The EBU has also admitted that it needs to reinvent itself in order to play its full part helping its members, which include some broadcasters beyond Europe’s boundaries, cope with a fast-moving broadcasting landscape. It is therefore conducting a major review of its own operating model, which could lead to substantial changes in the vision2020 initiative currently steering its strategy. With this in mind it has just issued its strategic objectives just for 2017 with the caveat that these may be revised in the light of its current review.

Any revisions are likely to focus on solutions rather than the underlying challenges themselves, which are clear enough to see. The EBU has identified four key trends that European PSMs need to respond to, connected society and industry, globalization of the media industry, personalization of services and competition for talent and creativity.

So far so good, but it is clear the EBU faces a crisis of identity mirroring Europe as a whole at this point in its history. This emerged from the EBU’s concern over what it calls “the quality of the political conversation in Europe”, which it insists is dropping, “while populism and extremism are increasingly nurtured through web communities.” This may be true but the EBU is stepping on dangerous ground in even appearing to suggest that PSMs should counter this tide of populism on the web with serious informed new coverage over the air waves, with the argument that “this means PSM has an even more important role to play in the national discourse.”

The EBU might do better to confine its pronouncements to freedom of expression rather than the tone of debate, as it has done successfully in several European countries in the past, including Romania and Hungary. The EBU is right to cite freedom from political intervention or government control as continuing threats in parts of Europe, especially the eastern states. It is also right to argue that PSMs are caught in a pincer movement between greater availability of high quality and compelling content from other sources including OTT providers and a squeeze on funding. This has been most evident in the UK where Netflix in particular has been eating into the field for costume dramas and series traditionally dominated by the BBC as well as commercials broadcasters ITV and Channel 4, all EBU members. The making of the Crown about the reign of the current Queen Elizabeth II by Netflix at a cost of $100 million left the indigenous UK broadcasters ruing their inability to match such investment and failure to produce a matching quintessentially British blockbuster.

This highlighted the threat to European PSMs which until recently have at least been able to hold the high ground for premium series content even if many have long surrendered their control over top live sports content. At the same time, OTT providers like Netflix have also led the way in personalization, which the EBU concedes is an additional challenge facing European PSMs. On these counts the EBU seems to be admitting it has failed to help its members adequately address the issues and that it must therefore review its operating model. But it also needs to clarify the underlying principles guiding its own and European PSM strategy, given some ambivalence over whether to embrace or reject the model advanced by predominantly American OTT and Internet players.

So on the one hand the EBU is heaping praise on Apple, YouTube, Amazon and Netflix, as well as Europe’s own Spotify, as “truly inspirational when it comes to exploiting the many opportunities the internet offers.” Yet it has also remained hitched to the centralized and bureaucratic EU model which has resisted the same free trade in services and to an extent content that has prevailed for physical goods. These Internet players have still been looked on by many within Europe’s elites as the enemy rather than the inspiration, to be resisted as far as possible in the courts and through tariffs. This has just been exemplified by the French parliament’s passing of a ‘YouTube’ tax, a levy of 2% on advertising receipts of websites hosting most videos and 10% for content including adult material, although with news exempt.

Yet if we drill down into the EBU’s navel gazing exercise there are signs that perhaps the light has penetrated with its declaration, apparently endorsed by its Director General Ingrid Deltenre, that EU media regulations are no longer fit for purpose and need to be updated in response to the new realities of the globalized industry. Although, as this was almost a throwaway line in its strategy document, it remains to be seen how rigorously the EBU pursues this line at a time when it remains busy representing its members’ interests in the ongoing debates over the future of wireless spectrum.