HRN Workshop in Budapest 17-19 Feb 2005

In memory of the 'freedom of expression': Hungary 1956

A strong impression was created when entering the grounds of the Hungarian Radio Station, for we were shown the gates through which crashed tanks in 1956, that is when the Hungarian uprising was squased by Soviet troops.

HERMES Heritage Ratio Network (HRN) met in the form of a workshop in Budapest 17 – 19 February 2005

Akos Gozon, Hungarian Radio

Unfortunately to the meeting in Budapest, there could not come the coordinator of heritageradio, Pierre Deason. He was replaced by Burkhardt Kolbmüller, Coordinator of the HERMES project.

Burkhardt Kolbmüller, Sanja Halilovic and Vid Mesaric

List of topics

Critical review of the last few months
Visions of Europan Internet Radio
Basic principles of the editorial work – content, topics, target groups
Technical details – website, virtual editorial board, content mangement system, layout comments
Future cooperation, important dates

Participants

Svetla Varbanova (Bulgarian National Radio), Svetlana Ditcheva (Bulgarian National Radio), Sanja Halilovic (Croatian Radio), Vid Mesaric (Croatian Radio), Dr. Geza Valyi (Hungarian Radio), Akos Gozon (Hungarian Radio), Dora Gyarmathy (Hungarian Radio), Janusz Andrzejowski (Radio Krakow), Katarzyna Fortuna (Radio Krakow), Michael Helbing (Radio LOTTE Weimar), Aleksander Berta (Slovak Radio), Dr. Hatto Fischer (Volos/Athens: Poiein kai Prattein), Filippos Kalogiannis (DEMEKAV, Volos), Dr. Burkhardt Kolbmüller (Coordinator of HERMES), Sebastian Schröder (Bauhaus University Weimar), Klaus Schenk (Webmaster), Christoph Roesler (Mjuzik Editor), Pawel Kaminski (HRN office)

Minutes

1. Critical review of the last few months

„Where we stand“ evaluation introduced by Burkhardt Kolbmüller, who underlines so far successes of the Network and presents unsolved problems as well. As successful are mentioned:

launching the first international European Internet Radio – a project that is „unique, innovative, full of further opportunities“
building up a working network of different European radio stations and editors
starting HRN even earlier than foreseen in the HERMES application
receiving interesting and important feed-back concerning the project

As Burkhardt Kolbmüller admits, „for each partner it makes sense what we are doing“.

Nevertheless, he presents a list of problems in need to be solved:

need for a stronger and clearer content profile
defining terms of culture and heritage, as well as topics relevant for HRN content
defining target groups of Heritage Radio, and finding ways to attract them
setting standards for quantity and quality of contributions to HRN
launching the „HRN magazine“ broadcast
improvement of day-by-day co-operation and communication
informing about cultural heritage related broadcasts of the participating radio stations

All participants agree that improved communication would make the whole interaction better. Additionally the following remarks and suggestions were made:

Sanja Halilovic demands a stronger content focus and more audio contributions. She proposes a closer co-operation with Voice of Croatia, the English channel of Croatian Radio.

Alexandr Berta demands a more attractive opening screen of the HRN website (to attract visitors) and proposes to include photos of the HRN editors.

Akos Gozon proposes a closer co-operation of Petöfi Radio with HRN (exchange of contributions)

Many participants demand a better information about the HRN „listeners“ and more inter-active tools. A detailed user statistics and a permanent evaluation are the preconditions of a better „advertisement“ of the HRN website and the attraction of new listeners. All participants agree to make this a main topic for the next HRN meeting in September 2006.

Several times, the question of language is raised. This topic is discussed controversially. The participants decide to discuss this topic during the next HRN meeting again. Christoph Roesler underlines the important role of music as „communication language“.

