Massimo Fichera, who was EBU Vice-President from 1988 to 1992, has passed away in Rome at the age of 83.

Mr Fichera played a leading role in expanding the European Audiovisual Space. As EBU Vice-President he took on the mission to react to CNN's monopoly of coverage of the first Gulf war. His working group – which was the first step towards the creation of a pan-European news channel – resulted in the launch of the Euronews Consortium in 1992.

Prior to that he was a key figure behind the creation of Eurosport, the launch of Europa TV in the Netherlands (the first European continental channel), the European fiction coproduction consortium, the Eurovisioni festival, and many other innovative projects.

His far-sightedness also extended to technological change. He encouraged RAI to test Japanese high-definition television and he helped develop Vision 1250, the European HDTV Consortium.  His interest in satellite TV experimentation in Italy led to the launch of the first RAI Satellite programme in 1990 and he was a key player in introducing many innovations to strenghten Italian public service broadcasting.