Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a pleasure to be here in Brussels this morning in a city which has seen much turmoil and pain in recent months but remains one of the great civilised and civilising cities of Europe. It’s also a great pleasure to see so many of you from the car industry here today. Motor cars and the radio have been inseparable companions for well over half a century so it’s good to have an opportunity to meet you over a coffee and talk about our mutual interest in offering motorists and passengers the very best in digital technology and services.

A little over two months ago, at a meeting in Paris, the BBC and 11 other broadcasters from across Europe formed the European Digital Radio Alliance, or EDRA as it’s become known, and I was invited to be the first president. Given that we already have an international body for digital radio in the shape of our hosts today, WorldDAB, you may wonder why we chose to create the alliance. It wasn’t because European radio directors don’t have enough meetings to go to. We do. And it certainly wasn’t because the world of radio is short of acronyms. It’s not. The answer is that as radio leaders we realised, perhaps rather belatedly, that we needed to act together to dispel the uncertainty that has held back investment in the rollout of DAB in the radio supply chain. I suspect that we the broadcasters are partly responsible for some of that uncertainty. Let me explain what I mean.

In the UK we embarked on DAB digital radio broadcasting something over 15 years ago. The BBC was able to work closely with the commercial sector because together we developed a strategy of competing on content but collaborating on technology. We set up a jointly owned company, along with our transmission partner, to promote digital radio. Successive governments supported and enabled the rollout of DAB across the nation . We started to talk about a timetable for a digital switchover. And as we did, so other countries were following suit. But as well as successes there were hurdles to be overcome. Progress on getting DAB into cars had not been easy - although thanks to the UK’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders I’m pleased to say that 80 per cent of new vehicles in the UK now come with DAB as standard and I’m delighted to see Mikes Hawes of the SMMT here today. On top of that there were siren voices who argued that DAB was a transitional technology and that in future the Internet and the connected car would do away with the need for broadcast radio. And looking across the English C hannel we saw that while many countries were introducing DAB, others were not, preferring to stick, for the time being at least, to FM. Talking to other radio leaders in Europe we recognised that this picture was confusing for consumers and particularly for the car industry, which requires a long lead time to develop a product with a long working life . We also realised that because radio is generally a national policy issue there is no European Union level guidance for car and set manufacturers on the impact of digital technology in this area.

Those conversations provided the genesis of the European Digital Radio Alliance with twelve companies representing more than 300 public service and commercial radio stations coming together in Paris in March to push for a joined-up approach to modernising radio - and I’m delighted to say there is a now queue of radio stations wanting to join. What characterises the Alliance is a shared commitment to making DAB the preferred choice of listeners in our areas of operation. But let me stress at this point that although we in the Alliance are keen to drive forward a digital agenda in our own countries, our strategy is to support a hybrid DAB/FM solution that supports all broadcasters and consumers in Europe and which allows individual countries to go digital at their own speed. It will take time. The benefits of DAB are well understood in terms of consumer choice and financial and spectrum efficiency, but introducing it everywhere in Europe will take many years, just as it took many years to provide FM signals.

That is why we need a hybrid approach. If you are designing a car today and ask me how the driver will want radio when it is halfway through its life in say 12 to 15 years’ time, then the answer is it may be DAB, FM or the Internet - just as 20 years ago it was long-wave, medium-wave or FM. Of course, it will help if there is a clear facilitating role for the European Union to support industry in bringing digital radio to consumers within the context of the Digital Single Market. The UK Government thinks so too. I’m not often tempted to quote from the UK’s policy submissions to Brussels but on this occasion I make an exception because so far as the Alliance is concerned, the UK Government is bang on the money. This is what the UK said in response to the consultation on the review of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive: ‘We feel that the Digital Single Market strategy ignores the continuing importance of supporting a digital future for radio. The UK wants to ensure it remains a distinctive and vibrant medium for citizens and consumers. Whilst it is appropriate that responsibility for the regulation of radio services remains within the competence of national Governments, the Commission could play a role in supporting the transition by supporting common technical standards for digital radio, encouraging European car manufacturers to install digital radio alongside FM and to promote the carriage of European radio services on digital networks.’

