine can tell us more about that.

We want to speak about all the opportunities that consumers have today to experience audio/visual content in different ways and be either for live broadcast or be it on demand and what we see is a progressing merger between the online world and the traditional broadcast which includes this host of questions. I think what we have together is the consumer is basically in the middle of it.

One person who could not be us today, from the Spanish federation of consumer associations, but we have asked her how convergence impacts on consumers and we have a short video clip.

If I could ask the technician, please, to basically kick off our discussion with this video clip, please. 

I will let you do maybe. 

>> Dana and I work as international relations manager for iCmedia. ICmedia is a Spanish federation of media users and consumers’ associations based in Madrid what I would like to stress are three different things that worry us. First thing is the need we see of empowering citizens, consumers in this new digital context. We want the consumers to have information enough ahead of time to make the right decision of the content they want to pick. That’s not an easy task, but we really import all the stakeholders involved to try to comply with this requirement.

The second thing we stress is the – the goal or the mission to keep protecting children in this digital area. We support the labeling system, which is used by linear TV or linear broadcasting content, separating by age the content which is indicated for each age. It applies to movies sometimes and we think for digital context is a good thing and would work.

Last thing, and no less important, is the need to also separate, to keep very separately what is advertising from what is editorial content also in this digital world. The marketplace will be confusing, especially at the beginning when Connected TV comes to every house hold.

We want children, elderly people, and less informed people to be able to differentiate – make a distinction with no doubts. So this is a task.

Thank you very much and enjoy the debate. 

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: So I think it was a very good introductory statement. Maybe I could give now the floor to Nuno Conde who is working with the European Economic and Social Committee on this topic, to give us your perspective on what is important for consumers in this converging reality. And you need a microphone.

>> NUNO CONDE: Good morning to all. I think I have some three minutes, I suppose, yes? 

So my brief introduction will be to focus on three points, first, the context; second, the driving force; and then set policy goals. (Inaudible).

>> NUNO CONDE: Oh, yes. 

So concerning the contest, if we take as good the provision of delight, the consultancy firm delight, by the handoff this decade, the vast majority of new TV sets sold in the so-called developed countries will likely incorporate two-way connectivity. So we may see in the near future, the main television set will be interactive. So we have here an industry and policy and consumer issue, very important.

The driving force, in my perspective, will be to require the consumer as the key element, the key player of the connected television environment. And for police goals, and what regards the consumer protection and the citizen perspective, I will point out first the protection of minors because if the protection of miners, it’s a huge and important subject in the traditional linear television system. I think that in – concerning the interactive television, it will be a nickel important issue or more important issue.

Concerning the second point, the second driving force of policy goals, I will focus on data protection. In my perspective, it is essential for viewers to know exactly what kind of data are collected, because things that television is connected to electronic commercial servers. It’s very important to understand clearly what data is collected, by whom, and for what purposes.

Third, the driving force will be ensure access to broadcaster’s original content. As you know, interactive television will be framed by aggregator content’s producer. And in that particular point, it’s very important to the traditional broadcasters, to the linear broadcasters, to ensure that the consumers, the public, can access the original content.

And finally, in what regards the electronic program rights, they must identify properly the broadcaster’s content, both linear and nonlinear, and that’s very important in the customer perspective, because the consumer must go or should understand what is seen and what is buying.

For the moment, these are my main point. Thank you.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much, Nuno.

Now we are open for different points of view and contributions that anyone would like to make on the subject. So –

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: I don’t know, Ross, you would have any view point from the broadcaster’s perspective, from ACT?

>> ROSS BIGGAM: Yes, thank you. I think it was a really good start from the Spanish lady. She made it very, very clear what she believes consumers are looking for in this new environment.

Obviously as I speak on behalf of European commercial broadcasters and we are entered in seeing what the consumers want from us in the future.

To date, I think one can say the future will be partly online, but maybe not as quickly as we all think. There is sometimes a view that, you know, the future is all going to be user generated and on demand. I was struck by something I read this week, that for every one minute of viewing to YouTube in Europe, there is over one hour of viewing to linear television. YouTube is important. It’s new. It’s growing, but it’s not anything like the scale of linear TV. I think we will see something like that for the next five years, the parallel development of the Internet coming in but linear television remaining strong.

In terms of specifically Connected TV, there’s all sorts of TV, a Deloitte study and other studies that show that there’s a difference between connectible sets and those that are shipping connected. So that the facility to connect is not necessarily being used by the early adopters.

So we can’t yet say that Connected TV will be the future. What I will say is that in the medium term, I think it’s fairly clear that there will be a connected TV of some sort. And I think when we get to that stage, that’s where the Spanish lady’s points will be very, very, valid. What I liked about the way she expressed herself. It’s too easy to retreat to praises like plural and diversity. She thinks the protection of kids and minors from unsuitable content will be vital. I think that’s a very broad and consensus point. Yes, more needs to be done in terms of education, but we as broadcasters have a responsibility as well. I think that will be a key debate when European comes to derive.

And the advertising issue. I think it will be difficult, but I think for the future, it won’t be about whether we do something about that, but more how we do it.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Thank you very much. I have seen Thomas Pilcher who wants to comment as well.

>> I wanted to go a little bit further. Yes, I’m with Disney and we know a thing or two about kids for the past 70 years. One of the things that we are seeing, I would say, in addition to the traditional content providers and producers such as us, yes, we have UGC, obviously, but you also have a third wave which is the Internet distribution platforms think HBO, think Hulu, think NetFlix, they are in the process of developing content as well, which is professional content, which is great. The question is: How do the new entrants incorporate the real issues about production, consumer protection, kids protection in their approach. In our field, whether it’s the broadcasters or ourselves we have been doing that for a very long time. We are used to it. We know it. We have to make sure that those new players do also understand the importance of those considerations. It’s not only producing content for the sake of it. There are other social considerations.

It goes a bit further than what Ross was saying. Thank you.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Ross, you mentioned the question of a five-year period, that we can sort of observe this transition. Is this the time for us to sort of study the process? Is it time to act now? What’s your perspective, in terms of regulation, of course?

>> ROSS BIGGAM: Well, excuse me, certainly as a media company, you have to plans in place for all different scenarios. Connected TV could be a 50% market in two years or a 5% market and you have to have plans in place for either of those and for everything in between.

I think for regulators, it’s much harder because of the time scale. As a business, you can turn around relatively quickly if you see the mark changing. For European, we are looking at a six, seven, eight year time scale for it being implemented in national legislation. I think it’s for regulators to start now and do we need some of these cherished notions. For minors, I think it’s uncontroversial and some of the other stuff, I think we have a discussion of whether we need this or not. We should start now.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Thank you very much. Maybe if I could just jump one of the issues, the fact that we needed to know more about education. And when we see the new developments, one of the questions, do the consumers understand what’s happening or does more need to be done to educate all of us about what we have been confronted with and their one password, which appears is media literacy. So we with us, Marianne, from the Goldsmith University, could you tell us what works in terms of media literacy approaches and maybe what can we do better?

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Yes, I will shift register a little bit. I’m speaking in my capacity as an academic, but also as an educator. First of all, literacy, there are some misunderstandings about literacies or some limitations to how we discuss it. Literacy is more than skills. If you look at a 2-year-old, they can operate your audio visual apparatus than you. And there are some young people who are way are ahead of us in literacy. That’s not an issue. Young people are literate.

