(Vatican Radio) Important news for the Vatican Television Centre (CTV) this week.
CTV this year celebrates its 30th anniversary. In a Vatican press conference Thursday,
the President of the Board of Directors of CTV, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, and
director general, Msgr. Dario E. Viganò announced the addition of a new "master control
room", capable of processing advanced digital signals, and the signing of an agreement
with the Argentine TV "Canal 21". CTV’s new "master control room" in the Vatican
will sort incoming and outgoing digitized signals as "files." The project, begun
in collaboration with Sony, offers clear advantages - said the director general of
CTV - to exchange and archive images and sound in the digital format. In view of
these new operations, the valuable CTV archives, documenting the pontificates of Popes
John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, will be restored. Meanwhile, the Argentine
TV "Canal 21" has signed an accord with CTV for the acquisition of its archives documenting
the activities of Cardinal Bergoglio for the period up to March 13, 2013 - the day
of his election as Pope - for use in Italy and Europe. The agreement with "Canal 21",
was greeted with satisfaction by Pope Francis, in a message read out to journalists
by Msgr. Viganò: "I will read what the Pope told us to communicate: 'I'm glad that
the agreement has been struck between the Vatican Television Center and Canal 21'
- remember that Canal 21 television is the diocesan television for Buenos Aires -
'it is a concrete measure to make known, in Italy and in Europe, the reality of the
Church of Buenos Aires, which, thanks to the solidarity and cooperation of the people
and of the Italian Church, can count on a diocesan Catholic television. The use of
images helps to build bridges and (allows us) to understand the ways of being Church
in various latitudes of the world; this in some way helps make us less like strangers
and feeds communion (in the Church)." Archbishop Celli noted that these novelties
are just a few among many initiatives in this special anniversary year which will
ramp up CTV’s production. "We are approaching the 30th year of the Vatican Television
Center: we will be celebrating it in October. In this context, we are trying to bring
forward some initiatives that I think have a meaning and value all their own. " Msgr.
Viganò stressed these projects converge to form a unique perspective: "The shoot,
the audiovisual, is an important documentary source. While traditionally, the story
was reconstructed from notes on paper, more and more, history is reconstructed in
its complexity, in its events, from visual sources. "