The ITU Radiocommunication Assembly considering a) that a number of different bit-rate reduction coding systems have been developed for digital audio applications; b) that requirements on bit-rate reduction coding systems for broadcasting are specified in Recommendations ITU-R BS.1548; c) that recent progress in digital audio coding techniques allows for a very considerable degree of bit-rate reduction to be achieved while maintaining high quality; d) that applications exist for audio bit-rate reduction coding systems for digital audio broadcasting, television sound and for storage of signals; e) that the requirements for the various broadcasting applications mentioned in § c) might be very different and should be carefully defined in view of the planned services; f) that the performance of the whole broadcasting chain should be considered, and multiple transcoding between bit-rate reduction coding standards used for production, transmission links and broadcasting should be avoided as far as possible.