I have found this browsing through Michael Geist’ s site. In his Rethinking the Public in Public Broadcasting article he mentiones” The Danish Broadcasting Corporation, which already features hundreds of hours of archival material on its website, recently announced plans to provide content to the wikipedia project, thereby enabling users to build on its materials. Later this month officials in the Netherlands intend to unveil plans to digitize 700,000 hours of feature films, documentaries, television shows, and radio programs. This remarkable project, which will take several years to complete, will transfer an incredible array of historical materials into the hands of the public.”

Well, in Hungary, the fate of the archives of the public television MTV are -how to say- interesting. In 2005 nearly 11 thousand hours of archive material was sold for 4.2 billion HUF (20 million USD, 1800 USD /hour) to the National Audiovisual Archives responsible for digitally archiving contemporary and historic audiovisual material. MTV could choose what material she handed over. The transaction will repeat itself this year.

MTV is notoriously underfinanced (or to put it in another way notoriously mismanaged), and this 4 billion per year is a hidden support from the government to the station. The price for this? They loose their archives, or that part that was not stolen in the last two decades. The National Audiovisual Archive makes these materials available at dedicated terminals set up in libraries. Wow. Talk about open access to materials the taxpayers had payed for at least twice: at the production and at the sale.