International Radio and Television Organisation

General description

OIRT was presented as a voluntary non-profit association of television and radio broadcasting organizations, with the aim of exchanging programs, as well as information related to program production and technical development. Achieving this goal was considered the key to spreading truthful information and cultural values throughout the world community. Unlike the European Broadcasting Union (European Broadcasting Area), the OIRT did not have its own broadcasting area or other regional borders, within which the membership of broadcasting organizations was possible.

OIRT was funded by membership fees paid by all members of the organization, income from publishing and other sources. The Organization collaborated with international and regional (in particular, with the EBU) broadcasting organizations, the United Nations and UNESCO, as well as with various telecommunications organizations. In particular, OIRT had the status of a category C organization in UNESCO, was included in the register of ECOSOC organizations, had consultative status with the International Telecommunication Union, and collaborated with the International Council on Film and Television. OIRT was a member of the International Conference of Broadcasting Unions, and in 1986 hosted the Fifth World Conference of Broadcasting Unions in Prague, which brought together 175 representatives from 9 broadcasting organizations.

The statutory objectives of the OIRT (Article II of the Charter) were:

establishing links between various organizations providing radio and television broadcasting and those in compliance with the provisions of the OIRT Charter;

to ensure, as far as possible, a complete mutual exchange of information between OIRT members on the technical progress of sound and television broadcasting, on various schemes aimed at improving broadcasting methods, and, in general, on all measures taken in the field of broadcasting;

comprehensive protection of the interests of radio and television in all areas;

finding solutions to broadcasting problems through international cooperation;

the study and development of all measures generally aimed at the development of radio and television, especially the development of broadcasting technology;

study and develop measures that are important for the rapid development of radio and television broadcasting methods in insufficiently electrified regions and regions with specific climatic conditions.

The potential TV audience of OIRT reached 350 million viewers. The official languages of the OIRT since 1946 have been English, Russian and French. Chinese was briefly granted official status in 1952 when it was accepted into the OIRT of China. Since 1959, German has been given the status of the official language of OIRT conferences and publications. Throughout its existence, the organization retained the French-language abbreviation OIRT as its name, while the English-language IBO was used only occasionally.

OIRT produced periodicals: the monthly newsletter OIRT Information, as well as the Radio and Television magazine, which was published six times a year and had a small editorial office in Prague. The journal's publications (in English, French, Russian, and German) reported on the activities of the OIRT and its members, as well as on the work of all bodies and their sub-commissions. Catalogs of Transmissions suitable for Exchange were released four times a year, which were sent to both OIRT participants and Eurovision members (since 1956, catalogs of radio programs, since 1960, catalogs of TV shows).

History

The activities of the International Broadcasting Union (IBU‑UIR) ceased with the outbreak of World War II: its observation and technical center in Brussels fell under Nazi control and served the Wehrmacht, including as a listening station for Allied radio communications. After the war, the IBU was considered discredited due to its collaboration with the Nazi regime and did not enjoy the trust of European countries, especially the USSR, which insisted on its dissolution. In March 1946, at the Brussels international meeting of broadcasters, the USSR proposed the creation of a new organization with Soviet influence and authority for global wave redistribution. The new organization proposed to introduce a voting model in which the volume of votes is proportional to the area of the country and the number of radio transmitters on its territory.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, which suspended relations with the IBU in 1941, was considering ways to revive the IBU in a new format, vacillating between temporary membership in it and an emphasis on the priority of redistributing waves between major countries before creating some kind of new broadcasting association. On 14 June 1946, the BBC notified the committee for the re-establishment of the union of its refusal to join the IBU. Two weeks later, the UK actually found itself on the sidelines of international cooperation.

Without British participation, 26 members founded the OIR on 28 June 1946. The next day, at the General Assembly of the International Broadcasting Union (IBU), an attempt was made to dissolve this body, but the motion failed to obtain the required majority. However, 18 of the 28 existing members left the IBU and become co-founders of the new OIR.

In 1946, the newly created OIR installed itself in the IBU building in Brussels. Technical activity was taken up again under the authority of two directors, one delegated by the Soviet Union and the other by France. However, the political situation gradually degraded into the Cold War and this created an uneasy situation of distrust within the staff of the Technical Centre.

