- Opening of the Annual Meeting
Mariolina Bronzini (RAI), Intermag President, welcomed the participants.
- Approval of the "Proposed Minutes" of the General Assembly in Copenhagen Oct. 98
- Membership
- New Members
There were no new applications for membership.
- Changes among Members: New Titles, Formats, Contacts etc.
Mariolina Bronzini introduced "Frontiere", a 40' programme dealing with one subject and containing several reports on this topic. Broadcasting day is Sunday evening. It is one of the two programmes covered by Speciali TG1 and Mariolina Bronzini considered it to be the most suitable for Intermag. A sample was shown at the beginning of the screening on Saturday and the programme was accepted.
As Katinka Nowotny explained the new division of "Der Report" (ORF) is called "Report International". "Der Report" deals with domestic affairs, "Report International" covers international issues. Both programmes will now be Intermag members.
"Ulkolinja" (YLE) was suspended.
- Functioning of the Intermag Exchange:
No remarks to the functioning of the Intermag Exchange
- Guests:
Hannu Vilpponen (YLE), Project Manager special projects TV2 of YLE, is negotiating with the European Commission at the moment to get funds for a new project. As soon as it is approved he would like to apply for membership with Intermag and he wondered if Intermag would be prepared also to accept a programme of the second Finnish channel.
Gerhard Manstein (DW) is Senior Editor of "Europa Heute", a 30 minute current affairs magazine in Russian offered to Eastern European countries. The lack of information on Western Europe in these countries is enormous, consequently the programme would be highly interested in reports dealing with Western issues. For "Europa Heute" Intermag membership would mean access to a wide range of reports on European issues. On the other hand Intermag members would have more DW reports at their disposal, as "Europa Heute" also broadcasts items from other Deutsche Welle programmes. Besides that "Europa Heute" plans a co-operation with television stations in Poland. Their reports could also be available for the Intermag exchange.
Mariolina Bronzini thanked both guests for their interest in Intermag and suggested they could apply for membership at the next General Assembly, bringing a sample of their programme.
- New Intermag Programme Exchange System (PES)
- Presentation: by Guido Baumhauer (DW) / Peggy van der Kreeft (DW)
After the General Assembly in Copenhagen a lot has been done to promote the PES and get in on track. Several press conferences have been held and the system was registered as a European Trademark and got a domain name: www.progrexsys.com
It was also presented to other stations, e.g. ZDF, Phoenix, the German events channel, and also to the EBU (European Broadcasting Union), who were all very interested.
- Remarks concerning the new PES by the 13 beta testers
Nine testers succeeded in uploading metadata and/or video material, four still had some problems creating the infrastructure and/or finding time or personnel to upload video.
Overall conclusion: a good system, easy to handle, fast and especially the possibility to view without having to leave the desk is a great advantage.
Some minor changes were suggested, they will be applied as soon as possible.
- Future of Intermag / Business Scenario by Guido Baumhauer
Three pricing models were presented. A decision on which model to accept was postponed till Saturday
- Promotion Intermag / Co-operation with EbS (Europe by Satellite)
Diederik Bangert, Editor in Chief of EbS attended the meeting and gave a short description of what EbS is all about.
The Commission Satellite could offer two possibilities:
- Promotion in an open slot, varying from 15 to 120 minutes (per day or per week), free of charge in which Intermag items could be broadcast.
- Exchange of material: The material should be encrypted so that it cannot be used by others stations. Before the encrypted transmission starts, extracts of the material could be shown as a kind of promotion.
For some members the airing of material was unacceptable since there is no definite guarantee that the material will not be used by third parties. Still the exchange via the satellite could be interesting for the future. Diederik Bangert agreed to work out an offer by the next General Assembly.
There is one disadvantage: EbS can always decide to move or even cancel the slots due to urgent current events.
- Next Meetings
General Assembly in Amsterdam:
Dates: 15-16 October 1999
Next Annual Meeting (2000):
In order to save costs, DW Cologne could be hosting the next Annual Meeting in Spring 1999. Cologne can offer conference and screening facilities as well as personnel. Since the members present agreed on this cost-saving solution the CC will study the possibility of organising the meeting there.
- Discussion/Decision on Future of Intermag
EbS: The members present discussed the 1st offer of EbS: Promotion of Intermag via satellite. 11 members agreed with the promotion of Intermag via the Commission Satellite by showing the promotion tape. The attendants were opposed to broadcasting items on EbS, perhaps later on it could be considered. In order to allow interested magazines to get more information on what Intermag is all about and the criteria for becoming a member the promotape will be adapted by Guido Baumhauer: Website and e-mail-address will be inserted.
The possibility of exchanging programmes via EbS still has to be investigated.
PES: The attending members voted unanimously that Intermag should continue with the PES and they chose Business model 3. It was also decided that an answer - positive or negative - is required by all before Intermag can go on with the PES. In order to inform the non-attending members and to get their consent a letter was written by president and vice-president. Since DW has to sign a contract with a service provider the decision should be binding.
Those who haven't answered by the 9th of April will be called by Guido Baumhauer or Gerd Lemmens to get their reaction. As soon as the decision is official, Deutsche Welle will provide all the members with the needed video card. As of July 1999 the new system should be fully functioning. Until then, the beta test continues and more members can join.
Even if some programmes would leave Intermag because of these technical developments or cost matters, the price can still be guaranteed.
Schedule for transition: It was decided that there will be no hard deadline. The PES system is already fully operational and every member with an Internet access can immediately participate. The beta testers can make suggestions and the system can be tailored to everyone's needs. This means a smooth transition into a fully working programme exchange.
Sending of cassettes: As soon as the PES is working, no viewing cassettes have to be sent. On the other hand, reports to be broadcast will still have to be mailed. As soon as the PES is functioning properly, Intermag can think of other ways of exchanging reports via satellite (perhaps EBU or EbS), which could speed up the exchange tremendously: it might even be possible to view, order and receive the same day.
Guido Baumhauer was already in contact with EBU. They promised Intermag could get a time slot in which editors could easily do transmissions and they would offer this facility at preferential conditions. Guido Baumhauer agreed to get an offer from EBU. He will present it at the General Assembly in Amsterdam.
- Promotion Intermag/PES
Intermag Homepage by Anke Gaiser (SFB)
In Copenhagen SFB was asked to develop an Intermag homepage. Main advantage of a Website is, that it can easily and quickly be updated. Moreover, the Internet is at the moment the most interesting and openly accessible source of information.
Anke Gaiser commented the different pages of the site, which contain all available information on Intermag. Flags were abolished because of the amount of uploading time these kind of graphics take and the confusion they could arouse in view of languages (e.g. Switzerland). Perhaps it would be better to put the stations' logos on the first page.
Intermag Website: www.intermag.tv
There will be a link to the PES Website: www.progrexsys.com
One section is for internal communication: after the Website goes on-line, the members get a password to log in.
Updating will be done by SFB until the end of the project, after that the Coordination Centre should be responsible for the homepage.
SFB proposed that those programmes which have no homepage yet could perhaps install one on the Intermag site. They can contact Anke Gaiser at SFB/Berlin if they need assistance (Phone: +49.30.3031 2687, e-mail: gaiser@sfb.de).
After the presentation the attending members agreed to put the homepage on-line. It will be done after a final check of e-mail and Website addresses.
- Screening Session and PES Workshop
- Screening Session
- PES Workshop
The members who wanted to get acquainted with the new PES or to update their knowledge of the system could do that on two computers.
Mariolina Bronzini thanked the attending members for their contribution to a fruitful meeting and expressed her hope to welcome them all at the General Assembly in Amsterdam.
