UNION INTERNATIONALE DES TELECOMMUNICATIONS INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION UNIÓN INTERNACIONAL DE TELECOMUNICACIONES Montreux, 10 June 1993 Global Television - A Service to Mankind A Keynote Lecture by Pekka Tarjanne Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union to the 18th Montreux International Television Symposium In recent years, one of the main themes guiding the work of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), has been the need to adapt to the changing environment of global telecommunications. Much of the ITU's attention has been focussed on the changes taking place in the telecommunications carrier business, where trends toward liberalization, competition, privatization, deregulation and globalization have transformed the structure and functioning of the industry in less than a decade. These same forces are affecting the broadcasting segment of the telecommunications business. In my remarks today, I would like to offer some thoughts on the implications of these changes for broadcasters, particularly as they affect programming. I would also like to discuss the technical challenges facing the ITU in "the changing broadcasting environment". This new broadcasting environment is characterized by low-cost delivery means and a wide offer of broadcasting channels whose quality will range from conventional television to highly sophisticated forms of Enhanced and High Definition Television. All these innovations improve system capacity, optimize delivery systems and provide for more choices and better technical quality. At the same time, these changes have reinforced the role of broadcasting as the principal modern vehicle of culture, information and entertainment. In this new environment, the major challenge facing broadcasters is the production and diffusion of programming that meets the demands of individual viewers to receive the information they want, in the form they want, at the time they want. However, despite technological advances, the wider and wider offer of broadcasting channels has not been followed by parallel diversification of program "software" to fully match user requirements with the available technical means. In broadcasting as in the computer world, much of the challenge now lies in the complex, unpredictable field of program content, where talent, imagination and marketing skills are more important than engineering. In the new age of global markets, broadcasters will have to develop programs which meet audience expectations in both style and substance. Increasingly, these expectations are being influenced by global programming standards. Consumers exposed to global television services will demand improved quality, depth and perspective from their own national services. Rather than attempting to preclude access to global television services, national broadcasters - and those responsible for national broadcasting policies - would be well advised to accept the existence and the role of international television services, while they try to develop strategies aimed at exploiting synergies in an increasingly fragmented broadcasting marketplace. The challenge of the new broadcasting environment therefore includes the ongoing search for this delicate balance which will allow all players in the emerging multi-level, global broadcasting system to preserve their identity, to exploit the technical capabilities of new technologies, and to develop programming resources which enable local and national broadcasters to remain relevant and responsive to the needs and aspirations of domestic audiences. Positive answers to this challenge are already evident. International co- productions, joint ventures and strategic alliances are continuously being announced, and their echo has also reached this Symposium. They all go in the direction I just mentioned: - to match the production of software to the increased availability of hardware; - to diversify the offer of software thus enabling complementary services at the local, national, regional and world-wide level to meet audience demands and to provide consumers with the widest choice of information. What is the role of international organizations, in particular the ITU, in creating this new environment where global broadcasting is likely to play such a decisive role? As you know, several regional and international organizations are involved in this process. I am aware that some people think there are too many players, and that they are an obstacle to the development of the broadcasting industry. I do not fully agree with this criticism. The changing environment has affected international organizations too, at least those which intend to continue to play an active role. These international organizations have learned the same tough lesson as all telecommunication operators: if you want to survive you have to become more efficient, and to coordinate your activities with those of other parties. As a consequence, the ITU is trying to become more "user oriented". Its regulatory and standard making tasks will hopefully be regarded as a forum where a global technical framework can be established to provide for the internationally coordinated and economically efficient development of new broadcasting services - and not as a bureaucratic impediment to dynamic enterprises. I believe there is general recognition that broadcasting is no longer a global institution of a single character. Regions and nations are at different stages of broadcast development. Environments are different geographically, economically and culturally. Broadcasting has become a multi-level system that involves more players than in the past. Regulations should be agreed, not to prevent the development of global television services, but to allow their coexistence with local, national and regional services. Standards should be set up to ensure that global services can be made available