The role of traditional media and new media in digital age

The rise of digital has completely remodelled the media sector. Media convergence is a reality. The boundaries between traditional media and digital media are ever more blurred.

For example, social media are hosting more and more professionally-made content and are an increasingly important route to news.

Take the Discover feature of the instant messenger Snapchat, housing content from both broadcasters and publishers.

Or the recent agreement between Facebook and some publishers, allowing them to offer their content directly on the platform and sharing or letting them manage advertising revenues.

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism just published these days shows that in countries like Germany, France, UK, Italy, and Spain Facebook is increasingly the vehicle to deliver news.

The same report also shows that a significant proportion of young people no longer wait to watch the evening television news. They prefer to find out what is going on as it happens from a multiple source of online media sources.

Messaging services are also increasingly prominent: one-quarter of Spanish internet users said they have read, watched or discussed news on WhatsApp.

Traditional and new media are quickly converging into a larger, predominantly-digital media environment.

Physical boundaries – including among national media markets – are becoming less relevant, thanks for instance to mobile technologies.

The good news is that Europe has a very strong and high-quality media sector. In such a mutable context, we only need to make sure that media are up to speed as regards innovation and that our regulatory framework is adapted to the new environment. I will therefore focus my intervention on three main aspects:

Firstly, I intend to share with you some thoughts about the implications of media convergence for media businesses.

Secondly, I will present the work the Commission has undertaken towards aregulatory modernisation for the digital single market, including for audiovisual media services.
        
            By burugi maria