The World Broadcasting Unions’ Technical Committee (WBU-TC) has called on both regulators and public service broadcasters/media to ensure multiple media distribution infrastructures are maintained.

This is to ensure service continuity and maximised reach in times of crisis.

“Robustness and resilience come at some expense, but the likelihood and cost impacts of unexpected events are frequently underestimated,” the Technical Committee says.

“It often takes a crisis to highlight how vulnerable individual distribution systems may be. There is an abundance of evidence for this in the past two years alone: a global pandemic; natural disasters (such as floods), hacking attacks on critical infrastructures, mass migrations; and war.”

The committee backed a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) recommendation underlining that resilience is a benefit of the co-existence of multiple distribution platforms – including all forms of terrestrial broadcast, wired broadband, mobile and satellite – and that these technologies should be considered for their ability both to work independently from one another and to maximize coverage of a given population.

Read the full TC statement.