The BBC, determined to create a new broadcasting organization under the auspices of the United Nations, expected that the 1946 United Nations Conference on broadcasting would bring order to the dilemma, but the conference did not take place that year, and the United Nations broadcasting conferences in Atlantic City and Copenhagen that followed in 1947 and 1948 could not come up with fundamental solutions. The BBC's proposal to join the OIR in exchange for a change in the voting procedure (distribution of votes in accordance with membership in the International Telecommunication Union - thus, only one broadcaster from each ITU member state would have the right to vote), proposed by the British earlier, did not pass. The business climate in negotiations between broadcasters has steadily deteriorated as tensions between Western and socialist states have grown and the Berlin crisis has developed.

Intervision

The television network of OIRT was established in 1960 and was called Intervision (Russian Интервидение, German Intervision, Albanian Intervizioni, Bulgarian Интервизия, Polish Interwizja, Czech Intervize, Slovak Intervízia, Hungarian Intervízió, Romanian Interviziune, Finnish Intervisio).

The Eastern Bloc counterpart of Eurovision Network, Intervision is an international television organization within the framework of the OIRT for the exchange of programs between its member broadcasting organizations and the preparation of programs transmitted through its channels.

Intervision membership was available to any television organization, regardless of its country's membership in the OIRT, subject to its agreement with the organization's goal of promoting peaceful cooperation between peoples and the provisions of the Intervision Charter. The Intervision Charter regulated such aspects as: program planning, obligations of the organization's participants, programming management rules, qualitative parameters of the radio range and sound channels, methods of control measurements of sound and image channels. The network grew more slowly than Eurovision, but had a more global scale, stretching from Central and Eastern Europe to the Caribbean and Northeast Asia.

Like OIRT, Intervision did not pursue commercial goals, and operated on the basis of membership fees necessary for the functioning of the network's coordination centers. The amount of membership fees was calculated based on the number of TV receivers in the participating country. At the same time, Intervision did not have its own dedicated network, it was formed from international television channels provided by TV channels of Intervision member countries. It was emphasized that Intervision is not a new organization with its own television network, but an association of existing national television networks, which, including the points of intersection between individual countries, form an Intervision system in the case of international television transmission.

Intervision was supervised by the OIRT Program Committee. This committee was authorized to address the main issues of functioning and program exchange, as well as to solve theoretical problems arising in the activities of Intervision. The practical management of the network was carried out by the Intervision Council, which was authorized to develop and adopt a program exchange plan, and consisted of representatives of the member broadcasters (one from each television organization) and the General Secretary of the OIRT. Ex officio Chairman of the council was the Head of the OIRT Program Committee. The powers of the chairman had a two-year term.

Intervision participants

Intervision included the following broadcasting organizations:

Program exchange

In early 1956, broadcasters from the GDR and Czechoslovakia relayed matches of the Olympic hockey tournament held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, from the Eurovision network (hosted by Italian RAI). In 1957, broadcasters from Poland acquired the opportunity to retransmit. The idea of an international television service for Central and Eastern European countries arose at the sessions of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, and since May 1958 it has been the subject of discussion by television experts from Hungary, the GDR, Poland and Czechoslovakia. At that time, Czechoslovakia had the most developed television system outside the GDR, and on August 31, 1957, the first test transmission to Hungary was carried out from its territory.

In January 1960, at a meeting in Budapest, the OIRT Administrative Council decided to establish the Intervision organization. On January 31, 1960, this decision was formalized in the form of the inclusion of four original members in the Intervision - the Hungarian MT, the East German DFF, the Polish TVP and the Czechoslovak CST. Collectively, these members managed radio relay lines with a total length of about 3,000 kilometers, 30 transmitters that broadcast broadcasts on 2 million televisions used by 10 million viewers.

On September 5, 1960, the Intervision organization began its active work, the initial goals of which were aimed at the exchange of: a) live broadcasts of current events; b) programs dedicated to the economic, social, political and cultural life of the participating countries; c) feature broadcasts by classical and contemporary authors of the participating countries; d) programs for children and youth; e) entertainment programs; f) broadcasts of major national and international sporting events.

As part of the ongoing exchange of broadcasts between the Intervision and Eurovision networks, both sides agreed that the exchange of programs should be mutual and voluntary and that the respective programs should not expose the other party to political attacks or be commercially motivated. However, the members of the Eurovision network considered many of the proposals of the Intervision network to be too politicized and uninteresting. Broadcasters independently decided which programs they would choose from another network, and Intervision participants also rejected programs from the Eurovision network that, in their opinion, were commercial, politicized or religious.

