7th – 8th March 1999: at the invitation of RTVV - Radio Televisió Valenciana, the 6th Conference focused on “The digital era within the Mediterranean region”. The key question was whether the new technologies would help to bring the two shores of the Mediterranean closer or whether they would deepen the existing division.
Jean Bernard Munch, President of UER, intervened on the risks that the “digital revolution” could imply: economic discrimination, technological exclusion and divisions even within the same country. The passage to the digital system needs a re-organisation of the structures and huge investments. As Mr. Harguem, DG of ASBU, underlined, the diffusion of digital technologies implies the carrying out of training projects addressed to technicians and audiovisual operators in the field of production and broadcast, as well as the standardisation of technical equipment in the South of Mediterranean.
In other words, it is urgent to increase a permanent exchange of know-how. The radio system will be deeply affected by the digital revolution: Roland Faure foresaw the “death” of the FM radio frequency and Jean Pierre Tessier, President of URTI, underlined the necessity of a “digitalisation” of the radio archives.