EUROPEAN AV MARKET RECEIVES MAJOR BOOST

A NEW strand of activity in the European audio-visual industry has been proposed to boost uptake of digital technologies.
Aimed at establishing a financial framework to accelerate adaptation to digital, the proposals were made by the European Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the European Investment Fund (EIF) at a meeting in Brussels this week. The new financial package aims to improve the industry’s competitiveness and to promote the development of European audio-visual content.
Vivane Reding, European Commissioner for Culture and Audio-Visual Media, and Phillippe Maystadt, President of the EIF, presented the new strategy of cooperation between the Commission, EIF and the EIB.
The project, known as ‘i2i Audio-visual’, is part of the ‘i2i’ initiative put in place June 2000 by the EIB group.
The strategy, which will initially last for three years, aims to release substantial financial resources; estimates, based on the first operations currently under evaluation, suggest that the initial volume of EIB Group funding should be in excess of half a billion euros.
Viviane Reding said: “This joint initiative is designed to ensure that audio-visual Europe enters a virtuous circle. Because if we recover shares of the market, our creators, seeing their audience grow, will themselves attract extra funds and improve their chances of disseminating our culture in other European countries and throughout the world.”
The measures have an industrial and a cultural dimension too as they plan to support the activities and reinforce the financial stability of European audio-visual firms both large and small, encouraging the development of a pan-European dimension in the industry.
A provision by the EIB for credit lines to the banking sector specialised in the audio-visual media for small firms working in the field of audio-visual creation and technology will be implemented.
Joint action by the EIB Group and the European Commission to promote cultural creation and the development of a film and television industry will ensure better complementarity between the Group's banking resources and the Community subsidies available under the Media Plus programme, which has a 400 million euro budget spread over five years.
The Commission proposes organising training in the financing of audio-visual firms. While, joint action will support co-operation between European distributors.
The funding of risk capital appropriate to audio-visual media, will be arranged through EIF participation. (CMcL)