International Radio and Television Organisation

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. 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,) 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. 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. In 1950, some members (mostly western European) left the organization to form the new European Broadcasting Union (EBU), among them Belgium, Egypt, France, Italy, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. Staff members from Belgium and other Western countries, some of whom had already been active before the war, stayed on in Brussels and the centre became the technical centre of the new EBU. Unlike the EBU, the OIRT was not limited to European and Mediterranean countries and operated as a global organization. Members of the organization included countries aligned with the Eastern bloc, such as Cuba, Vietnam, the People's Republic of China and North Korea (although the latter's membership was temporarily inactive after their break with the USSR), as well as the allies of the USSR that were temporarily led by communist parties, such as Nicaragua and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and the African and Middle Eastern states having been temporarily associated or supported by the socialist camp. Since 1957, OIRT has established cooperation with the European Broadcasting Union at the level of technical committees, and since 1965, cooperation has begun between the programming committees of these organizations. Since 1960, the OIRT and the EBU have been actively cooperating on the following issues: expanding the exchange of artistic programs between Intervision and Eurovision, as well as solving legal and financial difficulties; expanding the exchange of relevant programs; technical work of exchange networks, especially qualitative improvement of image and sound channels for broadcasting; distribution of rights to broadcast major international sports events, as well as advertising issues within these broadcasts, the cost of licenses for sports programs. On November 18, 1971, nine OIRT members signed an agreement on the creation of the Intersputnik system. In 1986, OIRT developed the concept of the international channel Interprogramm. == 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). 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. 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. The functioning of the Intervision network was provided by the technical coordination center and the program coordination center. They provided retransmission and exchange traffic between network participants and were subordinate to the Council of Intervision in the implementation of its decisions. of the Intervision.It was regulated that before the start of the broadcast, each broadcast had to broadcast its logo for ten seconds along with the Intervision screensaver, and the broadcast of the event had to be turned on immediately after the end of the screensaver demonstration.At the end of the broadcast, the order changed - first, the broadcaster had to demonstrate its logo embedded in the Intervision screensaver, and then the visual and audio identifier of the network. Between 1977 and 1980, the OIRT organised four Intervision Song Contests in Sopot, Poland, in an attempt to imitate the Eurovision Song Contest. The organization ceased to exist a month before the liquidation of the OIRT itself began. The network's coordination center was located in Prague. Intervision participants Intervision included the following broadcasting organizations: The exchange of music content was based on the principles of creating a single list of programs. Each Intervision participating country prepared a set of 10 music programs, including all types of music - from classical to modern - for every three weeks. These programs were broadcast to other participating countries in blocks of five hours each according to the established schedule. It was noted that a general viewing of a music program, which would be approved by all participants of the Intervention at the same time, was an exceptional case. Cooperation usually took the form of creating a common pool of programs and shows from which individual countries could choose at their discretion what they wanted to show on their channels. On February 1, 1982, Intervision participants began transmitting programs for retransmission via the Intersputnik satellite system in order to ease the load on terrestrial video communication channels. Satellite broadcasts were designed to provide higher technical quality of the broadcast and establish stable direct communication with non-European participants of Intervision (for example, Cuba). 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 May 1971, the united news exchange with the name "Eurovision" - "Intervision" has been operating on a permanent basis. Any news event covered by the broadcasting system of a participant in one organization could be sent directly on request to any broadcasting system of a participant in another organization for use in its news programs on the same evening. The exchange was carried out daily, at 4 p.m. Central European time, through the Austrian broadcaster, a member of the European Broadcasting Union ORF. The Intervision News Exchange (IVN) included the following broadcasting organizations: ==History of members==

Participation in the OIRT was independent of any geographical or other objective conditions. At the same time, there were rules for determining the active member.: • There is only one broadcaster of any organizational form in the country: if there was only one state-owned or one private, state-sanctioned broadcasting service in the country, then it had every reason to become the country's representative in the OIRT with the right of active membership. • There are several state broadcasters in the country: if there were several state broadcasting services in the country that met the membership criteria, they were required to identify an active member by mutual agreement, or create a common civil organization to collectively represent them in the OIRT - the final responsibility for determining the representative was assigned to the government of the delegating country. • There are several broadcasters in the country, both public and private: if there are both public broadcasting services (individual or group) and private state-sanctioned broadcasting services (individual or group) in the country, priority should be given to public broadcasting services when granting the right to be an active member of the OIRT. • There are several private broadcasters in the country: if there were only private broadcasting services in the country, they were instructed to identify an active member of the OIRT by mutual agreement, and in the absence of consensus, the status of the broadcaster in the OIRT was assigned by the competent government authority. Active members } 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. } == Notes ==