The UK is not alone in this view. I understand the German Government has made similar representations. The European Digital Radio Alliance supports that policy approach and we look to the Commission to bring together all stakeholders to help provide choice, quality and value for consumers, and clarity for set manufacturers and the auto industry. Of course, when it comes to those influencing the EU institutions here in Brussels, the members of our Alliance are somewhat outnumbered by the big international Internet companies. I expect some of those lobbyists also turn up on the doorsteps of car manufacturers. The Internet is a wonderful thing and it is changing our lives at a pace which is sometimes bewildering. So much so that some people believe that in the foreseeable future, broadcast radio will be redundant and the Internet will be able deliver radio to all. I’m sure some of you hear this argument too because the key to making it possible, so the argument goes, is the advent of the connected car. To be sure, the connected car is a great advance that will make motoring greener, safer and more efficient , but the idea that the Internet could reliably deliver radio signals to motorists anywhere they want them is fanciful. In the UK alone we consume some two billion hours of radio every week. Much of that is consumed on the move with huge numbers of vehicles moving through individual cells around our major cities. Never forget that the currency of radio is measured in billions of hours. Broadcast radio meets that challenge efficiently. The Internet cannot . Not now and not in the foreseeable future.

There are a number of other reasons why the supply chain, governments and the car industry should look carefully at the arguments for replacing broadcast with Internet only radio distribution. I’d like to look at three in particular. Firstly, broadcast radio is comparatively secure. The path from the studio to the transmitter mast and on to the listener is not easily vulnerable to malicious external attacks. Nor is it vulnerable to unpredicted spikes in demand caused by emergencies. The same can’t be said of the Internet. Broadcasters have already been on the receiving end of malicious so-called ‘phishing’ and ‘distributed denial of service’ attacks which in some cases have taken down Internet services for hours on end. Do we want the best single means of communication with citizens at home and on the move to be at the mercy of a robot network of zombie computers? Or to be overwhelmed in an emergency as was so recently the case here in Brussels? Under the pressure of high volumes of traffic, the network crashed and so did the national broadcaster VRT’s Internet radio player. Just at the moment people most needed information and advice. Fortunately listeners could still rely on broadcast radio.

Secondly all of us - broadcasters, regulators and car manufacturers have a relationship with the consumer. For us as broadcasters, the consumer is a listener. For governments and regulators, the consumer is a citizen. And for the car industry, the consumer is a potential client. Those consumers are used to getting radio in their vehicles free of charge. The broadcasters want that to continue. We do not want to see information and entertainment that is currently free become the subject of a connection charge. I suspect most governments and regulators would take a similar view because their instinct is to protect the consumer, who is also, of course, usually a voter! No doubt the car industry will want to see new services in connected cars that can only come via the Internet and must therefore be the subject of a connection charge. But I would be surprised if manufacturers want radio to be in that category - and you will know better than me the likely resistance of customers to paying for what hitherto they have had for nothing .

Finally, and I think this is particularly an issue for the car industry, the relationship between radio broadcasters and the streaming services, such as Tune-in and Spotify, is comparatively recent and it is continuing to evolve. For those of you who are planning what entertainment and information may be available in vehicles many years from now, do bear in mind that the manner in which radio services and programmes are carried by streaming services is a matter for the rights holders and is therefore subject to change. Just because something is there today doesn’t mean it’ll be there tomorrow. Or in five years’ time. All that said, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that broadcasters oppose the Internet. Quite the opposite. It is, as I have said, a wonderful thing that is making our lives richer and it is much used by broadcasters to support their services, and you will be hearing more later on from Mike Hill of UK Radioplayer – a company I should acknowledge that I chair - about its plans to give motorists the best of both worlds . But let us be in no doubt. The Internet is not a potential replacement for radio, which has demonstrated itself to be a highly resilient medium . DAB and FM services will continue in Europe for many years to come. The Internet adds a new dimension. It makes things more complicated because it throws up so many new choices and opportunities. But for those of you who grapple with long-term planning, the best way to future-proof your decision-making is to recognise that all three will be needed side by side: DAB, FM and the Internet.