AER 2012 Conference and General Assembly – 21/03/12 – European Parliament – Brussels

AER 2012 CONFERENCE AND GENERAL ASSEMBLY – MARCH 21ST – EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT – BRUSSELS

AER RECALLS THE IMPORTANCE OF RADIO FOR MUSIC, CALLS FOR IMPROVED LICENSING, GOVERNANCE AND TRANSPARENCY FROM COLLECTIVE RIGHTS MANAGEMENT ORGANISATIONS AND CALLS FOR RADIO TO BE INCLUDED IN MEDIA PROGRAMME

The Association of European Radios (AER) held in Brussels its 2012 Annual Conference and General Assembly on March 21st. Opening the conference at the European Parliament, Alfonso Ruiz de Assín, AER President, explained that “80% of the EU population on average listens to radio for at least 2 or 3 hours per day, as shown by national audience measurement” and “radio as a medium sheds light on new music talents every day”. He also recalled that radio “is still often the media that gives the ‘first chance’ to workers within the audio-visual sector, especially young journalists”. He therefore called “the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to include radio in the scope of the MEDIA Programme”.

Madam Maria Martin-Prat, European Commission Head of Copyright Unit, delivered the keynote address. She declared that the European Commission would like to facilitate aggregation of repertoire, and improve governance and transparency of collective rights management organisations.

During the following panel session, Marielle Gallo MEP (EPP, JURI), Cecilia Wikström MEP (ALDE, JURI), Mary Honeyball MEP (S&D, CULT), Amelia Andersdotter MEP (GREENS / EFA, ITRE) and Stefan Möller, AER Vice-President, exchanged views on the upcoming EU framework on collective management of authors’ rights and related rights. Stefan Möller recalled that radios should be able to purchase whatever rights they require for whatever purpose wherever they wish to exercise them from any collective rights’ management organisation in the EU against clear, published, comparable tariffs. All panel members agreed that transparency and governance of collective rights management organisations should be improved.

The last panel session saw Sabine Verheyen MEP (EPP, CULT), Tony Moorey (Absolute Radio) and Robert Favre (Triton Digital) showing the importance of radio in today’s world. Lisa Kerr (Lisa Kerr Media & Communications Consultancy), Conference moderator, underlined how important radio was to gather communities in the tragic events of the past month in Europe.

At the AER General Assembly, a new President was elected: Stefan Möller (RadioMedia – Finland). He succeeds Alfonso Ruiz de Assín (AERC – Spain) who had held the function since 2008. The AER General Assembly thanked Alfonso Ruiz de Assín for his successful term as AER President. The AER General Assembly also elected Alfonso Ruiz de Assín and Marianne Bugge Zederkof (Radioerne – Denmark) as Vice-Presidents. Philippe Gault (SIRTI – France) and Julia Maier-Hauff (VPRT – Germany) were re-conducted in their respective functions: Vice-President and Secretary General.

NOTE TO EDITORS:
Manager: Mr. Vincent Sneed.
Telephone: +32 2 736 91 31
Fax: +32 2 732 89 90
E-mail: vincent.sneed @ aereurope.org
For more information on AER: www.aereurope.org