We need to think of it in the negative and the positive way. Literacy is making sense of. Literacy is finding out things you didn’t know before and that’s in terms of information, other world views. And so there’s a negative view of literacy, protecting people from bad things, and I think that’s what is dominating our conversation for very good reasons, but I would like us to think about literacy as more than competency and more than skills which is a nonstarter. Young people already have that.

What is trickier is the broader understanding of making sense of – okay, that’s my first point.

And, of course, the point about whether it’s through a TV set or watching a TV or live stream or whether on your phone, I think those technological and business model and market issues that I won’t engage. I think others are better than that.

The point is, what is television is now actually perhaps something to consider. Let’s think about content. The thing about literacy is, if you are going to think about policies and frameworks, you have to think cultural diversity and I mean that quite literally.

Since making changes, according to a UR, what is considered bad or good changes depending on where you are. 9UK has a very clear idea about the water shed time, and we need to bear that in mind that all young people find ways to get around rules. So literacy about learning to make sense and make informed choices is very important.

So my – my advocacy, if I may, in my last minute, is that as to broaden our understanding of literacy from a policy making point of view, that gets us past push button responses to understand that we have to work in a multicultural setting, both in terms of the sort of content that people are getting from all different channels, different languages, and how they are using different devices, but we need to, in terms of education, release funds, you know, public service broadcasting is alive and well. I am a total fan, but we need a much more proactive framework for thinking funding, how you fund is up to you.

But to release funds to support equipment and teaching resources to poor parts of Europe, poor parts of cities, so that young people who don’t have access to all the fancy equipment can learn to use it in a meaningful way. That’s what we don’t have, is resources in poor areas. We need to assess and generate benchmarks to compare different curricula. Literacy is touched upon in English and geography and mathematics and they are all using media in which they teach their topics. I think it’s capacity building at the policymakers level, rather than skill building at the young people’s level because, hey, take another look. They have skills already.

But allowing them to make sense of world on their own terms is somewhere I think policy making is very, very, very limited in. So you need to broaden your scope of thought. And some robust involvement of educators from kindergarten right up to university would be very helpful and to engage some of the groundbreaking research that’s been done, not just in my institution about how young people actually use and make sense of the world through multimedia devices in order to get the TV they want, whether it’s on YouTube or BBC or ITV, sorry. Without the ads, they get rid of the ads. I won’t tell you the secrets.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: That’s the idea, is to share the secrets.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: The other one about sense making was very clear to me, when setting up a live web stream conference between students in London and students in Texas and then they discovered themselves that while they had all the skills to use their social networks and their phones, they discovered themselves through doing that they had huge gaps in their own assumptions. Huge gaps about how someone in Texas might consider the issues that they were discussing. Huge assumptions about other options, other options. So they really set down afterwards and said, hey, we are pretty ignorant. I just contradicted my own argument. That’s literacy, sense making about different ways of doing things and different ways of reading different content.

In the UK, there is a curriculum called media studies. It’s based on having our students learn how to make a television, learn how to write a script and then discuss the different ideas about what that might mean. So media studies in the UK is quite a piece of the high school curriculum and at university level. In the US, it’s all over the place and other European countries. So I finish. Get educators into your discussions. Figure out what the elephant in the room is. Whose literacy is at stake? 

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much, Mary Ann. Once again if anyone would like to make a commentary or add a different perspective from different countries in Europe, you are welcome. 

If not, we will continue on.

You mentioned the question of making sense of as literacy and at the same time, you touched upon the multicultural landscape, and I think that in Europe, we are basically faced with a multicultural landscape in a larger scale.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Yes, we are also faced with a multicultural landscape and a multilevel and multimedia landscape. Young people are learning to read through screens, not necessarily through paper books. So the separation of – not so much – they love advertising. They get into ads but to get them to understand what an ad is, what advertisement is as opposed to pay an editorial program. It’s multicultural and multilevel and multimedia and so that also makes it more complicated in terms of what the consumer wants, how you are shaping your consumers through those messages.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Thank you very much. I think it’s actually quite interesting that you say that young children learn to read through the screen. This is – I don’t know whether it’s scary. I think it shows the impact that those screens have on minors and this is why I would like to give now the floor to John Carr with – do you have a mic? Perfect. With basically the question.

>> JOHN CARR: I was going to comment because some of what I will say is a source of commentary on what we just heard. And bear in mind, in the UK and I’m sure this is not – I’m sure it’s the same in many other countries, a recent study showed that 6% of 3-year-olds – 3-year-olds were regularly accessing the Internet through an iPad or through one of their parents’ lap tops. Now I’m not quite sure what you do about media literacy for 3-year-olds or even 4 or 5-year-olds, but it does present special challenges, let’s put it that way. That is going to be part of the environment that you guys are going to have to take on board, because you will be serving up content that will be seen by 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds increasingly as they become more – as households become more digitally rich, shall we put it that way.

So there’s a number of really big and important things going on in the Internet policy space at the moment. You know, cyber terrorism is one of the things that the revelation about prism and all of this kind of stuff and I think this question, what we are discussing here today, the arrival on a very large scale – and I’m not an expert on time scales. I don’t know exactly when this is going to happen but the trends are very, very clear, sooner or later – my guess would be sooner – we are going to be in a position where in practically every family home there’s going to be a big screen in the family room or the room that most of the family congregates in, at least sometime during the day.

There will be a big screen that will not only present linear content but also present nonlinear content and I think that’s going to have a dramatic – dramatic – one of the most dramatic impacts on Internet policy as a whole because they will – no longer will there be any way of avoiding or evading the realities of what’s going on on the Internet when every politician’s family and every government minister’s family and civil servant’s family all the voters that put these guys in there will be confronted with it in their living rooms.

Even in the kids might occasionally run away upstairs with the laptop or use the Wi-Fi, there’s going to be this one place where it’s – everybody is going to have to confront the fact that you have two entirely, at the moment, two entirely different regulatory regimes in operation. So you can get – I’ve gotten Internet level TV at home. I have done these things myself. You can be looking at Donald Duck one minute and porn hub the next minute.

That will not be a sustainable position. That will simply not be acceptable. And, you know, it’s – it’s clear as the nose on my face.

Now, how that will renown more widely, outside the home environment or IPTV or Internet enabled TV, I’m not completely sure. My guess is there won’t be a regime that’s only Internet enabled and Internet connected televisions. What we will see is a real trigger – the arrival of these televisions becoming a real trigger for wider changes in policy in the Internet space.

Sadly, because I’m a poor man, I can’t afford the Panasonic televisions. Mine is an old-fashioned Sony, linked to an Xbox. That’s how my TV is Internet enabled. I know some of the new TVs are coming with a whole range of filtering tools and products and so on built in. That is essential and will raise the question of interoperability. It will raise the question of what the broadcasters produced by way of metadata and how that metadata can be picked up and read by different filtering products. I think it will be absolutely essential.

To your point, if anybody making TV programs now or planning to make them for that new environment hasn’t got on board, the kinds of issues, they will pretty soon go out of business or they will pretty soon find that they will have to change their business models in a very, very dramatic way.

