The EBU and its Croatian Member HRT have shared the results of a survey that examined how to help public service media (PSM) in EU accession countries preserve their audiovisual heritage. The presentation took place at the International Film and Television Archive FIAT/IFTA World Conference in Vienna (7 to 10 October).

The survey revealed that there are over 2 million hours of audiovisual archive recordings belonging to 11 countries in South East Europe. Roughly 90% of this must be digitalized in the next 10 years in order to be preserved for future generations. This will cost EUR 120 million for the whole region, which translates to EUR 10 million for each country.

The EBU's Partnership Programme Senior Project Manager Radka Betcheva says that the PSM archives in South East Europe contain footage dating back to when the broadcasters were formed.

“A price tag cannot be put on this kind of cultural heritage. Archival materials also greatly contribute to nation building and a sense of belonging to a common history, culture and tradition. We should mobilize our resources and look for alliances on national and international levels in order to preserve this.”

The EBU Technology & Innovation team, EBU Member ORF and product provider Cube-Tec led a workshop on file-based Quality Control used for archiving. Amongst others, the EBU.IO/QC archive tool was demonstrated.