Two European development banks have revealed their readiness to inject funds into the digitization of Eastern European public service broadcasters, at an EBU-led conference in Vienna.

Montenegrin deputy prime minister Vujica Lazovic

Senior figures from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) described digitization as an advisable, viable business model.

Laura Campbell, of the EBRD’s Department of Industry, Commerce and Agribusiness said: “Broadcasters need digital infrastructure, including network and digitization equipment, to respond to technological changes and ensure preservation of existing cultural heritage. EBRD financing is available for bankable operations that are consistent with that mandate.”

She said the EBRD saw digitization as a way to create potential new revenue streams, including fees for digital library use; creation of cinema pre-shows mixing advertising; branded entertainment and local content; use of the digital infrastructure for non-public purposes and fees from distribution to cable channels for expatriate viewing.

The meeting, entitled Financing digitalization in Eastern Europe: the challenge for public service broadcasters, was the brainchild of erstwhile EBU Vice-President Boris Bergant under the EBU Partnership Programme. It was co-organized with the Austrian Federal Chancellery, Austrian Broadcasting (ORF), the EIB and the EBRD.

Its take-home message was clear: the region’s public broadcasters need to go digital, and those yet to start the process must urgently digitize transmission and production and convert their precious but perishing tape-based archives.

EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre addressed the meeting in the historic Congress Room of the Hofburg, the imperial palace where the future of Europe was mapped out in 1815. Ms Deltenre pressed home the importance of digitization to democracy, saying social and economic progress would be made if archives were accessible online and digital TV services were universal. She added that broadcasters in Central and Eastern Europe also stood to benefit enormously from digitized production workflows.

Philip Laven, the former EBU Technical Director who is now chairman of the DVB Project, told the conference that digital broadcasting is better and cheaper than analogue, but that the transition is lengthy and expensive.

Other speakers included former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Erhard Busek; State Secretary Josef Ostermayer; Montenegrin deputy prime minister Vujica Lazovic; ORF director general and EBU Executive Board member Alexander Wrabetz; Hido Biscevic, Secretary General of the Sarajevo-based Regional Cooperation Council and Andris Kesteris of the European Commission’s DG Enlargement.

A number of EBU Members in Central and Eastern Europe are chronically underfunded and require financial assistance to switch to digital transmission and production, and to digitize their audiovisual archives.

Delphine Wibaud, of France’s Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA), presented an INA project entitled Balkans’ Memory: Preserving and promoting audiovisual heritage in the Western Balkans which stressed the importance of archive protection.

Earlier this month, the EBU Partnership Programme co-financed an INA mission to catalogue the audiovisual archives of MKRTV, the EBU’s Member in FYR Macedonia.

The meeting was attended by the directors general and/or their senior colleagues from EBU Members in Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia.

Presentations

Financing Digitilization in Eastern Europe

Europe's transition towards Digital Terrestrial Television

The challenges of digitization for broadcasters in Eastern Europe

Working with the European Bankfor Reconstruction and Development

Ingrid Deltenre's speech: “The importance of digitization to European democracy”