MIPTV – CANNES. The European Commission (DG Communication) and the European Audiovisual Observatory are to launch a version of MAVISE, a new TV database set up to provide basic data on all the television channels accessible in the European Union and the two candidate countries, Croatia and Turkey. Following its launch on April 9, it will be accessible free of charge.
“The European Commission needed a tool that would enable it to understand the world of television in all its complexity”, said Thierry Vissol, an adviser to the European Commission’s DG Communication, in a prepared statement. “The European Audiovisual Observatory has developed a database for us that takes this complexity into account. The public version of the MAVISE database that we are presenting today only contains some of the information gathered by the Observatory. In the context of intellectual property rights, it was not possible to make information on the audiences and financial situation of companies available to the public free of charge”.
“MAVISE already contains key information on more than 2,500 companies, over 2,700 television channels and the line-up of more than a hundred distributors,” said André Lange, head of department at the Observatory. “The aim is to compile a list of the 6,000 to 7,000 channels in Europe by the end of the year. In its present state, the database is far from being complete but the most important channels in audience terms and the main special-interest channels are included and the database is already proving very useful”.