Institut national de l'audiovisuel

The Institut national de l'audiovisuel (INA), or National Audiovisual Institute, is France's principal repository for radio, television, and audiovisual archives. Established on 6 January 1975 and headquartered in Bry-sur-Marne, it operates as a French public industrial and commercial establishment (établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial, EPIC). The INA holds one of the world's most significant audiovisual collections, comprising approximately three million hours of recorded radio and television broadcasts and over one million photographed documents. Its mandate encompasses collecting, preserving, digitizing, restoring, and making accessible France's audiovisual heritage, functioning as the audiovisual counterpart to the Bibliothèque nationale de France's role for written and printed materials. The institute has pioneered digital archiving in Europe and maintains a major public access platform through its website ina.fr.

The INA was created by Article 3 of the law of 7 August 1974, which dissolved the Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF) and split it into seven separate organizations. Among these successor bodies, the INA is the only one that has never changed its status. The reform assigned the INA responsibility for conserving audiovisual archives, conducting research on audiovisual creation, and providing professional training. In 1978, the INA became a founding member of the International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA) alongside the BBC and RAI. The legal deposit system was extended to television and radio in 1992, with the INA designated as the official depository. This led to the establishment of the Inathèque in 1995, which opened to the public in October 1998 at the Bibliothèque nationale de France - site François-Mitterrand. Further extensions of legal deposit followed: to cable and satellite television in 2002, and to terrestrial digital television in 2005. The 2006 DAVDSI law introduced legal deposit of the Internet, with implementation shared between the BnF and INA beginning experimentally in February 2009. A major preservation and digitization plan (Plan de sauvegarde et de numérisation, PSN) was approved in 1999 and commenced in 2001, aiming to digitize all threatened archive holdings. By 2009, over 600,000 hours had been saved from what was described as 'irreversible destruction.' In 2012, the INA concluded an agreement with YouTube for distribution of part of its video collection, following earlier arrangements with Dailymotion from 2011. In 2017, the institute was capturing 169 television and radio channels continuously, along with 14,426 media websites, 8,600 video platform accounts, and 13,000 Twitter accounts. The INA joined the European Broadcasting Union as an Approved Participant to collaborate on AI and other technological developments, with its archive content generating close to two billion video views annually.

The INA's collections span more than 70 years of radio programming and 60 years of television, encompassing news, documentaries, entertainment programs, sports, talk shows, radio plays, concerts, and feature films. As of 2018, the total holdings comprised nearly three million hours of audiovisual archives. The institute collects approximately 300,000 program hours annually through legal deposit obligations. Its scope extends beyond French domestic production to include provision of free access to archives from countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia. The collections include not only broadcast content but also written archives: preparatory materials for television shows, research for radio programs, and interview transcripts. The INA also maintains an extensive web-media archive collecting URLs of news sites. For professional users, the institute has developed over 300 thematic corpora covering politics, events, society, culture, performances, sports, and personalities, accessible through the Inamediapro.com database launched in 2004, which received the Focal Award in 2005 from the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries for the world's best image database.

The INA's signature holdings include 1,400,000 documented hours of public service radio and television broadcasts from 1945 onward, divided equally between radio and television. The ina.fr platform launched on 27 April 2006 with 100,000 archives representing 10,000 hours of programs, including approximately 5,000 hours of themed television programs, 3,000 hours of news broadcasts, 500 hours of heritage collections, and over 1,000 hours of radio. By 2009, the site included 200,000 television advertisements broadcast in France since 1968. As of 1 January 2018, the public platform held 49,260 hours of television and radio documents online. The institute's research and creative activities include the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM), dedicated to research, creation, and conservation of acoustic recordings and electronic music. The INA has also produced thematic portals and special online offerings, including documentary collections on the Cannes Film Festival and European cultural life.

The INA's headquarters are located in Bry-sur-Marne, a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris. The institute's main public consultation facility, the Inathèque de France, is situated at the Bibliothèque nationale de France - site François-Mitterrand in Paris, where it opened in October 1998. This consultation center occupies the rez-de-jardin (ground floor/garden level) of the BnF's François-Mitterrand site. The BNF site houses 56 audiovisual reading stations and a group research room. Additionally, the INA maintains regional research rooms throughout France: Ina ATLANTIQUE in Rennes, Ina GRAND-EST in Strasbourg, Ina CENTRE-EST in Lyon, Ina MÉDITERRANÉE in Marseille, Ina PYRÉNÉES in Toulouse, and Ina NORD in Lille. Researchers can also consult INA materials autonomously in various local libraries and médiathèques.

The INA's public access operates through multiple channels. The ina.fr website, launched in 2006, offers free online consultation of approximately 80 percent of its available archives, with the remaining 20 percent viewable for the first few minutes before requiring payment. Download options follow various payment formulas including rental or purchase. The Inathèque de France at the BnF site François-Mitterrand is open Monday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., and Tuesday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Access to materials not freely available online requires both BnF and INA accreditation, obtained by providing proof of identity and a pre-accreditation form outlining the research project. Researchers must then purchase a BNF Research Pass costing between 5 and 50 euros depending on validity period. Documents must be ordered by telephone (+33 (0) 1 53 79 57 60) or on site. Regional INA centers offer personalized assistance from archivists and technical staff, along with research guides and personal digital files for storing searches. Reproduction for personal use or scientific work requires explicit permission from the INA. In 2007, the institute opened Ina SUP, an audiovisual and digitization faculty offering specialized Master's courses. The INA is financed in part through the audiovisual license fee (redevance audiovisuelle) and operates under state oversight through representation on its board of administration and parliamentary accountability.