President's report

E.Hoog - © Ina

The Brussels Conference was a big success. Thanks again to Alain Goossens, Erik de Groef, Lieve van der Straeten and of course Katrien ! It was soon followed by the first Conference ever organised by FIAT in the Caribbean. The event, hosted by FIAT member, the National Library of Jamaica, has attracted nearly 200 participants from the region. CBC from Barbados, also FIAT member, were among the sponsors of the conference as they celebrated their fortieth year of broadcasting. This conference was also an excellent example of the cooperation between FIAT and sister organisation IASA. More news to follow from Maureen Webster Prince.

FIAT 2004 annual Conference

We have now to think of the 2004 annual FIAT Conference. As the President of INA, the hosting organisation, I'll be pleased to welcome you in Paris, next 16-19 October. My first idea was Marseille because it is a city opened to the Mediterranean world, to the South, a good image for FIAT. I have finally proposed to the Executive Council to move it to Paris, for practical reasons.

FIAT & EBU cooperation

The future of FIAT lies in its capacity to collaborate with other international bodies in order to create useful synergies in the interest of FIAT members. In this view, I went to the EBU - the European Broadcasting Union - in Geneva last 31 October. I have met with Jean Stock, the EBU General Secretary, and his team.

It was the right time to discuss archives matters : the Interdisciplinary Archive Group had just completed its activities after 3 years with the publication of its report "Archives in digital broadcasting". Some former IAG members may continue their collaboration in another field : the co-production of programmes based on archives. I have therefore welcome Max Johns's proposal to integrate the former archive group into FIAT. I have welcome Max Johns's proposal to join FIAT and EBU efforts in the field of archives. To demonstrate this new collaboration, I have proposed a set of concrete actions :

• the promotion of the IAG report "Archives in digital broadcasting" on the FIAT web site
• the organisation of an EBU session at the next annual FIAT Conference
• it was also agreed that Max Johns, who is part of the EBU TV Department, in charge of Marketing and new media, will formally represent the EBU in FIAT.

Considering that the main problem for archives is professional training and the transfer of knowledge, the EBU has been requested to support some FIAT projects, among which :

• the printing of the second edition of the "Metadata in the audiovisual production environment", written by Annemieke de Jong, to be promoted in the documentation seminar planned by the Media Management Commission in Amsterdam
• the Balkan preservation project seminar for archive managers which is due to take place in Torino.

New members

The future of FIAT lies also in its capacity to attract more archive members and more partners coming from the media industry.

Last June, I was proud to announce that CCTV (China) and Doordarshan (India) had joined FIAT.

The members drive launched in the last months has resulted in new memberships. Today, I am very pleased to welcome :

Full members

• Korean Broadcasting Institute
• Belgian Defense
• NRTV Banja Luka, from Bosnia
• RTS, from Serbia
• Olympic Television (OTAB), from the UK
• Roche Historical Archive, from Switzerland
• TV 2 M, from Marocco

Associate members

• Mr Haruo Hiki, from Japan
• Archives de la ville de Lausanne, from Switzerland
• Musée olympique, from Switzerland
• Musée d'ethnographie, from Switzerland

Industry partners

• Still design, from Canada
• Vectracom, from France
• Moving Media, from Ireland
• Advanced computer system, from Italy
• Synxspeed, from the UK

We have just begun to look for supporting members and partners in connection with the organisation of the FIAT 2004 Conference. This is of the utmost importance if we want to be able to gather in Paris all our members, including those who live far away and who may have difficulties to finance alone their travel expenses. I'll report on this in the next weeks.

Emmanuel Hoog
President of FIAT / IFTA