Statutes



Statutes

Article 1: Object

The members signing these articles – and the ones subsequently signing – have decided to establish a non-profit association, according to the law passed on the 1st of July 1901 modified and its application texts, with the name “UNION RADIOPHONIQUE ET TELEVISUELLE INTERNATIONALE », or “International Radio and Television Union” (formerly called « UNIVERSITE RADIOPHONIQUE ET TELEVISUELLE INTERNATIONALE “), hereinafter named “URTI”.

URTI aims to promote Culture internationally under its multiple audiovisual expressions.

It implements the ways and means (programme exchanges, co-productions, creation incentive, organization of Grand Prix, distinctions, training workshops, exchanges of experiences, actions of international promotion, etc.), liable to increase the choices of audiovisual programmes its members offer their audiences.

Article 2: Missions and Means of action

URTI is an association with international character of which the action principles are based on the pooling of means by its members. It manages, administratively as well as technically, a catalogue of audiovisual programme exchanges put at the members’s disposal by the members.
 

    URTI notably endeavours to:
  • Favour the international circulation of audiovisual works and provide their promotion.
  • Make possible for its members to save important sums of money by freely acquiring quality programmes already broadcast on other territories, notably to provide contents for their new digital platforms.
  • Provide its members’s coordination in order to develop a programme exchange catalogue taking into account its members’s needs.
  • Make easier the production of subtitled and/or dubbed versions of this catalogue.
  • Distribute to its members the audiovisual programmes offered free of rights by other international organizations.
  • Make its programme resources known and make their broadcast on any platform easier.
  • Coordinate its members’s action to implement co-productions.
  • Promote and/or organize between its members, and without excluding the participation of outside organizations, the connections able to favour the production of programmes meeting its mission.
  • Develop the participation, on the qualitative and quantitative levels, in the International Grand Prix it organizes and see to their international renown.
  • Favour the search for and exchange of information in the audiovisual field.
  • Propose training actions to its members.
  • Keep up close relations with other international audiovisual and institutional organizations.
  • Provide the archives of its programme catalogues.


URTI notably uses the French, English and Arabic languages for the documents it writes in the framework of its activities.

 

Article 3: Registered office

The URTI registered office is in Paris 16th (France), Maison de Radio France, 116, avenue du Président Kennedy.

Article 4: Length

The association is constituted for an unlimited period. Its dissolution could be decided in the conditions defined in article 16 of the present statutes.

Article 5: Composition of the association and membership procedure

5.1 Composition

The association is composed of the following members:

5.1.1 Founding and active Members

The founding members and the active members are accepted in the conditions provided for by article 5 of the present statutes.

They are:

- radio organizations or groups of organizations from countries member of the Union Internationale des Télécommunications (UIT) which, with the authorisation of the appropriate authorities and by the legal broadcast means, operate a service of sound and/or visual programmes;

- moral persons editors of audiovisual communication services accessible through a process of electronic communication, as through the Internet network or mobile networks (e.g. ADSL, WAP, 3G, etc.) which put at the public’s disposal contents broadcast in a linear and/or non-linear way (e.g. webradios, webTV, audio on demand, downloading, etc.).

a) Founding members

The organizations and/or moral persons mentioned in the present article 5.1.1 accepted before June 15, 2009 have the status of founding members.

b) Active members

The organizations and/or moral persons mentioned in the present article 5.1.1 accepted as from June 15, 2009 have the status of active members.

The founding members and the active members accept the present statutes and pay an annual fee of which the minimum amount is decided each year by the general Assembly. It will be possible to differentiate this amount for each aforementioned type of member.

5.1.2 Associate members

The associate members are accepted in the conditions provided for by article 5 of the present statutes.

They are moral or physical persons whose mission and goals concur, in their respective sectors, with those of URTI and who promise to contribute to creative activities in the fields where they share common interests.

These members are divided into two categories:

- the « organization » associate members: they are the institutions, the institution collectives and the international cultural and educational organizations (e.g. universities, institutes, research centres, museums, foundations, etc.).

