How do you save over 6,000 hours of disintegrating ancient magnetic tapes, containing large parts of a whole nation's audiovisual memory? This question was brought forward by Georgian public broadcaster GPB's head of archives, when applying for the newly introduced EBU Special Assistance Scholarship. Within this program, a special "Track B" was designed to tackle very specific problems on a personal, individual level by matching each applicant with a suitable mentor out of the EBU family.

In this case it happened to be Czech Television's Senior Manager Petr Vitek, who instantly volunteered to travel to Tbilisi and work on a possible solution, together with the scholar Ramaz Bluashvili of GPB (picture).

In a subsequent second phase of the mentoring scheme, the pair will meet again in Prague at Czech TV soon to further explore the issue, which includes numerous technical details, such as the availability of hardware and procedures to restore damaged tapes, but also potential avenues towards funding and further institutional support in order to revive and digitize Georgia's audiovisual heritage. A case study will finally be available for sharing amongst the EBU Membership where many broadcasters face similar challenges.

The EBU Special Assistance Scholarship is funded by the Open Society Foundation's Media Program and continuously awarded throughout the year.