• News coverage of terrorist attacks
  Sergei Kurokhtin, RDO, gave an update on the consequences of the Moscow hostage crisis:  more restrictive legislation for the press, for example, no interviews with terrorists, no live broadcasts, etc. He asked his European colleagues to help him ensure that the freedom of the press was upheld.
• The conclusions of a study conducted by the EBU's Strategic Information Service, presented by:
  - Penelope Rudd, EBU (overview of how the SIS's first major radio survey was conducted);
  - Stanislaw Jedrzejewski, PR, (European radios, programme offer, formats, listening habits, funding); 
   - Graham Dixon, BBC (markets, different types of audiences, new technologies, competition).
• Important radio events in 2003 to which delegates have been invited.
  - Rencontre RNE (8 and 9 May). Eduardo Hernaiz, Secretary General of RNE, presented this year's theme: Redefining public radio: contents and formats of the future. 
  - The Workshop on DAB Content (28 May, Brussels) and the Pan-European Day on Radio Culture (12 October) were presented by Raina Konstaninova (EBU).

The professional discussion took place in the afternoon under the following theme:

Culture on radio revisited: challenges, audiences, new demands

The discussion on "Changing radio for a changing culture"  was opened by Heinz-Dieter Sommer (ARD/HR) and Michael Tracey, director of the Center for Mass Media Research at the University of Colorado (USA). According to Heinz-Dieter Sommer, the traditional concept of culture was outdated. Today, its function must be reflected by society: it must be entertainment, an incentive, an event and an intellectual challenge. In order to achieve this, channels that are in the traditional classical vein with a standard range of music must compete with private classical channels. "Multicolour" radio offering a very wide range of music and which incorporates politics, reviews, etc. must be set up, and the Internet must be used in support of these new formats.

Michael Tracey was more pessimistic about radio's future in the USA and speculated whether Europe might also suffer the same fate by not taking into account the interests of listeners but those of the industries financing radio, thus neglecting radio's true values and leading to a general decline in culture.

Ann Sandelin (YLE) chaired the discussion "Changing cultural content – the challenges", in which Roger Wright (BBC), Svetlana Dimitrova (BNR), Solveig Mattsson (YLE) and Jan Westerhof (NPB) participated.

The session on Friday 4 April, chaired by Vlado Senica (RTVSLO), covers the subjects:

"Reflecting the culture of new audiences", with the participation of François Desnoyers (Radio France), Angiolino Lonardi (RAI), Gérard Tschoppp (SSR) and Lukas Hurnik (CR).

"Communicating culture on all platforms". Chaired by Bernd Peter Arnod (ARD/HR), its speakers include Walter Couvreur (VRT), Leif Lønsmann (DR), Josep M. Marti (SER), Marie Wennerten and Karolina Gerdin (SR).

The podium: Vlado Senica, RTVSLO; Raina Konstantinova, EBU; Nicholas Kenyon, BBC; Jean Stock, Secretary General of the EBU; Ann Sandelin, YLE