International. As television broadcasting increases its presence around the world, with viewing on multiple portable devices, TV has become an essential element of life and accounts for 80% of consumers' Internet traffic.
Over the 70 years since it published its first technical standards for television in 1949, ITU has worked on the formulation of unified global standards that have gradually improved the TV viewing experience in terms of both visual and audio quality. From the first standards for colour television to the development of parameters for 4:3 and 16:9 large-screen formats, the Union has led the shift to digital television broadcasting and high-definition television (HDTV), which allow more services to be used, improve image quality and increase coverage thanks to the increased capacity of transmitted bandwidth.
In line with the higher colour fidelity that characterises ultra high definition television (UHDTV), ITU has introduced High Dynamic Range Television (HDR-TV), which brings even greater realism to images.
As 5G services that comply with ITU IMT-2020 spectrum standards and allocations are progressively deployed over the coming years, which are currently being discussed at the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, the convergence of traditional broadcasting and Internet services could lead to further fusion of content, data and media applications using broadband networks that are transmitted over a combination of terrestrial, satellite and Internet platforms.
In the future, these "global platforms" could facilitate the delivery of content to end users on different receiving devices and platforms through broadcasting and other technologies.
ITU and United Nations Television and Video (UNTV) recently interviewed David Wood of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) about new trends and directions in television broadcasting in the future.
"Television is a decisive contribution to connecting the world with information and knowledge while providing an unrivalled channel for mass entertainment," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. "World Television Day highlights the Union's exemplary work in developing standards that drive future trends in broadcasting and Internet services, enabling viewers around the world to enjoy an increasingly immersive experience."
"Now more than ever, television provides information, news and leisure to people, no matter where they are," said Mr Mario Maniewicz, Director of ITU's Radiocommunication Bureau. "World Television Day focuses on ITU's work over the past 70 years to develop new standards and broadcasting systems, adapting them to the latest cutting-edge technologies that bring high-definition television coverage closer to the populations of the world's most remote areas at an affordable price."
In 2012, ITU received the Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences of the United States for its work on standardization of loudness measurement for audio broadcasting, aimed at balancing the loudness of broadcast programmes and between them.
The Union's video coding standards, developed in collaboration with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission, were also awarded two Academy Primetime Emmy Awards, in 2008 for advanced MPEG-4 ITU H.264 encoding and in 2017 for highly efficient video encoding (HEVC, published as ITU H.265 | ISO/IEC 23008-2). The ongoing project on Versatile Video Coding (VVC), scheduled for completion in mid-2020, will provide significant improvements, with compression savings of up to 37.7% over HEVC.
The recently concluded ITU World Radiocommunication Assembly (22-25 October 2019) called for the development of a broadcasting roadmap on accessibility and audiovisual quality assessment, audio and video coding, integrated broadband broadcasting, multimedia and other emerging applications and technologies.
The Assembly also worked to promote accessibility for persons with disabilities and persons with specific needs. Subtitles and audio channels that describe the action seen in the image help the visually impaired, and the foreground and background sound separation function makes it easier for the hearing impaired to understand. ITU has helped a number of developing countries to replace analogue broadcasting with much more efficient digital broadcasting, which has enabled populations in remote areas to enjoy the benefits of this technology.
