diff --git a/feedcreator.class.php b/feedcreator.class.php
index 1d57fac45..2b1fd4f96 100644
--- a/feedcreator.class.php
+++ b/feedcreator.class.php
@@ -494,7 +494,7 @@ class FeedCreator extends HtmlDescribable {
 	 * This feed's character encoding.
 	 * @since 1.6.1
 	 **/
-	var $encoding = "ISO-8859-1";
+	var $encoding = "utf-8";
 	
 	
 	/**