The European Commission published last week a Communication on the question of the “inter-operational capacity of interactive digital television”, in which it declares its opposition to the obligatory technical norms imposed by the regulators for the diffusion of digital Tv in Europe”. Brussels prefers instead to support “initiatives of normalization voluntarily adopted by firms”, so that “the interactivity between broadcaster and consumer be to the benefit of the latter”. The decision to propose a kind of deregulation is dictated by the fact that, in spite of appearances, interactive digital Tv in Europe is struggling to get off the ground: almost 50 million digital receivers exist and are being used today, 26 million of interactive type; only four million, however, conform to the multimedia digital platform for domestic use. To speed up the final transition from analogical to digital Tv (the deadline is fixed for 2012), the Commission will work with member states to augment the quantity and quality of the services available via digital television (for example, the request for certificates or the payment of public utility bills) with the aim of rendering the product more attractive to a higher number of consumers in Europe. For more info: http://europa.eu.int/information_society/policy/ecomm/info_centre/documentation/communic_reports/index_en.htm