By the way, on the point – the point that you made, Elisabeth, we shouldn’t just think about this in the context of family, the family home, the bricks and mortar places where we live, but also on the move. That’s a really – that’s also an exceptionally important point because – and this has been a huge issue in Britain over the last year, because now basically, every major city and town is Wi-Fi and on the streets, but Starbucks or Costa Coffee or the main department stores, they are providing free Internet through Wi-Fi.

Questions already started arising – parents, they buy the new devices and they take the care in the home to make sure that it’s appropriate for their religious beliefs or cultural beliefs and then the kids go out on the street with their games console or the Google glasses pretty soon and suddenly everything is gone because you have these other environments for the portable devices. That will have to change too. There will be an announcement in Britain in the next couple of weeks specifically affecting that. But I think it’s also hugely important.

Just to go back a little bit on what was being said earlier, first of all, there are significant numbers of children and young people in Britain who do not have ready broadband access at home. The Internet access that they get is through a small phone device like this. So that’s just not the case, that all children in Britain or cool dudes who are accessing the Internet all of the time on large screens. Some kids have to go to the library to do their homework because their mum and dad can’t afford a computer or hasn’t got – or it’s too chaotic in the family home or whatever it might be.

And just that kind of takes me into the separate point that not all kids are equally digitally literate. You have a very, very broad range of things. 3% of every child in British schools has got some kind of learning difficulty. They are – we call them an educational statement, yeah? 3% of children is – it’s a very small percentage but it’s a very large number of human beings which cannot be ignored and this is true whatever you think about Internet policy.

You know, if you were – let’s say you were a big social networking site that had 1.2 billion members. I won’t name any, but let’s just imagine there was one of that size. If somebody told you that 98%, even 99% of all of your users was very happy with the service that’s being provided, didn’t have any issues. They understood it perfectly. You would think blimey we are doing very, very well. What is 1% of 1.2 billion? It’s far too many human beings to ignore. I think the same is true, you know, here. And though 3% may not sound like a lot, it’s too many to ignore.

So the environments that we construct have to take account of maybe small percentages but large numbers of people for whom the conventional forms of media literacy and learning and education and awareness sadly will not work.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much.

>> JOHN CARR: I have said enough.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Antoine, you would like to make a between the.

>> ANTOINE LARPIN: Yes, thank you, Pedro. It would be impossible to comment on all the points John has made. I think it was a very good intervention. I would like to pick up on a few things and perhaps actually use the fact that we are sitting, having this discussion in this context. We will step back thinking and really think about the fact that we are here at an internet event and for this discussion on Connected TV, it seems to be very appropriate because the Internet context is absolutely key to understanding and discuss the issue of Connected TV and especially if you want to address regulation and efficiency of regulation.

I think that was really clear from the different interventions, we are talking about child protection. We are talking about maturity. I believe we can have the same discussion, and there was a long discussion on child protection yesterday.

I think a key challenge is very much to identify what are the specificities of connected TV. What makes it so different from the open Internet that we all know? And in that context, based on these differences, what sort of regulation makes sense? What sort of approach makes sense as well? Do we need to go device by device or not?

Can you address child protection only from TV set point of view or do you need to address it from a service point of view and not where the devices are relevant? Because the same content is available out there.

So I think here, I’m just asking a lot of questions and as well, I think the key question behind that is also how can you regulate connected TV as opposed to the open Internet? Because next to these services you will find available on the TV set, for instance, coming from legal offer, and then next to it you can have why your laptops on your knees, TV behind you and SmartPhone in your hand and you can look at other type of content.

So that’s another point.

And, of course, behind that key question is what sort of efficiency can we expect from regulation in that context?

So I think that was the first group of ideas I wanted to bring, just, you know, using this Internet context that we have today to address this issue. The second point I would like to make, actually is actually to come up with a positive message because I think so far we have heard a lot about the challenges but I think it’s very important as well to understand that there are immense opportunities in the Connected TV fields. At Panasonic, we have this vision that actually Connected TV can really make it possible for users to access and control the individual content at any time, anywhere, and probably from any device. And that, I think, has been a promise made, probably more than ten years ago, that the anywhere, any time, any content is possible. I think anyone in the room has had an experience where you want to watch a certain film at a certain time and you don’t find it and you want to watch a certain spot, it’s not possible from a legal offer.

I think here they have some great opportunities for this. At the same time, the fact that you have IP-based services coming from different devices, mixing up with maybe linear content but also for some technology possibilities, technical solutions and thinking in the fields of child protection and accessibility, in particular, I think there’s still a lot that can be done there. But I just wanted to emphasize these opportunities. 

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Okay. Thank you very much. We have now – yeah, I just wanted to say that Antoine is actually from a manufacturer, Panasonic, because while we are not in the room now, Antoine Larpin, there some on the web that may not know.

>> ANTOINE LARPIN: I won’t comment on the pricing. Offline for that. 

>> JOHN CARR: I just want to make completely clear. I come into this from a techie background. We are huge fans of technology. We have want every kid to have access to the Internet with the best possible devices. Absolutely, 100%, that’s our view. We are hugely enthusiastic about the possible – and exactly the way you have said. The problem is when you come to events like this, we are not here to be part of the public relations for any manufacturer or Internet service provider and we sometimes forget – I sometimes forget to kind of take at least half of my speech to say how wonderful the Internet is. And then I get criticized for being negative.

Any job and our job is to focus on the bids that need attention and not the bits that don’t need attention, like Panasonic’s products always are. Is that okay? 

(Laughter).

>> PEDRO BICUDO: If anybody else would like to make a comment or add an upon or criticism.

Could we have a microphone at the end of the room, please. Yeah, take the microphone. 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. My name is Tiago and I’m here as an individual person. The company where I work last year developed a product which was based on IPTV. They developed a platform to allow customers to upload videos and create their own – their own channels. So people could create a channel which was only available within the customer base of that platform, and it could be either a schedule base. So you could pick what channels your video would broadcast and which particular day and time.

And that raises a lot of possibilities. People can upload their own content or just content they have underloaded from the Internet, whatever they like and schedule it as they like. But this is not public. This is only for the customers within the same platform. And another – at thing that is called to my attention, this is one and I would like to hear opinions about the regulations over that kind content. Of course, they were very defensive and they say, okay, the responsibility is always of the people who uploaded the videos and – but they are profiting from the service. So it’s complicated.

And also the marketing and advertisements on those platforms is not very well established yet, how they will make opinion and if it is fair for the content producers.

Or thing is about time shifting, and also related to the same platform and other competition. Competitors did the same which was allow server side, automatic recording of the last past week – of the last week submission of all channels which would allow a customer to view something that happened on any channel over the last seven days. And that raises broadcasting rights issues, because when given movie or sports event is licensed, it has a given time frame to be broadcasted, and it can not be replayed whenever the customer wants.

So they renamed it and rebrand it to be, like, automatic recording on server side. And what do you think about that?

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Well, we would like you to first relate what you said to the question of child protection. Do you have any clients that in a certain way or affected or made any sort of criticism or contribution in terms of child protection?

