Can a public broadcaster that enjoys soaring audience trust and delivers value for money afford to sit back and relax?

The CEO of Norwegian broadcaster NRK, Thor Gjermund Eriksen, said during the recent EBU IMPS visit to Oslo that mounting pressure on public broadcasters from online media meant the answer was unquestionably 'no'.

As a public service broadcaster, NRK is a triumph: 95 percent of the Norwegian audience feels NRK offers trustworthy news and documentary programmes, while 82 percent trust the organisation. On top of that, 74 percent feel they are getting value for money from the license fee.

Yet Thor Gjermund Eriksen (pictured right) said there is much to be done if his organization and others like it are to weather future challenges posed by online operators. It is a fact that younger people prefer to get their news online rather than via linear media, while global players like Netflix are making considerable inroads into the market for big budget drama and movies.

According to Eriksen NRK's response must be twofold: first, it has to allocate more money to creating original, high quality content in order to provide an appealing Norwegian language alternative to foreign imports. Secondly, NRK must increase its organisational flexibility, to adapt to the latest requirements from the market, such as a growing appetite for immediately available, continuously renewed mobile content.

Technical consequences

Technically speaking, this means ensuring that all production facilities are up to the task, both in terms of technical quality and speed. As NRK technical experts explained during the visit, this has consequences for the choice of video codecs, for example, because it translates into requirements such as minimizing transcoding delay and avoiding vendor lock-in.

Concerning the need for a more flexible production apparatus, the answers discussed in Oslo in this context revolved around more flexible system integration and the pervasive use of metadata. Most of this is not new for NRK, which started integrating its radio and television units back in 2002.

One could argue that NRK was ahead of its time, having had the vision, but not the urgency, to drive such changes through. The current revolution in media technology and consumption has changed that situation and given NRK reason to reinvent itself, even though it is already performing very well.