European Broadcasting Union

Acronym: EBU

Established: 1950

Address: L'Ancienne-Route 17A, 1218 Le Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland

Stakeholder group: International and regional organisation

The EBU is the world’s leading alliance of public service media. It has 113 member organisations in 56 countries and an additional 31 associates in Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the Americas. EBU members operate nearly 2,000 television, radio, and online channels and services, and offer a wealth of content across other platforms.

Together they reach an audience of more than one billion people around the world, broadcasting in more than 160 languages. The EBU operates the Eurovision and Euroradio services.

Contents

Digital policy issues

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a prime strategic priority for public service media (PSM) and for the EBU, which acts as a centre of PSM knowledge, collaboration, and best practice in AI.

European public broadcasters are leveraging AI to enhance content delivery, distribution, and audience engagement. Automated translation, synthetic voices, and personal recommendations allow PSM to innovate and continue to provide audiences with high-quality, diverse content.

While generative AI is transforming media production and user experience, it also presents big challenges. Its development is dominated by a few tech giants that control vast datasets and infrastructure, stoking concerns about fair innovation, content exploitation, misinformation, and the trustworthiness of media.

To ensure a reliable media ecosystem in the AI age, the EBU is brokering collaboration between media organisations, regulators, Big Tech and Big AI. The aim is to foster technical innovation, secure sustainable investment in journalism and media literacy, while safeguarding democratic values and, above all, public trust.

The EBU has identified three areas of strategic concern:

Data use and fair relationships

Media organisations must retain control over whether and how their content is used to train AI models. This includes negotiating conditions, ensuring transparency in AI providers’ use of media content, and receiving due remuneration. Current AI training practices often lack transparency, and the EBU wants media rights holders to determine the use of their data.

Source attribution and display

Trustworthy media sources should be clearly credited when their content informs AI-generated outputs. Generative AI systems should link back to original media content, enabling users to identify and select credible sources. Guidelines for the presentation and attribution of media sources need to be developed in collaboration with media companies.

Prominence and verification

To counter the spread of disinformation, it is essential to prioritise trustworthy, diverse media. Collaboration among AI providers, media, and online platforms is necessary to create reliable verification tools, such as C2PA, ensure the visibility of credible content, and remove illegal or misleading material.

Highlight initiatives

Among its numerous AI workstreams, the EBU has:

Opened the School of AI to provide bespoke learning and development on AI for EBU members and other media professionals.
Published its News Report 2024, titled ‘Trusted Journalism in the Age of Generative AI’, to illustrate the opportunities and risks of generative AI for journalism and media.
Launched the EBU AI Sandbox to facilitate the development and evaluation of customised AI solutions based on open source models.
Published an online casebook of creative uses of AI in media, which is still growing.

The EBU stands ready to facilitate constructive dialogue to shape responsible, transparent, and fair AI practices for public service media.

Telecommunication infrastructure

EBU members use various types of network infrastructure for the production and distribution of PSM content and services to the entire population. In addition to traditional broadcasting networks – terrestrial, cable, or satellite – media service providers use fixed and wireless IP networks. EBU’s activities aim to ensure that these networks are capable of meeting the requirements of PSM organisations and their audiences in a technically and economically viable way. This includes technical developments and standardisation in collaboration with industry partners, as well as engagement with regulators and policymakers to ensure a suitable regulatory framework for PSM content and services.

The current focus is on a multi-layer distribution infrastructure that is both cost-effective and resilient, including in times of crisis. This includes distribution over IP and internet platforms, the use of wireless mobile technologies, as well as the integration of satellite and terrestrial broadcast networks, also with a view to their respective spectrum needs.

Following the start of the war in Ukraine and the 2021 flooding in Europe, the EBU issued a recommendation to recall the crucial importance of PSM’s delivery to citizens – for this, no single resilient network will suffice.

The governance of the EBU’s technical work is described here: https://tech.ebu.ch/about. A summary of the Technical Committee’s high-level goals is available here: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/workplan/EBU_TC_Strategic_Priorities_2022-2025.pdf

Further information about the EBU’s technical work, including the scope of different working groups, can be found at https://tech.ebu.ch/home/.

