The EBU's Director of Technology & Innovation, Lieven Vermaele, was the keynote speaker at DVB World 2013 in Madrid yesterday. Giving his vision of the future media landscape, he asked who would pay for the "digital roads" the economy will rely so heavily upon.

While many politicians and policymakers have focused strongly on broadband delivery, Mr Vermaele said that there will always be an important role for broadcast technologies also. In fact, the key to Europe's digital media agenda in future will be the use of broadcast and broadband working together to ensure that content and services are delivered efficiently and cost-effectively - and creating a win-win situation for all.

20 years of growth

DVB World is the annual conference organized by the DVB Project, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year. In his opening address, chair Phil Laven quoted figures from Screen Digest indicating that DVB systems are used for around 70% of digital television around the world now. The fastest growing sector now is terrestrial television using DVB-T and DVB-T2.

This year's DVB World is taking place in Madrid for the first time, with 180 participants expected. The conference runs until tomorrow with a programme where the key word is "beyond": session titles include "Beyond the Second Generation", "Beyond the Second Screen" and "Beyond Broadcast". Clearly the DVB Project is looking to the future in a variety of different domains!

Photos: Above: DVB Promotion and Communications Module chair Helmut Stein welcoming delegates to DVB World 2013; below: Lieven Vermaele's keynote presentation took the form of a Q&A session moderated by David Wood.

Paving the Digital Roads

Lieven Vermaele's editorial in the most recent issue of tech-i magazine also deals with the subject of how to keep the digital media economy on the road. Click below to download it.