EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre told a major conference in Prague that public service media (PSM) with guaranteed and sustainable funding are as vital as ever in an era of social media and proliferating technical platforms.

“Information and culture are not apples and pears,” she told a panel session entitled The Changing Role of the Media. "Technology may have changed the way people access news, but not their need for trustworthy media."

Ms Deltenre said that the market alone does not provide news, culture and sports programming for all. To ensure the kind of democratic society Europeans want, PSM should receive sustainable funding through: licence fees, a mix of licence fees and advertising revenue, or direct government financing hedged by solid guarantees of non-interference.

The 16th Forum 2000 Conference held in the Czech capital from 21-24 October on the theme Media and Democracy, attracted 2,500 registered participants. It is the first to be organized since the death of former Czech President Vaclav Havel, co-founder of the event.

Ms Deltenre also addressed a panel entitled Public, State and Government Media: where are the boundaries?  Organized in cooperation with Czech Radio, the panel was moderated by CR’s editor-in-chief, Vaclav Sochor.

The EBU director general said that the main keys for a public broadcaster to remain independent are sustainable funding and strong rules of governance. Each country’s culture, and societal acceptance of the concept of public service media, also play an important role.

She noted that countries with a high degree of media freedom also have lower levels of corruption and observed that a high turnover of directors general in a public broadcaster was "usually a sign of government interference."