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Alexander Baratsits, Founder of the Cultural Brodcasting Archive If content is king then (own) data is king-kong

Digital transformation does not only mean the change from infrastructure to IP-based distribution. In addition to digital hardware, "middleware" is added as an infrastructure that is of central strategic importance and the basis for data management. This is about personalisation and the data generated from it, which enables communication with citizens and helps to understand the needs of recipients. This also includes speech recognition, which converts audio into machine-readable data in order to be able to use the valuable information packaged in audio automatically for subtitles (accessibility), search engines, news aggregation, content mining, etc. This is also of strategic importance for public service broadcasters. The development of data-based management will also be essential for public service media.
In terms of both hardware and middleware, Europe is extremely dependent on external players, primarily from the USA and China, who do not play by European rules such as data privacy, public law = democratic control, etc., and who have contributed to the fact that our democratic constitution is under massive pressure. European cultural diversity is also coming under pressure; even for Austrian colloquial language, the results of current speech recognition systems are currently unsuitable for automated use.
Therefore, we need our own European infrastructures. However, the public media cannot develop cloud services, privacy-friendly tracking, speech recognition, etc. on their own. With a massive state funding programme, an infrastructural basis could be created in collaboration with other commercial and non-commercial media (e.g. The Austrian Language Project), universities, museums, etc., which would benefit a wide range of players. On this basis, journalistic competition can take place. The infrastructures should be organised according to European values such as data sovereignty, open source, cultural diversity and democratic governance.