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:
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
“The media sector plays a central role in making Europe fit for the digital age”,
said Antonio Arcidiacono, EBU Director of Technology & Innovation, in his keynote to an audience of EU lawmakers, EBU Members and high-level speakers including the current EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel.
The Paper has been developed by the Policy Hub of MediaRoad. Launched in September 2017, the two-year MediaRoad project brings together a wide range of European media stakeholders. The project aims to provide recommendations for future-proofing media policies and promoting the implementation of innovative media concepts. MediaRoad benefits from the support and funding from the European Union research and innovation funding programme Horizon 2020.
MediaRoad’s 2nd Vision Paper takes as starting point the 1st Vision Paper on the Future of Media Innovation, and its identification of key trends and challenges for the European media sector, and the derived policy recommendations. Based on a combination of various sources (in particular experts interviews and an online survey), it provides, for each technological trend, an analysis of its likely impact on the media sector and on society as a whole, and policy recommendations.
Accelerating European media innovation is an essential means to promote media pluralism and freedom of expression. It will ensure the sustainability and development of Europe’s media and creative industry.
“An adequate regulatory framework and the support of relevant EU programmes are simply vital to the acceleration of media innovation in Europe” said Nicola Frank, EBU Head of European Affairs.
The EBU & MediaRoad have put forward 9 recommendations to this end:
On June 26th, at Rai premises in Torino, the Open Innovation Day was carried out for the second time. The workshop was specially targeted to startups and small enterprises offering innovative solutions to technical and editorial problems in the area of media. Its goal was to improve mutual knowledge in areas of interest, creating a network of stakeholders aimed at collaborating, and contributing to innovation in the media industry. The event was organised in collaboration with ItaliaStartup, the not-for-profit association of Italian Startups, and I3P, the innovation accelerator of the Polytechnic of Turin, in synergy with the Italian Tech Week, a whole week of conferences and workshop focusing on innovation and technology in Torino.
By Kati Bremme, Innovation & Prospective Directorate
Algorithms are made to solve problems. Generating suspicion in some, perceived as a miracle solution by others, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere, impacting every industry. Some, though, struggle a bit more to fully embrace it, an example being the media. Compared to the financial or health sectors, the media’s capacity to acquire the necessary tools to integrate AI is less flexible and dynamic. In its latest AI Predictions Report, the PwC firm pinpoints these differences, reporting that 20% of interviewed executives plan to deploy AI in their enterprise, but only 7% in the media sector.
However, the application fields for AI in the mediums of written press, cinema, radio, television and advertising are broad: automation of business processes and customer relationships, social network monitoring and listening, information verification, predictive analysis of success
Are you part of the media industry, the audiovisual or radio sector?
Are you interested in understanding the evolution of the media sector and are you interested in technological innovation?
The Paper has been developed by the Policy Hub of MediaRoad. Launched in September 2017, the two-year MediaRoad project brings together a wide range of European media stakeholders. The project aims to provide recommendations for future-proofing media policies and promoting the implementation of innovative media concepts.
Support from the European Union research and innovation funding programme Horizon 2020 has been crucial in bringing these ideas to life. With the culmination of Horizon 2020 and efforts to prepare its successor “Horizon Europe”, media stakeholders and policy makers are faced with a unique opportunity to share their vision to how to drive the future of research and innovation in Europe.
MediaRoad session: how do we enhance European media innovation
16 September 2018, 14h00 – 15h00
IBC, EBU Stand 10.F20. – RAI Amsterdam
Currently, the European media sector finds itself in a convergent, multiplatform and globalized landscape offering a set of opportunities and challenges for media players to innovate from creative content production to technological innovation and R&D, and across the value chain.
The MediaRoad project aspires to reawaken a ‘start-up mentality’ in the media sector, reshaping the way organizations collaborate and deploy new ideas in the market. The European Broadcasting Union is leading a consortium in which some of Europe’s most prominent broadcasters (BBC, RAI, VRT, Association of European Radios) work alongside leading media research institutes (IRT, EPFL, IMEC) and independent producers (CEPI TV). Project partners work within three project Hubs and support the transformation of the European media sector by building an ecosystem for innovation.