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay. So in terms of the user generated content which is available on the service, there are no guarantees towards the content being appropriate for children, and there is no insurance that someone would not make some pornographic movie of himself and his girlfriend and put it on his play list, and continuously playing. There’s no time schedule that adult movies only play at night after certain time. There’s no content categorization. There’s no assurance of anything like that.

So there would have to be complaints of clients in order to – for content to be removed.

And in the other, the time shifting, well, for children, it is not obvious. For children, like violent movies that could be displayed last at night and could be reviewed in the afternoon and children could access, it but I’m not sure if that is the case.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Okay. Thank you very much for the commentary.

Mary Ann?

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Is it on?

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Yes.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Okay. I think we have to – we are being a bit disingenuous. There’s a famous science fiction program that’s been running for 40 – I don’t know how many years incarnation, it’s called “Dr. Who.” Now in the old days, your parents said, no, you are not allowed to watch. Leave the room. Okay? And now, of course, those screens and that availability is now in several rooms. We have to think about the cultural values and the family values in the home.

So, you know who is the object of the protection here? This is what’s troubling me. It’s like the elephant in the room is the fact that young people are going to get the content either way. I’m not advocating – I’m not advocating that we should just let anything goes, but it’s not just about porn. Porn is actually downloaded by adults. Okay? So we’re looking at the adults here. And I don’t – I don’t have any answers to this question but it’s not just about protecting minors. It’s actually about reeducating adults.

And my second point about those who don’t have access to the sort of high-level kinds of programming and tools, I think we need to try and figure out what – how people are actually consuming content. You know, what are they looking at and why? And the business models that are actually driving these developments. And how these developments are there to reproduce the business models to generate income from licensing. So, of course, cross border time shift underlies the licensing. So they are involved in social responsibility. They link to the legal and the cultural.

Let’s not be disingenuous about our children. We need to protect ourselves some of things that our children are watching. Porn has always been the major media consumed around the world. Internet has just made it a little bit easier. I won’t just be trite given what’s going on in the UK. The issues in the UK are not about porn. They are about child abuse and child abuse off screen. So I think we are mixing up sometimes our debates, if I can be provocative. 

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Yes, Christopher please. Ross? Christopher Wilkins.

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you, Elisabeth. Just a quick word. As you know, I don’t really know very much about this Dossier, but first of all, into another workshop, we were discussing network neutrality and this area came up as a potential problem, frankly, because a lot of people are not comfortable with quality of service transmissions of which high definition television is obviously one. In completing with the Internet as we know it for bandwidth. So I think there is an issue ultimately and I’m sure Panasonic knows more about this than I do. There’s an issue as to whether bandwidth is coming for the incredible performance possibilities on the future generation of screens. 

I don’t know the answer, but I just want to make the bridge between the network neutrality debate and the debate that you are having here now. 

The second point which was referred to a few minutes ago, I don’t think the broadcasting rights of licensing arrangements particularly for sports will survive this – this evolution and I think that would be an excellent thing.

The broadcasting – the licensing arrangements for sports internationally are disgraceful, and I personally would be delighted if the Internet interactive television option in the future undermines this – this system. 

Thank you. And I think the football industry would benefit considerably for having rather less money.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Elisabeth.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: We have another comment over there.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Microphone, please.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: If you could please introduce yourself. 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, thank you, my name is Malika, I work for the department of economic affairs for the Netherlands. First of all, I would like to add my voice to what was just mentioned. I think there are great opportunities in their connected TVs and we should protect our children but let’s not forget about the growth in jobs strategy in Europe and this is also one part of it.

My question was, actually, to Marianne Franklin, I was at IGF just the other day and there were quite a few young people and they said, why do you keep focusing on us as children. Please educate our parents, because my mother has less of an idea of what privacy is like on Facebook than I do! 

So I was wondering if you could say something on that.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Exactly. Thank you. Sorry. Yes, I think this is – my point about “Dr. Who” is that my mother had a very clear – I’m from the Dr. Who generation. My mother had a very clear idea about what I should or should not watch. I was literally out of the room. This literacy I’m trying to get at is these kids actually know a lot more about what is going on and we have to reeducate the parents and the scare tactics. The Netherlands has a very different feeling, if I can make a generalization. Certain countries have different ideas about what is acceptable, explicit material on television, all right?

Now, if you live in the Netherlands, which I do, you can get access to any number of European channels. If you live in the UK, you only get UK channels and American television. What is happening with literacy is something about realizing that kids know a lot more than what we give them credit for. I’m getting concerned about the negative message that we are sending to our kids that this paternalistic view that we know best. We don’t. We don’t, actually. Who are making these crude programs? You know? Not kids. It’s adults. This stuff is for adults.

So the thing about “Dr. Who.” It was considered unacceptable carry material. It has incredible special effects that’s still scaring kids now. So we are dealing with some very tricky cultural and public moral issues that are important, but the business models that drive the various priority settings are the things we also need to consider.

So I don’t know if I have answered your question, but I’m glad to hear that young people are piping up and saying, hey, you know, we are going to tell our parents what we should watch, what they should watch, perhaps. Hey, dad, less football, please, and more news. All right?

Could our parents tell the difference when Jeremy Paxman is opining probably not.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: I think we will move on to the next subject that we want to talk about today and that’s the impact of the new technological development on data protection and we have Sophie Kwasny Council of Europe.

>> SOPHIE KWASNY: First, I would like to underline that our new speaker, Nuno Conde when he was talking about the driving forces in policy development, data protection what his second point. So this has to be a knowledge. It’s one of the key issues there with Connected TV. So it’s not about data protection, extraism. Why is data protection so important in that field? For a number of reasons. Data protection is an enabling right.

It enables the right to privacy and it also enables freedom of expression which is key to accessing content and finally, it’s also about human dignity and each time we talk about a new technology we have this notion, which comes out very strongly too of human beings being subjected to new technologies.

I think I will rather focus on this brand new television that’s – that myself maybe I will not be able to afford too. So this new television enables stronger interaction between the user, between the viewer, and the brand and the program. This is great. As long as you have increasing interaction, you also have increasing data being collected and that’s the whole problem there.

So as we are speaking about new technology, I will also use our data protection catch words, and we have a number of them recently that we are trying to develop, to better protect the individuals. The first one is privacy by design. And this is even stronger when we are speaking about a new technology. So this is a message clearly for manufacturers to integrate privacy in the way they are designing the technology.

The first thing, privacy by default, is that precisely when they are considering options, privacy has to come first. It has to be by default. This is something we are seeing, for instance, in terms of cookies and do not track. It’s – whether it’s an opt in or an opt out, it should be an opt in. Privacy has to be protected by default. That’s the second point. And then this whole thing should be – should be carried out under risk impact assessment. That’s what is driving the exercise and the development of the technology, is really to assess what is the impact for the user, for the data subject in terms of privacy. That’s very important.

Antoine, you precisely mentioned that Connected TV has to be considered in an Internet context, although there are differences but the Internet context here is very relevant. And for the Internet context, I would like to mention that in this field, there is behavioral targeting that is strong. We have – we are trying the counselor of Europe, a recommendation on profiling. This is something to address very seriously and even more seriously that I’m not sure yet how the technology will make the difference between in a household who satellite person viewing the program? If it’s a child – sorry Marianne – the regulation may be different. I don’t know how they can distinguish between the viewers.

