Just before I was austingatted out of public broadcasting two-and-a-half years ago, I was happily involved at PBS in the EU-financed CapMed project aimed at not only salvaging what was left of the audio-visual archives of the participating stations in the Mediterranean, but also restoring them and training people to do so.

The project, one of the more successful initiatives of part of the Euro-Med process, was being piloted by INA, the French national audio-visual archives organisation and was undoubtedly the most important and most determined step ever taken to make sure that the audio-visual heritage in the care of our national broadcaster did not continue to deteriorate as a result of the utter neglect and complete indifference of the past.

Previous attempts – at a strictly local level – had been simply too feeble and too under-financed to prove successful, and this despite the genuine efforts of the one or two isolated employees who were entrusted with them. But CapMed gave us the money and the expertise to help in the general reorganisation of the system, as well as to stop the rot, literally, because kilometres of 1950s and 1960s footage were being lost to the ongoing natural process of chemical reaction.

Sadly, though, the PBS archives were also victims of some very unnatural actions. Callous pilfering, very often carried out in the shameless expression of obvious political inclinations, had taken place over the many years of neglect during which there was also a complete disregard for security. The place often resembled more the shoddy inside of an ill-kept bar than the archives section of a national broadcasting station responsible for the holding of the audio-visual treasures of a nation.

Often, the PBS archives were also the target of third-party interests. I can personally vouch for various clandestine and not-so-clandestine attempts to claim them, lock, stock and barrel, by individuals connected with, but not necessarily directed by, the university, the education authorities, the national archives, as well as representatives of commercial production houses and agencies which were sometimes too sly in both manner and method for their own good.

I was always for resisting these do-gooders, knowing full well that broadcasting archives need to remain in the realm of broadcasters if they are not to be turned into merely a profit-making enterprise. PBS could wisely go for those same profits, but it would also make sure it retained free and frequent access to them. CapMed had provided us with the timely opportunity to deliver this professional message home.

But ever since the so-called restructuring business at PBS, the shutters have brutally come down on the company’s archives. Down the drain with the whole project went the people we helped train, the equipment we helped buy at subsidised rates, the good start we helped achieve in the fields of event and figure identification and professional cataloguing.

The initial work had confirmed once and for all that there were still myriad treasures to be discovered. A programme started on TVM, and aptly named “Tezori”, had fascinated viewers and programmers alike. Information on unidentified footage was, much to our delight, flooding in from the most unlikely of sources. At the same time, we were being assisted in this painstaking search by such respected associates as the late Charles Arrigo and Lewis Portelli, Charles Abela Mizzi, Tony Terribile, President Emeritus Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and various others.

What is the situation today? Faced with an acute lack of both human and financial resources, the powers that be at PBS don’t seem too inclined at ensuring the upkeep of Malta’s audio-visual treasures. I write this week’s piece at the risk of being taken for granted, in the sense that I know I may be accused of writing it simply to further express my gripes. Nothing could be further from my mind. After all, the Ombudsman has long settled that issue.

It would be infantile to even assimilate an appeal to save the nation’s forgotten treasures with a personal grievance. Unless something is done, PBS is again going to be responsible for the destruction and loss of priceless audio-visual material that is part of our historical heritage. I hope those who, in the past, were so quick to rightly clamour for urgent action on this renewed threat will not choose to stay silent this time round.

At this moment in time, the predators may already be whetting their knives for an umpteenth assault.