INTERMAG General Assembly Berlin November, 19/20, 2004

Draft: Proposed Minutes

1. Welcome by Christoph Lanz

Christoph Lanz, director of Deutsche Welle TV, welcomed the attendants. Since 1992 DW airs a 24 hours programme in German and English changing the language every hour. Target audience are Germans abroad but also foreigners world wide. As from November 98 DW concentrates on news and information. Technical reach are 160.000.000 households world wide and it's estimated that 10.6 million people per day watch the programme. DW also is the only European broadcaster offering a 3 hours programme in Arabic. As from March next year DW offers a fully synchronised news show. DW also produces world news in Dahri and Pastu, which is broadcast uncensored all over Afghanistan thus helping to install a democracy there and create a better understanding. DW wants to take part in a better exchange of programmes in Europe and fully supports INTERMAG.

2. Opening of the Meeting

Mariolina Bronzini (RAI), INTERMAG President, welcomed the participants and thanked Deutsche Welle for the invitation.

3. Approval of the "Proposed Minutes" of the General Assembly Ljubljana, May 23/24 2003
The Ljubljana Minutes were approved

4. Membership

1. New Members:

• Applying for Membership:

There was an interest from a private television in Israel. Unfortunately we could not accept them for two reasons:
1. IBA is opposed
2. Free exchange with commercial programmes is not acceptable for public broadcasters.

• Left INTERMAG 2003:

1. WDR/Weltspiegel: new programme structure, they only want to sell and purchase

2. SWR/Europamagazin

Programmes from the 1^st German channel have their own correspondents' net, authors, budgets, they are overcrowded with offers and they have the financial means to produce it. This is a real difference with the 3^rd programmes, that don't have the same possibilities.

2. Changes among members: New Titles, Formats, Contacts etc.

• MTV/Panorama changed its name into "World View"

• RAI/Excalibur has changed the title into "Punto e a capo" as well as the anchors

3. Acquiring new members:

Gerhard Losher testified of some attempts to enlarge the INTERMAG group:

He contacted former member ORF/Report International. Some editors were in favour of INTERMAG some not at all. Still the management took the decision to abolish the free exchange and to concentrate on the British market, where they have established good contacts.

He made another attempt to attract new members during a three months project between BR and French (France 2 and France Alsace) and Polish public TV. The French showed some interest at first, but after they had left there was no more reaction. At the Polish television the attempts stranded on the regular changings of the board.

Udo Biss suggested to get programmes of the new EU members into INTERMAG via EU funds. But unfortunately these projects involve a lot of patience, paperwork and time, and obviously no member has the possibility to invest that kind of energy.

Mariolina Bronzini wondered if there was no other way we could lure stations of the new member states into INTERMAG. For instance Polish programmes could be interested, since public television there is having financial problems and they have a hard time competing with private televisions. But then the membership fee could discourage interested programmes. Udo Biss pointed out that for instance the Swedish television even thinks that 1000 Euro a year is too much to spend, since they have had severe cuts in the past few years. This could also be the case at other stations.

It was suggested to allow future members a free try out. Still we have to consider that a membership for free doesn't make a good impression and could even work against us. Still it was decided to compile a videocassette with 5 interesting and short items from the screening as promotion material, and send it to the TV directors of the Baltic, Scandinavian and Eastern European States accompanied by an introduction letter from the presidency.

5. INTERMAG Programme Exchange System (PES)

1. Functioning of the INTERMAG Exchange:

• Do we want to spend money (1500 € per member programme) on the PES system or not, that was the main question. Disadvantages: if we abolish the system we have a communication problem, since the PES automatically sends out the offerings via e-mail. And, we have no database.

Mariolina Bronzini pointed out, that every member has a Website, where in some cases the programme even can be watched. Reinhard Behm brought up that their editors never search the database, they just look at the latest reports and decide what would fit into their programme. Searching the others' Website - on the other hand -is time consuming and doesn't really appeal to busy editors. Furthermore the language (Hungarian, Slovenian...) is a problem.

Udo Biss suggested that the desks could send around their press releases to the other members. In English, since it is the official INTERMAG language. But it can only work if the members are committed to do so. And we would loose the internet identity, which is the PES.

Keeping the PES without uploading the pictures is no financial alternative. And there is no possibility to further lower the costs.

Eberhard Sucker complained about the use of the PES: access, uploading and downloading is extremely slow. Also other attendants complained about the speed of the system. But it also is very hard to join the Tecmath people, when difficulties occur. So perhaps we should try to find a new contractor. Gerhard Losher will draft a letter to Tecmath summarising the problems and give them time until the next assembly (September 2005) to solve them. Then it will be decided how to proceed.

• Virtual Screening:

Gerhard Losher stated that each time during the screenings interesting discoveries are made. He would like to extend this possibility and introduce a virtual screening in the PES during spring. It would allow the members to watch a large amount of items. The cassettes could be sent to Tecmath, BR or DW/Brussels and could be uploaded by the colleagues there. Recent items should be sent out in May, so that before summer the programmes can be watched in the PES. Preferably the items should be delivered with an English script. The CC will send out a reminder in spring.

• Exchange rates:
  Gerd Lemmens asked the editors to send their exchange rates on a regular basis, for instance every month, so that a reliable list can be made.

(b) Ordering of items:

There have been some problems with cassettes not being collected or invoices sent out to the sending desk. The ordering programmes should contact the courier themselves to collect the cassette mentioning their client number. And the sending programme should mark the notice transport collect. Then normally there should not be a problem.

(c) Overflow

Several suggestions were made to spend the money (1.941,22 €), but since it is not a large amount, we should keep it and use it for publicity purposes, for instance the sending out of the promotion tape or financing a trip to convince new members. So, for the time being, the money will not be abstracted from the next invoice.

5. Next Meeting

General Assembly 2005

Mariolina Bronzini kindly invited INTERMAG to Rome September/Oktober 2005. The CC will contact the members to set a date.

5. Screening Session (List attached)

President Vice-President

Mariolina Bronzini Gerhard Losher