Public service radio and television broadcasters in Europe have common interests, which is why they set up the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). It negotiates broadcasting rights for major sports events on their behalf, organizes their programme exchanges and acts as a stimulus for co-productions. From a more general point of view, the EBU provides all the operational, technical and legal services required for cooperation. It is also attaching growing importance to lobbying - the European institutions in par ticular - on behalf of the public ser vice sector of the audiovisual industry. Its prospective studies of the audiovisual milieu enable it to help members define their own national strategies.
Founded in 1950 and headquartered in Geneva, the EBU is the world's largest professional association of national broadcasters. Following the EBU's unification in 1993 with the OIRT - the former broadcasting association of Eastern Europe - the new, extended union has 66 active members in 49 countries (Europe from west to east, as well as nor thern Africa and the Middle East). With a fur ther 51 associate members worldwide, the EBU is present in a total of 79 countries.
The EUROVISION permanent network (13 channels on a Eutelsat satellite plus 5,500 kilometres of terrestrial circuits) serves as a vehicle for the daily exchanges. Most of the news and sports pictures European viewers see daily transit via the EBU. Ever y day at fixed times 15 exchanges provide material for national TV news bulletins. 25,000 news items and 5,000 hours of sports and cultural programmes are transmitted annually. TV channels' individual coverage (members and non-members) also transits via the Eurovision network, making a total of 60,000 transmissions routed every year by the EBU operational staff.
EBU collaboration in radio includes music, news, sport, educational programmes, local and regional radio, shor t-wave international broadcasting, broadcasts for motorists. Each year the EURORADIO network carries some 1,800 concerts and operas, and the Radio Department co-ordinates the transmission of 400 sports events and 100 major news events.
Co-operation in the technical sphere is one of the EBU's major activities. The Union is in the forefront of broadcasting research and development, and has led or contributed to the development of many new radio and TV systems: radio data system (RDS), digital audio broadcasting (World-DAB), digital television (DVB), high-definition TV (HDTV). The EBU chaired the UNITEL project that launched the Multimedia Home Platform Launching Group, an activity successfully transferred to DVB (MHP & TAM).
The EBU is a member of the ICT Standards Board and of the High Level Strategy Group. It publishes standards on broadcasting in collaboration with ETSI in the framework of the EBU-ETSI-CENELEC Joint Technical Committee. It benefits from a fruitful collaboration with EACEM, the European association of consumer manufacturers.
The EBU Technical Department also takes a direct and active part in standardization in contributing to the ITU, ISO, IEC and sometimes by setting up a specific Task Force. It represents the interests of its members in the strategic domain of frequency management, particularly in CEPT. Coordination is another key of technical collaboration between the EBU members, in DAVIC. It maintains strong liaisons with the technical committees of the other world broadcasting unions and with R&D projects.
European
Broadcasting Union
Ancienne Route 17A
CH-1218 Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 717 21 11; Fax: +41 22 747 40 00
http://www.ebu.ch/intro.html 