Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 19, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
In a statement on a communication from the EU Commission, however, Raff criticized the fact that for mobile television the Commission wants to provide only what it calls “light touch- regulation”, excluding must-carry obligations for broadcasting.
The ARD Chairman on this: “This approach disregards the fact that frequencies from the broadcasting spectrum are used for mobile TV services and that this distribution path is enormously important for the future of broadcasting. Therefore, there can also be no ‘regulatory holidays’ here; rather, it must be ensured that operators of mobile TV platforms are subjected to access and diversity obligations when broadcasting takes place on these platforms. ”
Raff continued that the states also agreed with this view. Mobile television must also be committed to diversity! Distributing public-service broadcasting programmes via mobile TV platforms was a must in order to allow the German broadcasting-fee payer to participate in the “digital dividend”.
This would also serve the EU Commission’s plan. Raff: “Public-service content will make an essential contribution to mobile television being successful.” Raff also welcomed the fact that the EU Commission did not provide for the mandatory mandating of a technical standard, but recommended market-led solutions such as including DVB-H in a list of open standards. This did not rule out testing other standards for so-called mobile-phone TV such as DMB, on the basis of which there were also pilot projects in Germany.