Also another point that is maybe worth mentioning with this technology is that there is this interaction, how does it work? There is a gesture, there is a screening, eye contact, voice recognition, all of those technologies are used in – for a specific purpose, but can also be hacked.

What in the development of the technology will you do to make sure that there is no hacking? So, for instance, a camera that would be filming me, there could be a sound when the camera is activated that. Could be something to the user that to indicate that he is being viewed.

Another thing is all of those devices normally are pro teched by antivirus tools. Is this applying to the connected TV or not. I’m just asking the question because I’m ignorant in the field. Those are the issues.

Another important issue, there are transported data flows because it’s Internet. So what will be the law applicable. Everything that we are seeing and the transAtlantic divide in this field is also relevant and it was mentioned the fact that more and more data is being collected. We mentioned big data and we have seen that this big data collected by the private sector may be used by – by law enforcement or – or intelligence. So those are basically the points I would like to raise in terms of privacy and protection of the individuals.

>> Can I comment here? Well, I think Sophie, the points you raised are extremely relevant, all of them. If I can start addressing, it actually, the first questions, privacy by design, privacy by default, impact assessment, privacy impact assessment, I believe this is something that is certainly applicable to the Connected TV devices as far as we are concerned, as manufacturer.

I have doubts whether this is very specific to Connected TV devices because I think we have our own experience with PC tablets and so on that we also develop and I believe the same questions are asked very much in the same way. Frankly, data protection compliance is a very serious issue and that’s something. It’s a patch work of legislations in Europe. We know about the big plan to revise the current directive on that protection in Europe. We value great hopes to make this a lit bit easier from the compliance point of view without diminishing the veil of protection.

I think that would be a general comment about that.

Now, I think you asked about the antivirus and how the TV reacts to all of this. It’s really, really great technical challenge. Again, I’m talking from a TV set point of view, but I believe it applies to other devices as well. Why is that a big challenge for TV sets? Because basically when you buy your TV, you expect it to last longer than one year, which is seems to be the average time that a new SmartPhone lasts.

I wouldn’t mind, I believe, that people have the same replacement rates that every time you change your phone, you change your TV, but that’s not what the expectation is. I think if you keep your TV set for ten years in your living room, and then move it to another room for four more years, then what sort of – will the software still be relevant? Can you adapt it as well? These are really challenges because, again, TV are probably closer to a piece of furniture than to a PC or a laptop.

So there are the challenges. It’s actually we have solutions and antivirus provided. They have regular updates on your TV once you connect it. Of course, you have to have it connected. So that’s the sort of solutions we are looking at, but clearly, that’s where we have a lot of technical investments at the moment. 

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much. If there’s any commentary on the issue of data protection, please feel welcome.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: Just a question. Sophie, you talked about – oh, I have gone blank. Oh, dear –

>> PEDRO BICUDO: It’s okay.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I’m obviously not a child, am. Yeah, go ahead.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: We will keep going and then you will –

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: It was a long night last night.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Great! Welcome to Lisbon! 

We are going to move ahead then to the next issue of accessibility and basically technology offers more possibilities to assist visually impaired, hearing impaired and cognitively impaired persons than ever before. So we can serve minorities better.

The question is how to ensure that they are taken in consideration? We have some laws applying in terms of the hearing impaired. We have also, especially in terms of the Portugal, some experiences going on. Closed captioning has been going on for a long time, but the question is: Will we be able to transfer this new capability to have broadband coming into conjunction with broadcasting in order to provide services that we were not able to provide before?

If we have anybody – we don’t have a specific commentator on the issue, but we can certainly – oh, we are going to have Giacomo from EBU.

>> GIACOMO MAZZONE: Yes, I’m not talking in my capacity, but I ask some information to my colleague, David Vud who is head of study group 6 at ITU. Theoretically connectivity offers some opportunities, and solved some problems that we are experiencing. More and more, especially the public broadcasters are asked to provide the services for making more accessible to all vulnerable parts of the population. So that they have the – the deaf and blind people, the people who have the problem of access to the TV signal.

With the convergence created by the digital signal, now the problem is that all the convention and all the efforts that have been made in the television field to create the rules and the tools specifically now need to be integrate and made compatible with the similar efforts that has been made on the computer side. And the connectivity is exactly the point where this kind of integration is highly needed. Just to make an example, for instance, there are available on the Internet different versions of the same version. So theoretically it’s easy to have a problem – a program that has made available in various countries online, to have the different linguistic version. The only problem is that how to synchronize the video signal with the subtitling that could be on the Internet?

These are all things that can be solved if there’s a common will and if the electronic consumer industry, the broadcasting industry and the content providers work together to solve the problem. The ITU study group six is working on that, the broadcasters there are. Some of the industry are present and we hope that this could be solved soon, but I have to say that the can connectivity has been launched in the market without solving it in advance. We wonder if the approach to accessibility to make more sexy on the market on the tool, because we are in this working group six years and only now has this topic been urgent where for years we have been looking at. This.

I hope this is a new start and we can work together to provide better service for everybody. 

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much, Giacomo.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: I think Antoine would like to comment on this.

>> ANTOINE LARPIN: Maybe a brief comment. I don’t want to monopolize the floor. I think we have come with the accessibility opportunities. First of all, it’s an opportunity that your IP-based services come through different devices to provide solutions, but also that they share the same analysis with over the fact that over the last four or five years, we have received more and more requests to provide solutions for accessibility, so we engage in the process.

We are learning step by step. It takes a little bit of time, but I must say at the moment that we are also very happy. We have seen some great achievements with 27 different languages that we implement worldwide for voice recognition or voice control, a text-to-speech, that is Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, if there are some in the room.

But what is, I think, a key challenge, I think this cooperation between the different stakeholders is key. I think that’s also something that I would second.

Another key challenge is the customer feedback, if you want, because before launching these voice recognition tools you need feedback. So we are working with NGOs and accessibility organisations that help to test the products and so on. But we see already some solutions being developed. So now we have opportunities.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Giacomo.

>> GIACOMO MAZZONE: Not all the people sit at the same table. That’s the problem. For instance, some devices are difficult to make compatible with others. And they are not necessarily the solution implemented by one company can be implemented by others.

The problem now is people expect the tablets will react in the same way the connected TV will react, et cetera, et cetera. And this is an effort that needs to be made by everybody. Even the fact that we are working within the ITU, because it’s the only place where these kind of things at the moment are implemented is not enough, because not all the actors are participating in the ITU.

I think there’s very big efforts that need to be made about all the stakeholders and I think in this European Union, the European Commission that ask the broadcasters to implement the services need to have a – a larger view on this point, because if not, the obligation will remain largely unattended, and there are tons of things that can be made.

There was a presentation recently in – in one broadcaster event where the VBU, of the language of signs immediately translated where here this opportunity at the EuroDIG, but there is a software that’s been developed by the Rye Research Center, that translates into many sign languages. I would like very much that this process will start and benefit from all sides. 

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Thank you very much. There are any more comments? Yes, please.

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, let me start by what seemed to be the consensus. The idea of common will and collaboration between all the stakeholders. This is really important that these questions are really felt and assumed as important, because I have the impression that in a way this is incorporated in the discourse, but then has no really translation in practice.