2. Visions of European Internet Radio (followed by the presentation of the DEMEKAV project by Fillipos Kalogiannis)

Burkhardt Kolbmüller proposes to develop the HRN as a CADSES wide communication tool wit close connection to the EU structural fund. He presents the 2002 budget of the European Union (more than 20% of all expenses for regional development, less than 1% for culture and education, 0.15% for media and communication) to conclude that Heritage Radio Network should focus more on the regional impact of culture and heritage as well as on European regional policy (implementation of the EU structural fund), for instance by:

exposing and communicating the impacts of regional cultural projects on regional identity and regional development
communicating Interreg and other European projects by HRN and the national radio stations
co-operating with the national authorities responsible for culture, heritage, media and regional development

Hatto Fischer stresses the role and possible influence of Internet Radio upon the European media landscape. As he notices, „the discussions are very poor nowadays and the power of images is much stronger.“ To prevent being „misled by media culture“, he advises to use the internet as means of participation, and to keep up the awareness of mutual interests. In his opinion, the work of HRN should be based on self-advertisement and that means a self referential system (CNN is giving here an outstanding example.)

All participants agree to introduce different h working groups focusing on particular tasks (fund searching, editorial board, project evaluation). Svetla Varbanova suggests to produce working papers.

Preliminarily declared participation:

Fund searching, business plan, future financing of HRN: Burkhardt Kolbmüller, Janusz Andrzejowski, Hatto Fischer, Geza Valyi, Svetla Varbanova.

Editorial group / content: Katarsyna Fortuna, Svetlana Dicheva, Dora Gyarmathy, Michael Helbing, Vid Mesaric, Hatto Fischer, Akos Gozon.

Practical realisation: Sanja Halilovic, Christoph Roesler (music), Filipos Kalogiannis, Klaus H. Schenk (Website)

Links to cultural projects / museums: Sanja Halilovic, Hatto Fischer, Aleksandr Berta.

Evaluation: Pawel Kaminski.

Moreover, Geza Valyi, Michael Helbing and Vid Mesaric express their concern about the promotion of HRN, and Svetla Varbanova offers her help on the matter of copyright analysis.

Additional studies on the Internet Radio are conducted by Pawel Kaminski and Panayiotis Petropulos.

3. Basic principles of the editorial work, HRN forum, HRN magazine

All participants agree to improve the internal communication by installing the HRN forum. This forum shall discuss practical details of the HRN work amongst the editors, as well as with other directly involved people. This forum shall include, for instance, information and discussions of the newly formed HRN working groups. Additionally, every week (proposal: every Monday,4 p.m.) the HRN office shall send an email to all involved persons containing all news of the last week. The HRN office in Weimar is asked to organise all necessary details.

Furthermore, an HRN open 'news agency' was discussed, including a calendar of cultural events and announcements of interesting national broadcasts. Although most of the participants agree to the necessity of such a calender, the topis is postponed to the next HRN meeting due to the unresolved questions of the practical realisation.

The suggestion of launching an Heritage Radio magazine is not agreed upon by most of the participants, as they are not ready and for some (financial, technical) reasons not able to realise it. Svetla Varbanova expresses her criticism and concern about who is to cover the expenses of such an undertaking. Vid Mesaric adds that as long as we do not have a more numerous audience, it is useless to prepare the magazine. Pawel Kaminski replies that it is the magazine that could attract the internet users, and notices that it would not require many extra efforts. Akos Gozon suggests tha the form and length of it should be flexible. Finally, it is decided to postpone this topic to the next HRN meeting in September 2005 in Krakow. In the meantime, the HRN office shall prepare some practical approaches to such a magazine, in order to prepare the discussion in Krakow. One step towards such a HRN magazine could also be to prepare contributions by several editors on a common (European) topic.

Christoph Roesler presents the mjuzik program of Heritage Radio and raises the question whether or not to install three theme channels – jazz, classic, traditional. Finally, it is decided to stream two separate channels (folk music, classical music/jazz). The participants also agree to include music from all CADSES regions (not only from the HERMES partners).

Aleksander Berta proposes to include features in orginal languages (without overdubs) -this is discussed and finally rejected by the rest of the participants.

