Press Release14/2013
EBU R128 Audio Standard
This year the Broadcasting Authority has continued on its scheduled target of implementing the EBU R128 Audio Standard in all broadcasts originating locally, through the holding of various training courses run concurrently at different times during February/March and April/May 2014.
These courses were fully booked and to-date over fifty audio/video editors and professionals from local broadcasting stations and independent production houses have received training. Beside this, to expedite the implementation, the Authority has made arrangements with the course coordinator, Mr Daniel Talma, to organize onsite visits at production centers.
Such an arrangement is advantageous to both the Authority as well as to independent advertisers/production houses as sessions are held at the offices of the recipient as required. Besides, such session have a very minimal cost to individual producers, advertisers, and production houses as the cost is fixed and are of much reduced duration.
This service is still open and all those who should be implementing the EBU R128 standard in all their production processes and who have not as yet started trial implementation of this standard, should contact the Authority to avail themselves of this service by e-mail onsonya.vassallo@ba.org.mt.
Trial testing for this audio standard will start on 1st July 2014 while full implementation of the standard in all broadcasts is expected to start by 1st January 2015.
The Broadcasting Authority will be conducting its own testing for this standard during the monitoring of local broadcasts. Although for the time being the Authority will not be implementing any regulatory regime on this standard, compliance is mandatory and broadcasting stations will be notified about the audio levels at which they are broadcasting.
The next steps that could be taken by the Authority greatly depend on the applicability of this standard by broadcasting stations. This standard greatly facilitates productions over all local broadcasts as it sets one audio-leveling standard.
It is therefore of utmost importance that this standard is not only implemented by broadcasting stations for their own in-house productions but the EBU R128 standard should also be part of broadcasting standards when farming-out productions to third parties and when accepting advertising and teleshopping slots.
Mario Axiak
Head Research & Communications
17th June 2014