The EBU represents 82 mainly public service broadcast organisation in and around Europe.

We own the largest broadcast network in the world, tapping directly into our member organizations. 

We run a daily news exchange, where around 150 items pass every day.

We exchange more than 4000 music concerts between members every year, forming a basis for many cultural and music radio channels.

We are instrumental in developing and setting standards, like DVB and DAB.

We lobby on behalf of our members, we offer legal advice and we are often asked for advice by various organizations, for instance the EU.

I come from a member organization, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, where I was a member of the board and responsible for all the Swedish language services until the end of last year. I joined the EBU in Feb 2012.

But we will start a little further back in history. In 2002 I was elected president of the World DAB Forum.  

When I started it was made clear to me that the expectation was that digital radio was to be spread over Europe so that we could drive from Rome to Stockholm, listening to digital radio. I quickly expanded that as a drive all the way to Helsinki, as I am Finnish.

This was to happen hopefully very soon, like in a years time.

Well, of course it didn’t really turn out that way.

Instead I started travelling to Asia, acquainted myself with the South Koreans and DMB, and together with the Koreans we managed to make DMB part of the DAB family. A little later the family grew even more, and DAB+ was added, mainly because of Australia’s absolute need of a more efficient audio coding.

And digital radio in the form of the DAB family started to grow around the world, and also in Europe. And Europe today certainly looks much more promising when it comes to digital radio than it did ten years ago.

However, we are still not in the situation that we can drive from Rome to Helsinki while listening to digital radio.

Therefore the EBU, at the initiative of the BBC, has engaged itself in a campaign we call the Eurochip campaign. This is not only about digital radio, this is about the future of radio.

The Euro‐Chip is a cost‐effective, interoperable and future‐proof radio reception chip which can be easily installed in mobile devices and cars. Integrating the main radio transmission technology standards, whether digital (DAB/DAB+/DMB) or analogue (FM), it will help audiences access their favourite radio broadcast services anytime, anywhere and can help develop new business models which will make radio fully part of the digital economy.  

We in the EBU want to underline that digital radio is more than simple technological progress: it is a means of enhancing the editorial tools available to broadcasters.  The combination of digital audio with texts, visuals and data will foster cross‐media extensions and hybrid transmission technologies, offering an improved experience for audiences and promoting new business models.  

The EBU firmly believes that not only broadcasters, but also consumers, carmakers and electronics manufacturers have much to gain from this initiative. It will mean:

• Cost‐free listening for consumers: Installed in mobile phones, the Euro‐Chip renders it possible for audiences to receive broadcast services everywhere at no incremental cost. Consumers will not need to pay for broadband reception of free‐to‐air radio services.  
• An Internal Market‐friendly device for audiences: future‐proof and interoperable, the Euro‐ Chip allows audiences to receive radio anywhere in Europe regardless of delivery technologies.  
• Efficient use of media delivery networks: by using broadcast technology, the Euro‐Chip reduces pressure on mobile broadband networks while making full use of spectrum allocations for digital and analogue radio.  
• Huge potential for combined media delivery channels: offering a seamless hybrid listening experience to audiences, hybrid radio services will foster new business models for the digital economy and generate creative opportunities and new ways of involving audiences in interactive programmes
• Enhanced traffic safety across Europe: the Euro‐Chip will give a much‐needed boost to road safety in Europe by simplifying the delivery of real‐time, language‐independent traffic information about local and cross‐border conditions.

The Euro‐Chip is a simple answer to give radio a future in the digital economy and will facilitate the transition to digital radio. With today’s media convergence, audiences, and youth in particular, expect to listen to radio on their mobile telephones and tablets. While radio‐only receivers are increasingly being replaced by more sophisticated devices, radio as a media continues to meet a strong consumer demand and will remain hugely popular as long as it is available on the devices used by audiences today and in the future.

If we take a quick look at the current situation in Europe, we can conclude that two countries, Norway and Denmark, already are so far down the road that they have announced  switchover   dates,  2017 for Norway and 2019 for Denmark. Both come with conditions, of course. More than half of the population must have switched to digital, in Norway already 2015, in Denmark 2019.

Sweden, like Finland, took an early start with DAB in the mid 90s, only to realize that both countries started out too early. But now Sweden is getting up to speed again, with a recent government commission speaking very favourably of digital radio, and with a strong multiplatform distribution strategy by the public radio broadcaster, SR.

And the rest of Europe?

The small countries seem to be ones that are sitting in the driving seat. In Belgium it is the French speaking PSB who is doing most of the work, while the Flemish one is more cautious.  There is a consortium between public and private broadcasters in place. Positive murmurs can be heard from the Netherlands, the Czeck radio, PSB, has a multiplatform strategy for radio, and Switzerland is well under way with digital radio with the currently largest network in Europe.

In France and Italy the public service broadcasters have multiplatform strategies for radio in place.

But most important: There is a strong and clearly growing support for digital radio, and an understanding that broadband will not take care of radios future. We need a strong broadcast backbone for radio. And we need all of Europe behind that, commercial and public broadcasters, and all of the industry. The EBU is committed to facilitate this process and put all its combined strength behind it.