European PSBs must be properly financed, forum attendees told

European governments must deliver sufficient funding to ensure that public service broadcasters fulfill their mission based on the principles of universality, diversity and independence, EBU director-general Ingrid Deltenre told a conference in Poland on Friday.

Deltenre told attendees at the European Forum for New Ideas in Sopot that public broadcasters had a duty to provide programming for all parts of society. “Make no mistake, if something is free, you are the product: your eyeballs are sold to the advertising industry,” she said.

A fellow panelist at the conference, Telewizja Polska chairman Juliusz Braun, said that most of his group’s income was derived from advertising as only a minority of Poles paid the broadcasting licence fee. He urged governments to enforce licence fee collection more effectively to pay for national content.