Vid Mesaric and Aleksander Berta propose the idea of streaming radio dramas (in original languages). This is eventually replaced (also because of difficult downloads) by the idea of announcing on the HRN website online broadcasts of radio dramas in the partner stations.

Hatto Fischer notices that the editors should focus more on introducing future things (events) instead of publishing reviews of past events. Vid Mesaric adds that it would be good to analyse and compare general trends (concerning cultural heritage) in Europe.

Burkhardt Kolbmüller notices that covering EU programmes and events concerned would be useful for all, especially for the future EU members - “to show how the EU works and how such programmes are run.” This is also perceive as a good way to gain funds from the EU. Michael Helbig underlines that it is an important task for the editors to attract attention to these topics by “telling stories about them”.

All agree that the editors should focus on the upcoming 1^st anniversary of the accession of the new countries in the union.

4 Technical details – website, virtual editorial board, content management system, layout comments

The suggestion of changing the colours of the website is not supported by the participants.

Concerning the demanded improvement of t he web navigation by developing keywords option, it is agreed that the editors should decide by themselves, which words are particularly meaningful for certain articles.

Vid Mesaric suggests installing the users' counter on the web page.

The possible logo of HRN presented by Burkhardt Kolbmüller is commented positively, providing a change of the background colour.

The participants agree on publishing more audio contributions to make HRN “more a real radio”. A future tool could also possibly combine these audio files to a kind of HRN magazine.

The participants agree to prepare permanent broadcasts on HERMES and/or HRN topics in their national radio programs. Information about these broadcasts should be sent to the HRN office and placed on the HRN website as well. A good opportunity to start or to intensify this work could be the 1^st of May (first anniversary of EU enlargement).

The question of copyrights is considered to be or shall become a serious problem. Svetla Varbanova proposes to contact the European Broadcasting Union (EBU); she will send the contact dates to the HRN office. Hatto Fischer proposes to consult additionally the European Commission (Media Department).

In a special session, the HRN editors are introduced to the newly developed HRN content management system by Klaus H. Schenk.

5. Future co-operation, important dates

The next meeting of the HRN editorial board will be held in Krakow, Poland, on 8 – 11 September 2005 (simultaneously with the meeting of the HERMES Steering Committee). The topics of this meeting will be the following:

HRN magazin
HRN cultural calendar
promotion and advertisement, financial issues
language
editorial policy

The next meetings are envisaged for February / March 2006 in Zagreb and June 2006 in Sofia.

Important dates:

2005
10 – 12 March	Toblach / IT	Europa Nostra Heritage Film Festival
25 – 26 April	Vienna / AT	Interreg Conference, HRN live reporting
1^st of May		1 year EU membership of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia
13 – 15 June	Volos / GR	HERMES Conference „New Media in Museums“
25 June	Weimar / DE	Opening of the Wieland Estate Ossmanstedt
26 – 27 June	Weimar / DE	First HERMES Symposium
13 – 27 August	Weimar / DE	Weimar Summer Course
8 – 11 September	Krakow / PL	HERMES Conference with - meeting of HERMES Steering Committee - meeting of HRN editorial board - Second HERMES Symposium
22 – 25 September	Toblach / IT	New Toblach Talks: „Sustainable reconstruction of heritage sites“
2006
March	Zagreb / HR	Meeting of the HRN editorial board
June	Volos / GR	Volos Summer Course
June	Sofia / BG	HERMES Third Symposium, HERMES SC and HRN editorial board
12 – 26 August	Weimar / DE	Weimar Summer Course
September	Toblach / IT	Toblach Summer Course
October	Weimar / DE	HERMES final conference

The Hungarian Radio Station - in history and after the transition

After the meeting, there took place a tour of the radio station. It included visiting the special space where the orchestra could play and be recorded. Also we visited the archiv and realize what huge task stood before to preserve this cultural heritage. Whether or not they would succeed in digitalizing all the materials, was not only a financial question but a huge challenge since it contained my original recordings of not only news but performances and visitors being interviewed.

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HRN Workshop in Budapest 17-19 Feb 2005