- the « individual » associate members: they are the physical persons acknowledged for their skills in the cultural, educational, audiovisual domains and in those of the new information and communication technologies (e.g. researchers, consultants, etc.).

The associate members accept the present statutes and pay an annual fee of which the minimum amount is decided each year by the general Assembly. It will be possible to differentiate this amount, depending on whether the associate member belongs to the category “organizations” or “individuals”.

5.1.3 Ex officio members

They are not subject to the acceptance procedure provided for by article 5.2 of the present statutes.

They are accepted by the general Assembly and are exempt from the payment of fee.

They are moral persons accepting the present statutes and bringing special support to the activities of the association.

5.1.4 Honorary members

They are not subject to the acceptance procedure provided for by article 5.2 of the present statutes.

They are accepted by the general Assembly and are exempt from the payment of fee.

They are physical and/or moral persons who have an historical link and/or had a significant contribution to the history of URTI.

The general Assembly will be able to elect an honorary President, among the only honorary members, in the conditions detailed in article 9.2.b.. The honorary President does not fulfil any functional and/or direction responsibility within the association. He cannot exert the power the present statutes acknowledge to the President of the association.

5.2 Membership

To become a member of the association, it is required to present a membership request to the Director general.

The membership requests are investigated by the Director general who will be able to take into account the following criteria:

- compliance of the candidate with the qualities required by article 5 of the present statutes;

- mission of public service carried out by the candidate and/or belonging of the candidate to the public service such as specified in the candidate’s country, the association being able to grant a priority of membership to these candidates;

- pre-existence within the association of a member belonging to the same State as that of the candidate. In this case, the membership of the candidate could only be declared after advisory advice of the pre-existing member. In case of no reply of the latter within a period of 21 days from the day the advice request was sent, the pre-existing member’s advice will be deemed favourable;

- etc.

The list of criteria featuring above is neither exhaustive nor conditional.

5.2.1 Provisional membership

The Director general is authorized to declare the candidate’s provisional membership. This statute of provisional membership will only be valid until the day the general Assembly meets next and decides on the definitive membership or the rejection of the candidate’s application.

The provisional membership is subject to the payment by the new member of a provisional subscription for the current year, calculated in proportion to the number of months still to be payable until the end of the current year. This provisional subscription is determined by the Director general according to the criteria generally accepted by the general Assembly.

The provisional membership gives the new member – on a temporary basis – all the same rights and obligations inherent to the member statute of the association (e.g. access to programmes, etc.).

The general Assembly decides, during the next meeting following the provisional membership in the beginning of the session, on the candidate’s definitive membership with a simple majority of the members present or legally represented and voting. In case of a rejection of the candidate’s membership request, the latter will be repaid part of the amount of the subscription paid during his provisional membership, corresponding to the months still to be paid before the end of the year. He will then have to immediately cease benefiting from the rights recognized to the members, notably about the use of audiovisual programmes from the URTI catalogue.

5.2.2 Refusal of a provisional membership

The Director general can refuse the candidate’s provisional membership. This refusal does not have to be justifiable.

If need be, the candidate’s request will then be presented during the next meeting of the general Assembly, which will give a ruling at the beginning of the session on the candidate’s membership or not, with a simple majority of the members present or legally represented and voting.

Article 6: Resignation – Striking off

a) URTI members wishing to put an end to their membership are bound to inform the President of the association about it, in writing, at the latest three months after the end of the current calendar year and are bound to pay the fee corresponding to the current calendar year.

b) The quality of member is also lost with death for the physical persons or dissolution for the moral persons. The general Assembly is sovereign to decide of the integration in the association of a moral person who would have merged with a member moral person, or who would have been acquired by the latter.

c) For its part, the general Assembly can pronounce the striking off of a member who did not pay the membership fees twice in a row and/or who, more generally, does not answer anymore the membership criteria for URTI, who does not respect the obligations inherent to the present statutes or who commits a gross misconduct or acts tending to harm URTI, its reputation or independence.

d) Any resignation or striking off immediately puts to an end the rights conferred to the member when he became a member, and notably the right to use programmes obtained in the framework of URTI.