to world-wide audiences at the minimum technical cost. The experience of the past two decades, has shown that the ITU is well placed to play a significant role in the development of new broadcasting technologies and services. I would therefore suggest that it is in the interest of all players to acknowledge the ITU as the global forum for developing such regulations and standards. In the early 1970s, in parallel with the important Japanese pioneering work, CCIR Study Group 11 on Television under the able chairmanship of Prof. Mark Krivocheev, initiated a dream that today has become a reality: High Definition Television. This group played a leading role in organizing and coordinating world-wide activities and studies in the search for a dramatically improved TV quality, and hence a better service to the viewer. It is a source of pride for the ITU that the first HDTV international standards were issued and unanimously agreed to by its Study Groups. The results of this work can easily be seen today at this Symposium. What was considered a curious laboratory exercise is becoming a mass-media reality. The ongoing search for better television is now focussed on digital TV systems. These systems will enable a quantum leap toward spectrum-efficient broadcasting of Enhanced and High Definition video signals. Again, ITU Broadcasting Study Groups have been the focal point of studies aimed at developing world-wide standards. In 1986, Study Group 11 recognized that the future of television would be in the digital domain and intensive work already underway was focussed on compressed digital television systems. In particular, then-new Recommendation 601 for digital representation of conventional television systems was seen as a building-block for future systems. Even so, at that time no one could have predicted the breathtaking advances in digital compression techniques that led to the proposals in the United States for all-digital television emission systems with HDTV quality operating within a 6 MHz bandwidth terrestrial television channel. And now many advances and successful demonstrations pop up like mushrooms all over on a rainy day in the fall. In particular, the "Grand Alliance" that has resulted from the competition organized by the FCC in the USA and evaluated by the Advanced Television Systems Committee will have a profound effect on the future of television. The resulting system has enormous flexibility. It will allow full compatibility with advanced computer systems, and is eminently adaptable to all delivery media: cable, terrestrial, satellite and recording. Interactive television and multi-media services will be facilitated. A parallel development, in which the same compression techniques are applied to conventional television systems, permits as many as 35 conventional television signals to be carried in the bandwidth of a single satellite HDTV channel. The economic and cultural effects of such systems, which are now being installed for operation in the near future, will be considerable, as will the demand for viable programming sources. With digital technology, we can look forward to a new era in which the passive reception of broadcast programs will be replaced by new media. These media will interact with viewers and actively involve them in the creation and exploration of information resources. It is my personal hope that in the information society of the twenty- first century, the "couch potato" phenomenon will be a thing of the past. How should we describe the television systems of the future? "Multi-media" is a currently favoured buzzword. What about the industry that produces them? How, for example, should we describe the products and services that will result from the agreement between US West and Time Warner? Are they telecommunications? Are they broadcasting? Are they entertainment? Are these activities the beginnings of a new industrial sector which might be called "the information industries"? As the old media redefine themselves on the basis of new technology and programming opportunities, we will probably have to invent a new vocabulary. As we move toward this new media future, the leading role historically played by broadcasters in regulatory- and standard- making processes should not be forgotten or underestimated. Presently, about one fourth of all the Recommendations adopted by the former CCIR, now the ITU Radiocommunication Sector, have been produced by Broadcasting Study Groups, thanks in large part to the outstanding participation of the broadcasters. It is in the interest of all the ITU member countries that this relationship should continue to bear fruit in the future. The recent ITU Additional Plenipotentiary Conference provided the means to initiate a wider international dialogue that would allow broadcasters, system operators and administrators to better understand their mutual needs, before policy becomes regulation. In addition, most technical issues related to broadcasting, including emission, production and recording, have been assigned to the work area of the new ITU Radiocommunication Sector. This will allow a more efficient and coordinated participation of experts to set both regulations and standards. Moreover, a higher-level participation of broadcasters in the ITU Radiocommunication Advisory Group to be established in November will surely contribute to set the necessary international framework in which the broadcasting services of tomorrow will develop. We expect that at its forthcoming first Radiocommunication Assembly in November this year, the new ITU Radiocommunication Sector, will confirm the importance of broadcasting as a service to mankind, and provide guidance to the ITU and its Radiocommunication Bureau on how better to serve the growing community of broadcast operators. Distinguished broadcasters, dear friends, we need your guidance, you need our global output, so let us continue together. Thanks.