The conference will examine the need to strengthen the European audiovisual media market so that it can respond to the challenges of rapid technological advances, increasing global competition, changing consumer habits and the perceived threat to media pluralism in the context of the current geopolitical situation.

In plenary sessions conference participants will discuss the following issues:

• The regulatory framework – does the scope of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive take into account rapid technological developments and new business models?
• The implementation of the country of origin principle for audiovisual media services.
• How to ensure plurality and values in a converged media environment: the role of monitoring of media freedom and pluralism at national level.
• At a time of media convergence, is different regulation for linear and non-linear services still necessary?

Parallel working groups will look at how the independence of regulators can be strengthened, whether there is a case for a single European standard to ensure technical compatibility and how we can improve consumers’ access to, and the findability of, the content they want.

The conference is taking place during the Annual Creativity Week "Radi!” (Create!) in Latvia.

Registration for the conference is closed. There will be live online streaming on the Latvian Presidency website www.eu2015.lv.