At the invitation of TV5MONDE, the Bruges Group held its 41st General Assembly in Paris on Thursday 6 and Friday 7 September.

Supported for this event by two of its distributors, Arqiva and Globecast, during this General Assembly the Bruges Group confirmed that it was integrating with the EBU, whose Brussels Office has already been providing the group's secretariat for a number of years.

This integration was supported by Ingrid Deltenre, the EBU Director General, and Jose Lopes de Araujo, the current chairman of the group. Mr Lopes de Araujo declared, "This integration ought to enable the EBU and the Bruges Group to strengthen their cooperation and progress together in future to promote public service media and their added value throughout the world in a time when international competition is greater than ever, in which multimedia has become a major issue, against a backdrop of public budget contraints." 

The General Assembly also provided an opportunity for international channels NHK (Japan), Arirang (Korea) and Russia Today to introduce themselves.

In conclusion, M. Claudio Cappon, EBU Vice-president and CEO of Rai World, declared : "The media world is changing fast and creating new challenges every day. In this context, it is essential to strengthen the relations between our organisations to find new and creative approaches to the world market"

The Bruges Group:

• An association founded in 1991 by six international public channels: BBC, Deutsche Welle, 3sat, RAI, RTPi and TV5MONDE.
• A forum for exchanging expertise and solutions to international issues through its network of 21 channels, especially with regard to the worldwide distribution of TV channels and multimedia content.

TV5MONDE:

• one of the main worldwide TV networks, with 9 separate regionalized general interest channels and a youth channel available in the USA.
• More than 235 million homes that receive the channel 24/7 in 200 countries and territories, and 830 million hotel nights each year.
• Subtitled programmes in 12 languages (English, German, Arabic, Korean, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Vietnamese) and French on all frequencies.
• Media presence on internet, mobile phone, internet TV, VoD, catch-up TV, connected TV.

About the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)

The EBU is the world's foremost alliance of public service media organizations, with Members in 56 countries in Europe and beyond.

The EBU's mission is to defend the interests of public service media and to promote their indispensible contribution to modern society. It is the point of reference for industry knowledge and expertise.

The EBU operates Eurovision, the media industry's premier distributor and producer of top quality live sport and news, as well as entertainment, culture and music content.

The Eurovision satellite and fibre network is the largest and most reliable in the world directly plugged in to public service media everywhere.

www.ebu.ch and www.eurovision.com
@EBU_Eurovision #ebu #eurovision

Contact
Nicola Frank
Head of EBU European Affairs
[email protected]