Television faces “a strong and important future in the digital world; it will be capable of more and richer than ever before.” ZDF Director-General Markus Schächter offered this optimistic forecast on Thursday, 15 May 2008, while opening a two-day European Broadcasting Union technology conference at ZDF’s broadcasting center in Mainz. ZDF regards the forthcoming changes, expected to be more profound than any industry developments during the past 50 years, as “an opportunity offering a wealth of new prospects for television.”
Schächter says the television of the future can be characterized by four points. It will be available across even more platforms and can also be received on mobile devices. New forms of use will make it available to viewers everywhere and at all times—on large television screens in the living room, on PCs in the study and on mobile phones while traveling. Viewing will no longer be tied to fixed start times, but available on demand whenever audiences choose. The number of television channels will increase significantly again, particularly through further target-group and specialist channels. Finally, future television programs will offer brilliant picture and sound quality, meaning that they will be produced and broadcast in high definition with multichannel audio.
Schächter’s remarks opened the annual meeting of the EBU Technical Assembly, hosted this year at ZDF’s Lerchenberg broadcasting center in Mainz. The assembly is the European Broadcasting Union’s highest technical body. Its agenda covers technology trends in production and program-distribution technology, along with strategic and media-policy frameworks. This year’s topics include high-definition television, mobile television, television over closed IP networks and television distribution over the open internet, for example through media libraries. A focal point of discussion will be the “digital dividend,” referring to terrestrial broadcast frequencies freed after the transition from analog to digital terrestrial television and intended in some countries for other services such as mobile communications. Around 150 delegates from more than 45 countries are attending the two-day event at ZDF.
