Challenged by technology: the audiovisual landscape and the evolving regulatory framework in Europe

Over the last decades, media, IT and telecoms have been transitioning away from siloed markets dominated by legacy players. New entrants have been the engines of disruptive changes and the media sectors have witnessed new dynamics, opening up a phase of increased competition with competing business models. The context of convergence thus differs deeply from 20 years ago. The first section of the paper presents a picture of the European audio-visual markets, stressing its main features. It concentrates on the audiovisual service markets, describing its streams of revenue and structure. The second section tracks the way the European Commission has been dealing with the regulation of content over the last three decades. It sums up its main initiatives, goals and rationales. It shows how the European Commission has been catching up with technology with the progressive setting up of a two-pronged framework: sectoral (broadcasting-telecommunications) on the one hand, information society (e-commerce now digital services) framework on the other hand. The paper concludes with an assessment of the design and effectiveness of the policies, particularly DSA/DMA, and a view on the transition of the audiovisual markets. Based on a series of reports and research updated by desk research, the article reviews some of the existing literature, official publications and industry and consultancy data.