And everyone should understand that they have a responsibility from policymakers to regulators, to device manufacturers and also to content producers and distributors.

And let me give you some very small examples that show that even today we are not maximizing what we already have due to the lack of responsibility of each of the actors.

For example, RTP has something very interesting to allow deaf people to follow their admissions, they are providing through their web page, a kind of split screen, because one of the complaints that deaf people have is that usually the square, where the sign language is transmitted is too small. It’s not good enough. And so RTP accepted to, in a way give an answer to a challenge that was why not to put in the web page two equal screens or two screens of equal size where people that have problems of hearing but no sign language can see the sign language in the screen that is comfortable?

This would be wonderful to put it in DDT, but if RTP would want to put this in DDT platform, then it would have to pay much – significantly much more to the use of this spectrum. Why not to accept here a differential payment for this auxiliary functions of accessibility?

We have the audio visual media service directive that has special responsibilities in what concerns the accessibility functions, but the scope of the directive is limited. So it applies to some content, but not to all content. So there’s probably a challenge to future regulation. In Portugal, we are facing RTP and other broadcasters, do have closed captioning in their submissions.

This works when it goes aerial, but is not being used when it goes through the cable platforms because due to some technical problem that not – no really anyone can explain to me, this functionality is not being delivered to consumers.

So there are problems that relate to device manufacturers, as well that are very important. For example, Apple, although it is with its problems, I think it was 2004 or something like, that decided that all of its equipment would be made from the beginning accessible to blind people. And sometime ago, I bought an Apple TV and the first question, when I installed Apple TV, do you want to – I think the functionality is called voiceover. So a person with a visual impairment can, since the start use Apple TV. But this doesn’t happen with most set top boxes. I have a smart TV at home, it’s a Samsung. Either I’m not competent enough or I didn’t find it, when I connected it, it didn’t ask me anything.

Although I have a visual impairment, I fortunately can still see, so I can control the device visually, because if not, I would not be able to control the device. It’s not possible at all. I don’t know Panasonic. Sorry, I don’t have a Panasonic TV. But I offer myself to be a tester on your new devices.

So there needs to be – there is this shared responsibility and everyone needs to accept it and we must go from speech to reality.

And this is a bit complex, but if everyone is obliged to do it, it will be done. Let me stress the content producers, they must, since the beginning, start producing the content with this functionalities, closed captioning, sign language and audio description. This is the source of everything. But after the other links in the chain need then to bring these functionalities to consumers. Thank you.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: I believe this is the area that we see very well that there are opportunities and challenges and since we are running a little bit out of time I would like to switch to the next area where we see a lot of challenges and improvement, which is cultural diversity. With the Internet, we can have access to a wide range of content from anywhere in the world but at the same time, we can ask our questions: What is the impact of this on European cultural diversity. And there I would like to give the floor to Mario Rui Miranda from RTP.

>> MARIO RUI MIRANDA: I’m not here in the name of RTP. I’m here in individual name. And I wrote some words that I’m reading because my difficulty with English.

Cultural diversity has a range of choice and therefore a need to cultural expression, including their contents. Especially in a situation where a cultural expression may be treated with the extension or service impairment in a connected world. With connected TV, it’s to rise cultural diversity. The opening of several new distribution markets, the emergence of new users which do not use the Internet yet or any other audio visual system, the spreading of program for your Internet, enable the programs not requiring, therefore, any agreement between countries.

Already the case with markets offering traditional services through television is expanded with the connected TV with the access to cultural diversity, combined through the juxtapositions of existing level service in different European countries, as well as the rest the world, increasing the growth of global audio visual service.

The cultural diversity in Europe are the competition with global players, the confrontation with the global brands to the European industries less competitive, as well as the dependency of the direct distribution of content on the European market through the content through the other organisations.

The role of public service media is essential to comprehensive offering to the user, including currently linear and nonlinear service, connected and of open access but this poses new challenge in terms of incurring some costs but it will ensure the protection of cultural values.

Cultural diversity in the world of Connected TV will have the collection of free ideas and nourished by the contradictions and the interactions between cultures, requiring, however ways of finding protection mechanisms to preserve the European content, despite the ongoing change.

The cultural, the fundamental preservation of the freedom of communication, they have an important role in the service provided to the public and this should be associated with the preservation of European entity and external level. It reminds the information of European entity the cultural diversity which should have a pillar, how, I don’t know.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: I don’t know if anyone wants to comment directly on this question or maybe we want to link it together with the next topic on our agenda which is, I believe, related to it.

It’s about pluralism and since we have a diverse landscape in Europe, it also contributed to the pluralist nature of our media. But at the same time, I believe, we can ask the question whether gatekeepers might have an impact on the pluralism, whether they will shape the way in which people access content or whether maybe they will add to the plurality and there I would like to give the floor to another representative of the EBU, Michael Wagner. Please. 

>> MICHAEL WAGNER: Yes, thank you and, indeed, I think media pluralism and cultural diversity are included. I’m very glad that pluralism is added here. It was also by the commission of the green paper. So thank you very much.

Now, you may ask, what is the issue here? I mean, we have heard about what media convergence means, internet via the TV screen and television and hopefully radio via tablets, SmartPhones and all kinds of other connected devices. So that is combining the best of two worlds, why should there be a problem?

Of course, I think you have to look at two other aspects, which are very important for media pluralism and also cultural diversity, but it’s how content and audio visual content in particular is produced and financed, and the other one is how consumers can access and find content. I think the latter aspect has been raised by the representative in the consumer protection session.

Going back to how the content is produced and financed. Consumers say they like global content, entertainment, music, et cetera, but normally they prefer domestic content, reliable news about what’s happening around them, their country, their democratic system, the same about audio visual content that is playing in the environment that they know, about issues they – they are concerned with, that – of interest to them.

But this content news and audio visual programs is very expensive to produce. At the moment, audio visual content is produced in Europe by the broadcasters, by television stations. And therefore, if you want to keep media pluralism, as you have it now, I think it’s important that the value chain and the revenue streams are maintained, that broadcasters can continue to produce and finance these productions. You know what has happened with the newspaper industry. We know many journalists have lost their job and we don’t want that to happen to the audio visual media industry. We try to be normative to face the challenges, but sometimes there are challenges which may require a regulatory answer he will just mention. There is a possible technically where the connected devices that parties but their commercial content on the picture of broadcasters.

That means two things. That means that the value of the content is diminished. It’s destroyed and the other relevant aspect is that the revenue no longer goes to the broadcaster but other players, intermediaries or whatever. That is something I think where we have to think about regulatory safeguards to make sure, that the revenue goes to the broadcaster that produces the content and not to third parties to try to deviate the revenue stream.

Of course, I think, it is important that the networks are there to transport all the content to consumers, but I think in the – in the new environment, the real bottleneck is no longer the network. The real bottleneck is attention of US. It is how people can find it, because it can not on the first page or the second page or the third page of the search results or the EPGs. People will no longer find it. That’s why I think we come to the question of gatekeepers.

I don’t think that this is absolutely necessary that in the converged environment, you have net gatekeepers. If you think about open standards at HppTV that allowed connected TV without gatekeepers works well in Germany and France, and or countries. If you look at all devices to go, you see a rising influence of gatekeepers and if you control the user interface or the portal or the content platform, then you control – you select the content and you decide how people can access it.