Article 7: Membership fees

Membership in URTI is linked to the payment of a membership fee, of which the minimum amount is determined by the general Assembly on a proposition by the executive Board, according to a scale adapted to the importance and the characteristics of each organization and/or physical or moral person.

Article 8: Resources

The resources of URTI notably include:

- The amount of membership fees paid by its members.

- The possible public or private grants or any other resources which would not be forbidden by the legal texts and the rules and regulations, notably the manual donations.

- The contributions, notably in kind, of its members and partners.

Except in the case of manual donations about which the allocations can be expressly described by the donor and accepted in that capacity only, the sums in question come into the general budget of URTI.

Article 9: General Assembly

9.1. Composition and convocation

The general Assembly is composed of the founding, active, associate, ex officio and honorary members.

It meets at least once every year after convocation by the President of the association by simple letter or fax at least fifteen days before the meeting. The convocation could also be sent by electronic mail.

The convocation gives the agenda decided by the executive Board. On the request of two-thirds of the members who have paid their membership fees, an item is placed by right on the agenda by the executive Board.

9.2 Powers

a) The general Assembly only deliberates on the issues on the agenda.

It defines the orientation of the activities of URTI, promulgates its own statutes, ratifies the provisional memberships accepted by the Director general specified in article 5 of the present statutes, pronounces the expulsions, discusses the assessments of the Commissions specified in article 12 of the present statutes, deliberates on the draft budget, the accounts of each financial year, the moral and financial report of the executive Board, gives its discharge on both these reports.

b) The general Assembly elects within itself and only among the founding, active and ex officio members:

- The members of the executive Board to who it delegates the necessary powers to guarantee the good functioning of URTI and the implementation of its decisions between two assemblies.

- The presidents and vice-presidents of the Commissions specified in article 12 of the present statutes.

- Two auditors, in charge of reports about the bookkeeping of each financial year.

The general Assembly also elects within itself, and only among the honorary members, an honorary President for a period of two renewable years.

c) The general Assembly provides for the replacement of positions left vacant during the mandate if need be.

The general Assembly meets legitimately whatever the number of members present or represented without quorum condition, except when article 16 of the present statutes apply.

9.3 Functioning

a) The general Assembly meets at least once every year.

b) A member can give another member a mandate to represent him during a meeting of the general Assembly. Each member will not have more than two proxies.

c) Ex officio and honorary members dispose of the right to vote during all the meetings of the general Assembly.

c) Ex officio and honorary members dispose of the right to vote during all the meetings of the general Assembly.

Associate members, « organisations » or « individuals » have no right to vote during the meetings of the general Assembly.

About the other members, only members who have paid their membership fees on the day the general Assembly meets have the right to vote.

 

c) Ex officio and honorary members dispose of the right to vote during all the meetings of the general Assembly.
Associate members, « organisations » or « individuals » have no right to vote during the meetings of the general Assembly.
About the other members, only members who have paid their membership fees on the day the general Assembly meets have the right to vote.
 
d) The voting members each dispose of one vote even if they have several activities (e.g. broadcast of radio and television programmes).

e) The federated organisations members of URTI are represented as a whole by the only vote of their federating organisation.
 
f) Decisions are taken with simple majority of members present or legally represented and voting.
 
g) An extraordinary general Assembly can be convened at a two-thirds (2/3) majority of its members or by decision of the executive Board.
 
h) Reports of the sessions are written, and signed by the President of the association.
9.4 Mandates
All the mandates handed down by the general Assembly are fulfilled on a voluntary basis.
 
Article 10: Executive Board

10.1 Composition
 
The executive Board is composed of:
 
● ex officio members, that is to say:
- the President of the association, - three Vice-presidents of the association, - a Secretary-Treasurer,
- the presidents of the Commissions.
 
● between a minimum of two other members and a maximum of five other members elected by the general Assembly among its members.
The executive Board must include a minimum of 70% of founding members.
The members of the executive Board can be represented by a physical person from their organisation during meetings of the executive Board.
The executive Board can invite to its meetings any other person of whom it would deem the presence and/or opinion necessary. These invited persons do not have the right to vote.
 
