Czech Radio confirms its strong position on the international stage
The two-day EBU Radio Assembly concluded in Athens with the election of the 2023-2025 Radio Committee. Director General René Zavoral confirmed Czech Radio’s strong international position when he was elected member of the EBU Radio Committee.
“It is an honour for me to be re-elected as a member of the Radio Committee. I served as a vice-chair of the body for 6 years, which is why I did not seek re-election for this role. At the same time, I wanted Czech Radio to be represented in this prestigious EBU organization and we have achieved that. In the upcoming period, we shall focus on technology and content development of radio as a type of mass media and on legislation promoting the position of public-service broadcasters on the European media market,” says René Zavoral, Director General of Czech Radio.
Comprising of 14 members, the EBU Radio Committee is the principal policy-making body for European public-service radios. It makes decisions on strategic priorities for radio broadcasting in Europe. It formulates common positions of public radios on legislation, copyright issues related to music and digitization and promotes the development of radio broadcasting in the EBU member states.
The newly elected chair is the Director General of Radio France, Sibyle Veil, who said: “In a rapidly changing environment, public service media face many common challenges, especially in terms of securing our prominence in the new digital world and reaching all audiences, particularly younger generations.”
The three elected vice-chairs are the previous long-standing chair Graham Ellis from the BBC, Philippa de Rotten, Director of the Swiss RTS, and Mirko Štular, Radio Director of the Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO. The ten regular members include: René Zavoral (Czech Radio, Czech Republic), Andrea Borgnino (RAI, Italy), Eliana Čandrlić Glibota (HRT, Croatia), Iryna Korniienko (UA:PBC Suspilne, Ukraine), Maria Kozakou (ERT, Greece), Giedrius Masalskis (LRT, Lithuania), Milen Mitev (BNR, Bulgaria), Michael Reichert (ARD/BR, Germany), Dan Santa (ROR, Romania) and Sofia Taavitsainen (Sveriges Radio, Sweden).
The election was preceded by a two-day assembly that addressed a wide spectrum of topics – content strategies for audio platforms, scenarios of development of the European audio market with special focus on mobile apps, key insights into listening to audio in cars, cooperation with car makers and the role of the Ukrainian radio in the context of war.
The assembly virtually joined a parallel session in the European Parliament discussing the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) with Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission and the EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency, and Sabine Verheyen, Chair of the EP Committee on Culture and Education and the rapporteur for the Act.