Digital standards

Since its inception in 1950, the EBU has been mandated by its members to contribute to standardisation work in all technological fields related to media. This work ranges from TV and radio production equipment to the new broadcasting standards for transmission. This mandate has been naturally extended over the years to the field of mobile technologies, as well as online production and distribution.

The EBU hosts the digital video broadcasting (DVB) project, which has developed digital TV standards such as DVB-T/T2 and DVB-S/S2 which are the backbone of digital TV broadcasting around the world. DVB is currently working on an IP-based distribution system and DVB-I, a new open standard for content distribution over the internet. This work is closely aligned with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

The EBU is an active member of a number of other standards and industry organisations that are developing specifications relevant to media content production and distribution, including major standards developing organisations (SDOs) (e.g. the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), 3GPP, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), but also those with a more focused scope (e.g. Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), or the Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA) and many others. In all these organisations, the EBU’s main objective is to ensure that specifications are capable of meeting the requirements of EBU members and their audiences.

In 2019, the EBU also launched the 5G Media Action Group (5G-MAG), an independent nonprofit cross-industry association that provides a framework for collaboration between media and information and communications technology (ICT) stakeholders on a market-driven implementation of 5G technologies in content creation, production, distribution, and consumption.

Network neutrality

The EBU’s work in the field of net neutrality focuses on assisting its members in coordinating their positions on broadband network neutrality. To this end, it provides expertise and facilitates initiatives and the drafting of documents concerning net neutrality at the EU level. The EBU also encourages its members to exchange experiences from the national level. Net neutrality is addressed as part of the EBU’s Legal and Policy Distribution Group. Net neutrality is seen as a key principle for public service broadcasters to support and advocate for, as it ensures their services are equally accessible to all internet users.

Cybercrime and network security

The EBU runs a Strategic Programme on Media Cyber Security, providing a platform for its members to exchange information on security incidents and emerging cyber threats to media, and to act collectively where necessary in order to address them. A dedicated working group is focused on defining information security best practices for broadcast companies – it maintains a recommendation providing guidance on cybersecurity safeguards that media organisations and media vendors should apply when planning, designing, or sourcing their media technology products and services.

The EBU organises an annual Media Cybersecurity Seminar, which brings together manufacturers, service providers, and media companies to discuss security issues in the media domain.

In 2025, EBU also launched the Security4Media association to facilitate cybersecurity testing of equipment and drive the implementation of technologies that address issues of cybersecurity, as well as trust in media.

Convergence and OTT

In an environment increasingly characterised by digital convergence, the EBU is working on identifying viable investment solutions for over-the-top (OTT) services. The organisation has a Digital Media Steering Committee, focused on ‘defining the role of public service media in the digital era, with a special focus on how to interact with big digital companies’. It also develops concepts for convergent distribution architectures that integrate the complementary advantages of existing infrastructures, including a project in partnership with the European Space Agency.

In addition, there is an intersectoral group composed of EBU members and staff that exchange best practices for relations between internet platforms and broadcasters. During the COVID-19 crisis, a coordinated effort by the technical distribution experts of the EBU and its members monitored the state of the global broadband network to help avoid surcharges due to the increased consumption of on-demand programmes. The EBU has a dedicated expert group on Broadband Distribution services.

This work goes hand in hand with that developed by the Legal and Policy Department – among others with the Content, Platform, Distribution, and Intellectual Property Expert Groups, all key in the establishment of EU rules enabling the proper availability of PSM services to people across the EU and beyond.

Capacity development

The EBU is dedicated to empowering its members to navigate the complexities and opportunities of the digital era. Through its Digital Transformation Services, the EBU provides a range of tailored support designed to help public service media organisations embrace change effectively.

A key offering is the Transformation Peer Review, a comprehensive assessment that evaluates members’ current strategies and identifies opportunities for growth, helping them develop actionable roadmaps for digital transformation. Additionally, the EBU offers agile consultancy programmes that provide targeted interventions to address specific challenges, ensuring members can make rapid and meaningful progress.

To further support strategic development, the EBU also facilitates intensive strategy sprints; collaborative sessions that enable organisations to co-create initiatives that drive transformation. Members also have access to the Digital Transformation Initiative Playbook, a structured guide that outlines a clear methodology for planning, executing, and scaling digital transformation efforts.