10.2 Mandates
 
a) The members of the executive Board are elected by the general Assembly for two years and are re-eligible.
 
b) The members of the executive Board are elected intuitu personae and get their legitimacy from their belonging to a moral person and/or a member organisation. Consequently, the members of the executive Board leaving the member organisation or moral person to which they belong (e.g. resignation, retirement, etc.) will loose their mandate within the executive Board. If need be, the general Assembly will hold new elections to replace them.
 
c) In case of vacancy, the position of President of the association comes to the most senior member among the Vice-presidents of the association until the next general Assembly. If need be, the most senior president of a Commission is appointed in replacement of the aforementioned Vice-president of the association and then holds concurrently his offices until the election of a new President of the association by the general Assembly.
 
d) In case of vacancy of another position of Vice-president and/or Commission president, the President of the association carry out each time it is necessary the appointment of the replacements ad interim with the agreement of the executive Board, until the next meeting of the general Assembly which will then hold elections to these positions, in accordance with article 9 of the present statutes.

e) In case of vacancy of another mandate of the executive Board, the former will be filled during the next meeting of the general Assembly.
 
10.3 Competences

a) The executive Board implements the decisions of the general Assembly, takes care of its management, controls its realisation, and reports to the general Assembly.
 
b) It is up to the executive Board to submit a programme of activities and a draft budget to the general Assembly and to carry out, during the tax year, the adjustments required by the evolution of the accounts, in the limit of financial liabilities specified by the general Assembly.
 
c) The executive Board is empowered to make agreements with any organisation which, sharing the aims of URTI, will contribute to carry them out in the best conditions.
 
10.4 Functioning

The executive Board of URTI meets every time it is necessary, at the association President’s initiative or convocation and minimum twice every year.
The members of the executive Board can give a mandate to another member of the executive Board to represent them during a Board meeting, and each member cannot have more than one proxy.
Decisions shall be reached by majority of members present or legally represented.
The executive Board meets legitimately whatever the number of members present or represented without quorum condition.
Reports of the sessions are written, and signed by the President of the association.
 
Article 11: President and Director general
 
11.1 The President of the association

He is elected by the general Assembly in the conditions provided for in article 9 of the present statutes.
The President is in charge of:
- Making sure the bodies of the association function properly in general.
- Convening and chairing the general Assembly and the executive Board.
- Providing representation of the association in all acts of civilian life, he is invested with all powers to this effect.
- Signing any documents and conventions committing the association.
He has the faculty of giving partial, permanent or temporary delegations to the members of the executive Board and the Director general.
 
11.2 The Director general

He is appointed by the executive Board for a renewable mandate of four (4) years.
He conducts the membership applications to URTI, notably in view of the criteria provided for in article 5 of the present statutes, and can decide on the candidates’s provisional membership.
He carries out the organisation and the coordination of all the URTI activities as well as the coordination with all the international organisations.
He looks for outside partnerships, notably financial.

In the course of his activities, he reports to the President and the executive Board.

Article 12: Commissions

12.1 Competences

a) URTI is composed of two permanent Commissions named: « Radio Commission » and « Television Commission » at the time when the present statutes come into effect. The general Assembly can, on the proposal of the executive Board, create other Commissions, of which the competences, mandates and functioning will be similar to those of the Radio and Television Commissions provided for by the present statutes.
 
b) The Commissions are notably responsible for implementing the policies defined by the general Assembly (e.g. programme policies, etc.) in their respective domains. Furthermore, they make the proposals intended for the constant improvement of the functioning and development of URTI.
 
12.2 Mandates

a) The URTI Commissions are each composed of a president, a vice-president and of all the directly concerned members.
b) The mandates of the presidents and vice-presidents of these Commissions are for two renewable years. Their incumbents are elected intuitu personae by the general Assembly in accordance with article 9 of the present statutes. It is specified that the presidents and vice-presidents of the Commissions leaving the organisation or the moral member to which they belong (e.g. resignation, retirement, etc.) will loose their mandate within the Commissions. If need be, the general Assembly will hold new elections to replace them.
 