So everything then depends on the behavior of these gatekeepers. I heard yesterday and this morning again the call by the Danish Human Rights Institute that the Internet corporations should introduce some kind of human rights compliance program or assessment. I think that’s a wonderful idea and reminds me of the competition compliance program that these companies have, with some success at least.

But can we really rely on that, on a voluntary basis, if you compare the two competition law and human rights. You have clear legal rules on companies and you have a powerful authority to enforce it. If you don’t respect it, you will have dawn rates in the morning that will completely paralyze your activities. You may be fined up to 10% of your turnover. If you don’t respect human rights, I mean, the address to governments or states and not to companies, you may wonder what may happen.

I think here again, there is a very strong incentive for these gatekeepers to favor their own content or at least services with which they can make money. And if you look at the European free to air content of broadcasters and especially the content provider, the public service media, that’s not something that companies can make a lot of money with. It’s a huge danger that’s discriminated against and not shown prominently by gatekeepers. So I think here is yet another second area, where we should also think about some regulatory safeguards.

Thank you.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Thank you very much.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Any question or commentary?

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Christopher and then Antoine, please. And Christopher doesn’t have a microphone. I will bring him one.

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you, Elisabeth. Just two quick comments, regarding gatekeepers, on the other side of the house, in the network neutrality debate, we are already deep into the issue that ISPs as gatekeepers do not discriminate against different categories of media, and content. And it raises the question in the back of my mind as to where the frontier will come between the broadcasters as the gatekeeper and the ISP as the gatekeeper.

Regarding cultural diversity, my understanding is that we are actually on the threshold of very powerful technology for realtime automatic interpretation of voice.

Now, if that could be incorporated in the intelligent television system, then you really would be getting somewhere. Now, it wouldn’t work for artistic productions, but for the news, for documentaries, even for football commentaries, I think if this technology exists across a large number of languages, it may transform the – both the cultural diversity aspect and possibly the – the access for handicap people.

Just a thought. 

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much. Any other commentary or –

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: A quick one, maybe a follow-up to steps, this issue on the gatekeepers, really. I think obviously there are many actors, new factors in the chain now, in the connected TV context and as far as manufacturers are concerned, we see a great deal of misunderstanding. For those who are not aware of it, now you can find on TV sets a portal of applications that is developed by different manufacturers.

We’ve got the high connect for Panasonic and it’s very similar to what you find on a SmartPhone. When it comes to what is our interest in this, I think I will be very clear here, we want a catalog of services of content and this is what we are working on. So looking for partnerships, looking for new innovative services to be developed.

We also support developments of apps. So it is very easy to go to the – that portal of applications. You can download all the materials you need to develop these apps but very much our interest is to have this as a living place, a living marketplace, I would say, for these applications to be available. So that is very much our interest.

And as far as we are concerned, and I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s the first we saw of the manufacturers and the case of manufacturers being refused on the grounds of them not making enough money or revenues. I think the only case I can think about is because applications were not actually – would to the comply with our terms and conditions, if you want to, which mostly concern the fact that you will not have – this won’t be any obvious search for content distributed by these applications. I think that’s really the only case that I can see but I really wanted to make it clear because at the end of the day, it’s up to the service provider to decide whether or not an application is available on different portals and, obviously that also means on which – in which regions, on which territories this application is available.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much. We have – oh, Marianne. We can take advantage of the microphone.

>> MARIANNE FRANKLIN: I’m glad we are talking about the bottom line because there’s a need for proactive support because you can either set it up so that the program provider, the content provider has to being for different groups, cultural diversity, minority groups or you could subsidize things like indigenous television programs. There’s at least two ways to think about it. Subsidies are a bad word, I mustn’t mention them. Local content, but it’s not necessary. There’s a channel in New Zealand that’s Maori television. It’s partly private and partly subsidized, but it’s been a huge success because it has no advertising. So from a largely privatized broadcasting setup, where all the public television has become privatized people are going to a television channel from another change, from an indigenous group and enjoying the TV there. The question is who pays? Who is going to pay?

And so I want to just underscore that, the gate keeping is also about who is actually going to foot the bill. I think that’s where regulators do have a role. 

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Better running short on time. Let’s try to keep it as – we will – Sergio.

>> SERGIO GOMES DA SILVA: Okay. Before going to the pluralism issue, coming back to the accessibilities, because I think it was Christophe that mentioned the voice recognition systems. Well, they already exist. In order for the accessibilities to be useful, you do need to have some minimum standard of quality. And while some broadcasters, it’s the case of RTP, for example, we already have automatic closed captioning, it’s produced by computers. The users of this closed captioning, they complain and say it’s not good enough. Then it doesn’t make sense at all.

And when we are speaking about captioning for deaf of hearing people, we are speaking more than the speech itself, the dialogues, also contextual information. So that requires a human intervention. And actually, it was Giacomo, who spoke about this program that’s automatically producing sign language. I don’t know it, but I have heard of an experience like this and hard-of-hearing people usually complain because they say that an essential part of sign language is the face expression and the automatic systems don’t have face expression.

But going now to the pluralism issue. Let me just underline some important things. One is that due to this corrosion of the revenues of broadcasters and other media operators, the newsrooms are each time weaker and weaker. What we are seeing, is that consumers tend to receive news from other sources than conventional media.

What this means is in conventional media, they have their concept – they have and they still have their codes of conduct and one of the parts of it was some responsibilities that related to pluralism.

And has, in a way, the sources of information are going away from this. This raises an important problem issue in what regards to pluralism, but there are others that are important. The media environment, the digital environment is more and more possible to customize. So consumers are doing that directly, or the systems that are learning, they tend to give the information to the – to people according to their likes and interests, and this raises a problem, because each time consumers tend to be more closed in their realm and field of interest and their own starting point.

And this may be very dangerous for pluralism, because then they don’t have other references. So how to – how to stop, how to, in a way, to tear out, how to open what can be a vicious circle of enclosing people in their own interests. Thank you.

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much, Sergio. Michael, please.

>> MICHAEL WAGNER: Yes, if I may comment or react to some of the very useful, I think, variable comments. The link to the network neutrality, I think there’s an obvious parallel between both. I see only one difference. I mean, on the network, you can treat all traffic the same, like road traffic sometimes.

If you speak about user interfaces or portals, it’s not possible. Not everybody can – or not every service can be number one, so it implies a natural ranking and therefore I think we are in a different regulatory field, about this gateway that gives access to content. You can say we give it in alphabetical order and then everything the start with A but that’s not distinguishing.

So I think one has to think about other principles like, perhaps, giving you new prominence to public service. I think that may be a case for that. But perhaps we have to discuss that further when we have more time.

The second question, yes, manufacturers, of course, could be addressed as gatekeepers, of course. We don’t have any major problems so far. Perhaps also because manufacturers are not in the business of content. So they need our content so we can incorporate, I think quite successfully.

We have published in 2011 a hybrid TV principles, connected TV principles which were also addressed to manufacturers and I think most of these principles have more or less been respected, not always but discovered bilaterally, but regarding applications, we had actually problems when we had our last year song contest and we wanted to have a televoting and that did not go well with some of the manufacturers, including Apple.

