14-15 October 2010, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

The international conference “Addressing Europe’s Digital Divide: Towards Sustainable Public Service Media in South East Europe” aims to demonstrate the importance of investing in sustainable and independent public media in South East Europe to avoid a digital divide as Europe moves towards analogue switch-off in 2012.

The event will be held on 14-15 October 2010 in Sarajevo, under the auspices of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The goal is to deepen the understanding between the governments and the broadcasters on a need to have viable public service media in the region ready to meet the objectives of the analogue switch-off and provide the citizens with high quality public service function.

The conference will be opened by RCC Secretary General Hido Biščević and EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre. Other participants will include senior government officials and directors general of EBU members from South East Europe. Representatives of the regulators, as well as of relevant international organizations, are also expected to take part in the event.

Programme of the event in English is available HERE and in Bosnian HERE.
Background info in English is available HERE and in Bosnian HERE.

Media Advisory on the conference is available HERE, and Press Release HERE.

The conference conclusions are available in English HERE, and Bosnian HERE.

Opening addresses:

• Hido Biscevic, Secretary General of the regional Cooperation Council (bs verzija)
• Ingrid Deltenre, Director General of the European Broadcasting Union (bs verzija)
• Rudo Vidovic, Minister of Communications and Transport of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Presentations:

The views expressed in the presentations below belong solely to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Regional Cooperation Council and its Secretariat. The RCC Secretariat is not responsible for the content of the presentation.

• Bledar Meniku, Coordinator for Electronic Communications and Mail, Ministry for Innovation and Information Technology and Communication of Albania
• Maria Luisa Fernandez Esteban, Directorate General for the Information Society, European Commission
• Marija Nemčić, Deputy Director General for International Relations, HRT
• Nataša Vučković Lesendrić, Assistant Minister for Media, Ministry of Culture of Serbia
• Oliver Vujović, Secretary General, SEEMO
• Petar Karanakov, Executive Director, MKRT
• Taha Yucel, Member, Radio and Television Supreme Council of Turkey
• Tom Brink, Project Leader, Institute for Vision and Sound, National Audiovisual Archive of The Netherlands
• Željka Lekić, Coordinator, ERNO