12.3 Functioning

The Commissions meet at least once every year, on their presidents’s and/or the Director general’s convocation.
Decisions within the Commissions are reached by majority of members present or legally represented without quorum condition.
 
Article 13: Exchanges of audiovisual documents – Catalogue

13.1 Principles

The founding, active, ex officio and associate members commit themselves to participating in the exchanges of audiovisual documents (e.g. shows, cultural programmes, etc.) to which URTI devotes itself in priority, at the best of their means and notably by the deposits of the URTI collection of audiovisual documents which they declare usable for free, under the only condition that the members using them pay for copyright and neighbouring rights linked to the use of said documents on the territory of their country.
 
13.2 Functioning

Two categories of audiovisual documents can be deposited by the members in the URTI collection for the purposes of a registration in the URTI catalogue:
 
1. The first category is made of the audiovisual documents given URTI without territorial and time limitation for broadcast. These documents can thus be broadcast once or several times by members of URTI in the whole world during an unlimited length of time. They form the permanent catalogues of URTI. In this first category, members will have to specify whether their documents can only be broadcast whole by the other members of URTI or if extracts can be broadcast in another programme produced by another member of URTI.

2. The second category is made of the documents given URTI with a broadcast delay and/or a limitation - notably territorial – of the broadcast and/or rerun right. Reservations of this nature must absolutely be notified, during the delivery of the concerned document, to the Director general who then expressly gives them to the URTI members.
The members dispose of a right of withdrawal of the audiovisual documents they gave URTI. They justify their decision to exercise it to the Director general who informs the other members of it.
 
13.3 Rights and duties
 
a) URTI commits itself to giving the members the specific restrictions of use of the audiovisual documents, which are notified to it by the depositing members, from the date of adoption of the present statutes, at the time when the aforementioned documents are given to the URTI collection.
b) When several members belong to the same country or, according to the legal conditions, to a same broadcast area or network, the audiovisual documents deposited by one cannot be used by the others without the prior agreement of the depositing member of who URTI is the go-between. So, in this case, the request for use of the audiovisual document is notified by URTI to the depositing member who disposes of a time limit of ten (10) weekdays to notify his possible opposition. For want of opposition in this time limit of ten (10) days, the agreement of said member is said to be accepted.
c) By accepting the present statutes, the members acknowledge that they were clearly informed of the conditions in which they deposit audiovisual documents into the programme collection of URTI and commit themselves to respecting them (e.g. possible indication of broadcast number and delays or of geographical limitations, etc.). Consequently, subject to the dispositions of the present articles, they guarantee URTI and the members using the audiovisual documents against any appeal or contesting concerning the documents thus given URTI which would be used in accordance with the present statutes and according to the indications possibly notified to the Director general when they are deposited.
Likewise, the members commit themselves to using the audiovisual documents of the URTI catalogue in the conditions provided for by the present statutes (e.g. payment of the copyright and neighbouring rights) and according to the possible indications passed on to them by the Director general (e.g. limitation of the number of broadcasts, etc.). It will not be possible to search for the responsibility of URTI and of the depositing member in case of the use of an audiovisual document in conditions not in accordance with the present statutes.
 
Article 14: Audits
 
The accounts of URTI are audited by two auditors elected by the general Assembly according to article 9-2-b.
 
Article 15: Modifications to articles

Any modification of the present articles is within the competence only of the general Assembly and it requires two thirds (2/3) of votes of members present or represented and voting.
 
Article 16: Dissolution

a) The dissolution of URTI falls within the sole competence of the general Assembly, specifically convened to this effect. During that general Assembly, the quorum is set on three quarters (3/4) of the members who have paid their membership fees.
b) Dissolution can only be voted by a qualified majority of three-quarters (3/4) of the present members.

The present statutes were adopted unanimously by the Delegates at the general Assembly of URTI, on June 15 2009, at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris.