EBU trains HRT (EBU)

In the lead up to Croatia joining the EU (1 July), top managers at Croatia's broadcaster HRT gained valuable insight at EBU's second workshop in Zagreb on media convergence.

The two-day-long training in the Croatian capital was developed by the Eurovision ACADEMY and organized by the EBU Partnership Programme as part of an EU-sponsored action plan to strengthen public service media in EU accession countries.

Conducted by Henrik Keith Hansen, formerly of Danish broadcaster and EBU Member DR, the workshop took five top managers and 14 middle level managers and went through an eight-step model of change through group exercises and discussions.

Goran Radman, Director General of HRT, is committed to bringing together radio, television and online services at the broadcaster.

“This project is the most critical and most important element of our integration process in HRT and without it the entire process of integration will not be successful," Radman said, "I am very thankful for the EBU and Henrik for providing this workshop. Henrik presented in depth the experience of the Danish radio and television integration process. We can not copy other systems, but we can learn as much as we can from other mistakes and other successes in order to create our own model of integration.”

Hansen noted that the "vast majority of participants understand the importance of integrated media platforms. HRT made a pretty good start; it has established a Digilab helping top managers to develop new media."

Hansen also mentioned that Radman's vision and desire to change is definitely a step in the right direction. "There is a continuous focus on integrated media and they have created a good group of frontrunners who will engage their colleagues.”