So there are issues also regarding applications.

Very grateful for the example of the Maori channel which is public channel. They have a distinctiveness. They don’t have advertising and then third parties put on advertising around it, either before or after, it then this distinction is completely lost. I think it’s another thing where they cannot add on advertising or commercial content.

And finally, I think you touched upon a very important aspect about the personalization. It could be seen as an added value for the consumer, but you have to see personalization means filtering. You do not transmit certain content and everybody has its own filter, but there you add another actor as another filtering mechanism. So I think that takes a lot of responsibility and that’s when you have to think about some principle there as well.

I mean, there’s certainly a difference for society but they have a common basis of information. And I think that’s certainly one of the main types of public service media, or whether they will even more or less have different information, live in completely different worlds in the end and what does that mean for society? I think that’s something to be followed.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Thank you very much. We actually are over time already, and I think there is very little discussion for the last question which is how to regulate, whether it should be self, regulation, or new regulation. I think I would take advantage that we have a representative from the Council of Europe perspective and everybody on the question of regulation or otherwise, we will wind up. 

>> Yes. Well, I am not sure that I can give you the Council of Europe perspective on this, because I’m not sure that the Council of Europe has a perspective on this at this stage, what I can say is that whenever there’s a technology shift, there are opportunities. And it is very good that we are prepared and that the different combination of actors and actors lead us in the way of using that opportunity positively and getting the best out of it.

Now, there’s always a down side to it. Especially when there are very strong operators in the system. There is an opportunity for them and a temptation for them to capture the system we have seen this in audio an audio/visual developments among the last few decades and this is very likely to be the case in respect of connected TV. What is that going to give us? Is it going to give us more diversity, more pluralism? Is it going to open up the doors? Is it going to be an opportunity to create new gate keeping operations? We don’t know yet, and the likelihood is that there will be a tendency at some stage to try to monetize to capitalize this new space by certain operators. It may be in the future that the manufacturers will see an opportunity. We see it with Apple, but it may increase. Others may want to say, well, we are going to be the new gatekeepers. We are going to deliver our – our appliance together with a package of information, of access that is going to capture the user and restrict the access of the user to certain areas and content.

It leads the user into information spaces which would be very dangerous to pluralism and diversity. We may try to find solutions to that, but at the same time, we may be confronted with a dilemma there. If we try to accept that kind of move, then we would be effectively accepting the end of net neutrality. So if we start with Mascari rules, in light of the new environment, we would be saying we are giving up on net neutrality and then we would start eroding a lot – the freedom of choice, of the capacity of the user to make choices.

Consequentially, I think there is a necessity to engage with that. There is a necessity to engage in the well being of cost, the aspects of self-regulation, the maybe aspects of regulated self-regulation, IE code regulation and there may be a necessity for certain areas of regulation. I couldn’t say which are these areas at this stage.

What I can say is something that I said yesterday in an entirely different concept. The Council of Europe, the principle is there should be no regulation. Regulation should only be there if it’s strictly necessary and the – the committee of ministers of the Council of Europe in one of the texts that it adopted states that regulation as a form of interference should itself comply with the rules or the tests of Article 10, which is illegality, and necessity in a democratic society and proportionality. Thank you. 

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Thank you very much.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: May I just ask if anybody else would like to make an intervention. Ross, please.

>> ROSS BIGGAM: I think traditionally they have been ruled as alternatives and businesses advance self-regulations to avoid detailed regulation. I think in this new environment, though, we should do more than look at alternatives and actually, I think there’s a case, if you want to be optimistic that a lot of the policy objectives which regulators achieve, but by commercial self-interest. We come back to minors, where we started. I can imagine a marketing campaign by a broadcaster or, you know, a media company of some sort actually saying to parents, well, you can leave your kids in front of our services for half an hour if you need to and, you know, they wouldn’t see anything worse than a Coca-Cola advert or toys or something.

I think contrasting, what has always already regulates, something like editorial responsibility, I think will potentially become a positive marketing tool for the commercial content industry. I think it will do in minors. I think it will do in terms of production. But one of the fantastic tools we will have in the future is we might be the only place we, commercial broadcasters, public broadcasters, will be the only sources of original content in the local language and objective news in the local language. I think that’s a fantastic commercial advantage we can have. It will go further than self-regulation. There will be business reasons underpinning a lot of things that you have historically asked us to do.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Thank you very much.

John, and – or Antoine, please, yeah. 

>> ANTOINE LARPIN: Just a quick word. I think, again, just a reminder to close the loop, just to remind – when we think about regulation, what can be effective realistic in this Internet context. From a market point of view, it’s regulation. I won’t elaborate because we don’t have time. I think Ross’ point of one minute of YouTube for one hour of television. User control to us is really the key for whatever happens in this world and that’s really what we try to implement in our policies to make sure end users control what apps appear on their screen, where they appear, in which order, the same as EPG and give them the keys to rearrange it. It’s really user control that you also find to go back to the discussion on overlays as well. The users should decide what appears on the screen and technically, this is possible.

We don’t really see – we don’t have any story with the technology where this possibilities can be blocked and really work. It’s just remote controls. Maybe it didn’t like it when it was introduced but it’s hard to go against these possibilities.

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: Okay. Thank you very much. Does anybody want to have a last word? The last chance? 

>> PEDRO BICUDO: Our last question or a commentary or criticism? 

>> ELISABETH MARKOT: If not, an opportunity to say something for 30 seconds, sort of like self-advertising, we have a green paper out, which open until the end of August for public consultation, which raises a lot of the questions that were debated today and we would welcome very broad input into the public consultation and otherwise, I really wanted to thank you for all of why your input and distributions today. Pedro, would you –

>> PEDRO BICUDO: I would like to make a very brief content. I come from a very small village in the middle of the north Atlantic in the Azores and I grew up with no television until I was 15. Later on, you know, I became a television profession, and I turned to somehow sympathize with the ones who had no voice. John Carr highlighted the ones would have no capability to buy these new gadgets and a lot of people do not, and these are the ones that are going to be sort of left out of this discourse, of this opportunity, of this participation in the civic process.

And we talked about the minorities that sometimes have no – they have handicap or that somehow are limited in their capability to see, to listen to speak, to interact. While we have a large group of people that are not a minority, they are a growing number of elderly all over Europe facing these limations and these are the ones that have no voice.

We can see people representing children. We can see people representing other minorities, ethnic groups, nationalities. Elderly, the old folks have no voice and unfortunately, you know, I – I do not see them represented or nobody is asking questions or – and they are a large number of people, and we are growing old in our own different countries. A final question or a final commentary. This morning, I was taking public transportation. I that I it every day and this is a newspaper that you can see everywhere. Sometimes we meet at these lobbies, the hotels and we are talking about the future of God knows what. Well, this is very practical what we are dealing here.

The second page, the future of television. And basically they sum all the big questions we are asking ourselves, the commentaries and the ideas and what it will be, God knows what. It’s here. They even promise television for cats. 

And that said, I have a big announcement to make, it’s lunchtime! 

(Applause) 

>> Thank you.

[[Category:2013]][[Category:Sessions 2013]][[Category:Sessions]]