News exchange

The Intervision News Exchange (IVN) was launched in May 1964 with the aim of providing reliable and up-to-date information about events in the world.

Initially, the exchange of news took place once a week - on Fridays. Since April 1965, the general exchange began to take place twice a week - on Tuesdays and Fridays, and Monday and Thursday were the days of exchange for the four Intervision broadcasters - ČST (Czechoslovakia), DFF (GDR), MT (Hungary) and TVP (Poland). Since August 1965, Monday has ceased to be an exchange day, and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday have become days of general exchange on the stock exchange, while the time window in which the exchange was carried out fell on the period from 14:15 to 14:45 Central European time.

Since June 1968, the Saturday exchange has been launched, ensuring the five-day operation of the exchange. From October 1969, Monday became an exchange day again, and the exchange time was moved to the period from 16:00 to 16:30 Central European time, which made it possible to increase the subject matter of the transmitted materials. Since May 1970, the Sunday exchange was launched, which ensured the daily operation of the exchange. The exchange of news was carried out on the basis of the "Television News Transmission Procedure", which regulates the operation of the exchange. It was established that the subject of operational exchange on the stock exchange are broadcasters' offers containing information about significant events of the day. If possible, information about the event should have been transmitted on the day of its completion. In case of significant technical or programmatic reasons, the exchange could be canceled or postponed to an earlier time. Important political or scientific events (for example, related to space exploration), as well as some sporting events, such as the "Peace Bike Race" or the Olympic Games, could be attributed to programmatic reasons. At least two organizations had to participate in the exchange. Broadcasters' participation in the exchange was voluntary.

The exchange was organized and coordinated by the Intervision Technical Coordination Center and the Intervision Program Coordination Center. The Program Coordination Center kept monthly and quarterly statistics on the exchange's work, which it provided for meetings of the Board of Intervision and the Group of Experts on News Exchange.

The daily standard operation of the news exchange consisted of the following stages:

History of members

Participation in the OIRT was independent of any geographical or other objective conditions.

There were two types of participation: active and associate membership. Active members had the right to vote in the governing bodies of the organization, associate members were deprived of this right. All OIRT members were required to pay annual membership fees. Membership fees were calculated according to a criterion developed taking into account the number of televisions and radios in the respective country.

Applications from broadcasting organizations for membership in the OIRT had to be accompanied by information about the organization's structure, technical capabilities, and legal status. These applications were reviewed by the OIRT Administrative Council, which required a two-thirds majority of the existing quorum or the total number of council members to approve the admission of a new member to the organization.

In accordance with Article V of the OIRT Charter, the following organizations could become its members:

government organizations that directly provide television and radio broadcasting;

civil society organizations that provide television and radio broadcasting under the leadership of the Government;

national civil society organizations that unite organizations that meet the membership conditions listed in the preceding paragraphs.

The Charter stipulated that each country could have only one active member. This approach also persisted in the European Broadcasting Union until 1959, when the organization's Charter was revised under pressure from British broadcasters.

At the same time, there were rules for determining the active member.:

Associated members

Associated members of the OIRT could be those radio and television organizations or groups of radio and television organizations that, although meeting all the conditions for active membership, could not be considered an organization or group of organizations representing their country as active members. They did not enjoy any of the social rights of active members, in particular the right to become members of the Administrative Council or the right to cast a decisive vote at sessions of the General Assembly. However, they could attend the sessions of this Assembly with an advisory vote and use the services provided by the OIRT.

In 1981, for the first time, cooperation was initiated with a non-socialist and commercial broadcasting organization, the Japanese television company Asahi National Broadcasting. She was accepted into the OIRT as an associate member. In 1983, another Japanese broadcaster, NHK, joined it. In 1988 and 1989, the Yugoslav JRT, the German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF joined the OIRT as associate members, followed by broadcasters from Austria (ORF), France (OFRT), Spain (CCRTV), and Italy (RAI). In 1989, television organizations from the Netherlands and Sweden also applied to join the OIRT as associate members, but due to the restructuring and dissolution of the organization, they did not have time to consider these applications. Despite intensive preparations for the reorganization, amendments to the Charter and a number of cooperation agreements concluded with the European Broadcasting Union, the OIRT has chosen the path of liquidation with further merger with the EBU since 1990.