TELEVISION ACROSS EUROPE

usa-utan-1016-c-printphoto:Layout 1 10/27/2008 1:54 PM Page 1MONITORING REPORT MONITORING REPORTToday’s pace of change in television has reached breakneck speed, affecting produc-tion, transmission, consumption, marketing, financing and ownership. Audiencesfragment, owners consolidate, and technology converges: Europe’s audiovisualindustry is grappling with these dynamic processes.To take the measure of these changes, the Open Society Institute has mapped the tel-TELEVISION ACROSS EUROPEevision landscape in nine countries: Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy,Lithuania, the Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. TV acrossEurope 2008 is the result. MORE CHANNELS, LESS INDEPENDENCEThe proliferation of content has increased the viewers’ freedom of choice. This is areal achievement, but is the public getting more quality or diversity? Editorial inde-pendence has deteriorated in most of the countries monitored. Governments stillrefuse to let public service broadcasters be independent, and have even clawed backthe control that they ceded a few years ago. The studies also highlight that as digitalswitchover draws closer, established broadcasters have largely managed to excludefresh competitors. Meanwhile, broadcast regulators have faced the new challenges bysticking their heads in the sand.