SUMMIT

These are the principles we should keep in mind, when discussing the necessary regulatory
framework for new media.
However, we see quite oen that as the impact of new media increases, so do regulaon
techniques that can be used to limit the free flow of informaon. New media are oen
subject to restricons that will not be accepted in tradional media. Violaons of freedom
of expression are growing, and the need to discuss how to prevent undesired side effects
of new regulaon has become urgent.
New ICTs and new media have brought enhanced business compeon and development,
empowerment of individuals and communies to the beer of democracy, increased
diversity and media pluralism. Everyone - and again this is a substanal limitaon in
several parts of the world - with a connecon can start a web-radio or TV, while every
internet user has access to an immense diversity of media, provided there are no filters on
the Internet.
This is in fact a huge challenge - for the good – to the situaon of media concentraon or
oligopolies that we see in many sociees, a situaon which is oen resulng from past
insufficient or outdated regulatory frameworks. This challenge has an impact for
tradional media, which are facing increased compeon, a diluon of the adversing
market, which again is impacng their sustainability, issues around exploitaon and
protecon of copyright and intellectual property rights.
In order to tackle these challenges, several strategies have been aempted, from print
newspapers strengthening their online services, for instance, and thus transforming themselves
also into being “new media-outlets” while at the same me they are transforming
their print pages into in-depth analysis outlets that readers will digest the day aer to
complement the news read online the day before.
There are also massive challenges to public service broadcasters. They are responding in
different ways. Many are very diligently integrang web-services, for instance, on children,
youth, and educaonal programming, as well as they are encouraging and including
user-generated content. Sll, they are facing serious obstacles. For example, the European
Commission is considering regulatory responses to claims from private broadcasters and
new media companies, including from the telecommunicaon industry that public service
broadcast organisaons exercise unfair compeon and thus distort the market. Broadcasters
also meet increasing compeon from audio-visual producon companies, which
are ready to diffuse for free their producons on the web as a promoonal tool.
Eventually the most serious challenge will be coming from the telecommunicaon companies
which are now strongly moving into the field of content producon, parcularly
content distribuon on all mobile and digital plaorms. Recent bales in France between
the large telecommunicaon company Orange and one of the biggest private television
companies, Canal +, show that the public service broadcasters are not alone in finding
good answers to this new challenge.
But there are also challenges to the new media themselves. The new media market today
has very few entry barriers. With lile resources everyone can become a publisher or a
broadcaster - and the real entry barrier is no longer primarily financial resources, but more
so good ideas and the tools and capacity to pursue them. This raises the next issue,
namely, that while new business models for increasing pluralism and diversity of voices
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