By Floyd French
Observer Reporter
(Basseterre, St. Kitts) – ZIZ Broadcasting Corporation has announced the start of a project to preserve video images from at least 25 years ago. ZBC has secured funding from UNESCO for the Digital Archiving Project.
Project Team Leader, Ms. Cherryl Ward, gave an overview of the project. It was difficult to manage the over 5,000 videos or over 10,000 hours of video footage ZIZ Television has in its possession, she said.
Video images recorded using now-outdated machines are incompatible with modern video playing device, Ms. Ward said. The transfer of old videos into DVD format will preserve those images and make them widely available for use.
Ms. Ward summed up the project as a means of “capturing and preserving the oldest video content that is available and preservable.” A short list of some of the videos already identified for preservation includes the first Independence celebrations in 1983, the 1983 Independence Calypso Competition, State Funeral Services for Premiers Bradshaw and Southwell, the opening of Sandy Point Primary School by Princess Margaret, a documentary of the Basseterre Courthouse fire in 1982, and an interview with President Fidel Castro.
Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the National Commission for UNESCO, Hon. Sam Condor, lauded the project and said that the videos are part of the “cultural heritage of social evolution.” He also said the video for preservation form part of our “sense of national identity.”
“This augurs well for development and national identity,” emphasised Minister Condor.
Chairman of ZBC, Mr. Peter Jenkins, said the project is “part of a strategic plan to improve on the now positive financial position of ZIZ.” He thanked UNESCO for funding the project.
“I wish to thank UNESCO for giving us the privilege to secure for posterity the historical records of the television station as an asset to be treasured by Kittitians and Nevisians,” stated Jenkins.
ZBC was privatised in 2006 and now operates in a highly competitive media market.
