The EBU Technical Committee, the EBU’s senior elected technical body, met at ZDF headquarters in Mainz, Germany. The invitation allows the members to see, first hand, ZDF’s purpose-built television news studios. It is a world of “robotic” cameras, and what are probably the most advanced “virtual” studios in the world. Newsreaders can appear to be anywhere from main-street Germany to standing on the moon. Viewers like it, and the journalists say there is no going back.

One of ZDF’s purpose-built television news studios

The Technical Committee also had its plate full of other issues and decisions to make. A new working structure, better suited to today’s media technology, is about to be put in place. There are challenges too in new technologies for combining broadcasting and broadcast internet.  And what about “3D TV”? That needs studying in-depth too.