News from the EBU

MediaRoad receives an excellent assessment – paving the way for Horizon Europe to shine a light on projects combining creativity and technology

We are delighted that the EBU-coordinated MediaRoad project has received an extremely positive final review from independent experts mandated by the European Commission. A reminder of MediaRoad: it has been a collaboration between European media, producers and researchers to accelerate innovation across the sector. The MediaRoad project focused on three hubs: a SandBox hub; a Policy Hub; and a Network Hub. It ran for over two years, ending on 31 October 2019, and was funded by the Horizon 2020 programme.

The review of MediaRoad recently published by the European Commission states:

  • The project has delivered exceptional results with significant immediate or potential impact
  • The expected results and impact surpassed the expectations. This is particularly true for theSandbox hub.
  • The achievements are impressive and strengthen the European media landscape as digital innovation continues to accelerate.
  • The project was able to overachieve on some of the envisaged impacts, by establishing a large network of European stakeholders in the media industry through the envisaged activities implemented in the Policy, Networking, and Sandbox hubs.
  • The project has a strong impact on SMEs, relying on the Sandbox network. The number of results obtained by the Sandbox is quite impressive.

Some key figures from MediaRoad are detailed below.

The positive impact of MediaRoad demonstrates that bringing together creativity and technology innovation deserves a prominent place in the new Horizon Europe programme.

We want to give a shout-out to the partners that made MediaRoad such a success: the broadcasters, both public, with the BBC, RAI, and VRT, and commercial, with the Association of European Radios; the leading media research institutes IRT, EPFL and IMEC; and CEPI, the European Audiovisual Production Association.  For the EBU, MediaRoad was a hugely valuable and rewarding experience. We are proud that its legacy will continue to drive innovation across Europe’s media.

Key figures from MediaRoad

  • 18 Sandboxes were created and more than 20 pitching events for start-ups at an international level and provided matchmaking between media companies and media tech entrepreneurs.
  • Eight policy-oriented newsletters and two MediaRoad Vision documents were published: “The Future of Media Innovation – European Research Agenda beyond 2020”, “Future and emerging technological trends for the media sector”.
  • Seven responses to relevant EU consultations were delivered.
  • A network of more than 50 official MediaRoad stakeholders was developed, including broadcasters, production companies, R&D institutes, key creative sector players, new media, technology-developing SMEs, journalists and academics.
  • 20 successful events were organised to highlight relevant topics and foster collaboration and exchange.
  • MediaRoad activities and results were disseminated through 99 videos, 103 news articles, seven publications, 17 newsletters, nine press releases, 10 podcast episodes and representations at 84 external conferences and meetings.
Commissioner Gabriel at the MediaRoad closing conference

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Creative media clusters – findings

“Organisational Culture of Public Service Media: People, Values and Processes” (2015–2019)

Project report by Michal Glowacki and Lizzie Jackson

www.creativemediaclusters.com/findings 

 

From 2015–2019 Dr Michał Głowacki and Professor Lizzie Jackson have been investigating the internal organisational cultures often successful high technology clusters in North America and Europe. The project aimed to identify the strategies and organisational culture of firms operating within such clusters to inform the evolution of public service media worldwide. The researchers also included the nearest public service media outlet to each cluster in the investigation. “Organisational Culture of Public Service Media: People, Values and Processes” examined four high

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CONTENT AND DIGITAL INNOVATION IN A MULTI-PLATFORM WORLD – Key Takeaways and Summary

Partners synergy in Mediaroad: CEPI and EBU’s way forward

Jerome Dechesne, CEPI President, underlined the crucial role that the creative industries sector will increasingly play, and the key importance of each stakeholder along the audiovisual value chain. Research and innovation can multiply the potential of the industry: firstly, by powering content production and distribution and adapting the traditional means to the technological era; secondly, by investing on skills and digital literacy for the whole sector and for audiovisual workers to remain competitive. Dechesne suggested the establishment of a dedicated European media innovation scheme within Horizon Europe to amplify the innovation potential of the media sector. Nicola Frank, Head of European Affairs at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), highlighted the current evolution of traditional broadcasters into more flexible public service media organisations. The growing complexity of the sector would be reflected by the creation of a European Media Ecosystem, which MediaRoad could serve as blueprint for. The structure could revolve around three main hubs: the SandBox Hub, dedicated to innovation; the Policy Hub, to develop a common policy vision; and the Network Hub, for coordination on policy action between stakeholders.

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