The European Broadcasting Union is an alliance of public service media
entities, established on the 12 February 1950. As of 2015, the organisation
comprises seventy-three active members in fifty-six countries, and thirty-four
associate members from a further twenty countries. Most EU states are part of
this organisation and therefore EBU has been subject to supranational
legislation and regulation. It also hosted debates between candidates for
the European Commission presidency for the 2014 parliamentary elections but is
unrelated to the institution itself. It is best known for producing the
Eurovision Song Contest. General description
Members of the EBU are radio and television companies, most of which are
government-owned public service broadcasters or privately owned stations
with public service missions. Active Members come from as far north as
Iceland and as far south as Egypt, from Ireland in the west and Azerbaijan in
the east, and almost every nation from geographical Europe in between.
Associate Members are from countries and territories beyond Europe, such as
Canada, Japan, Mexico, India, and Hong Kong. Associate Members from the United
States include ABC, CBS, NBC, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
Time Warner, and the only individual station, Chicago-based classical music
station WFMT. Active Members are those paying EBU
members meeting all technical criteria for full membership, whose states are
either within the European Broadcasting Area or members of the Council of
Europe. Syria is an example of a country within the EBA not complying with all
technical criteria for full membership, and thus it is currently only granted
Associated Membership. The EBU's highest profile production is
the Eurovision Song Contest, organised by its Eurovision Network. The
Eurovision Network also organises the Eurovision Dance Contest, the Junior
Eurovision Song Contest, the Eurovision Young Dancers competition, and other
competitions for young musicians and screenwriters, which are modelled along
similar lines. The countries represented in the EBU also cooperate to create
documentaries and children's programming.
Radio collaborations include Euroclassic Notturno – an overnight classical music
stream, produced by BBC Radio 3 and broadcast in the United Kingdom as
Through the Night – and special theme days, such as the annual Christmas music
relays from around Europe. Most EBU broadcasters have a group deal
to carry the Olympics and FIFA World Cup. Another annually recurring event
which is broadcast across Europe through the EBU is the Vienna New Year's
Concert. The theme music played before EBU
broadcasts is Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Prelude to Te Deum. It is well known to
Europeans as it is played before and after the Eurovision Song Contest and
other important events. History
The EBU was a successor to the International Broadcasting Union that
was founded in 1929 and had its administrative headquarters in Geneva
and technical office in Brussels. It fostered programming exchanges between
members and mediated technical disputes between members that were mostly
concerned with frequency and interference issues. It was in effect
taken over by Nazi Germany during the Second World War and when the conflict
ended in the eyes of the Allies it was a compromised organisation that they could
not trust. In the spring of 1946 representatives of the Soviet radio
committee proposed forming a new organisation; however at the same time
preparations were being made for an inter-governmental “European
Broadcasting Conference” in Copenhagen in 1948 to draw up a new plan for
frequency use in the European Broadcasting Area. It was considered
necessary to have an organisation that could implement the “Copenhagen
Wavelength Plan” but there was disagreement among broadcasters and
particularly a fear expressed by the BBC that a new association might be
dominated by the USSR and its proposal to give each of its constituent states
one vote. France proposed that it would have four votes with the inclusion of
its North African colonies. Great Britain felt it would have little
influence with just one vote. On 27 June 1946 the alternative International
Broadcasting Organisation was founded with 26 members and without British
participation. The following day the IBU met in General Assembly and an attempt
was made to dissolve it but failed; though 18 of its 28 members left to join
the IBO. For a period of time in the late 1940 both the IBU and IBO vied for
the role of organising frequencies but Britain decided to be in involved in
neither. The BBC attempted but failed to find suitable working arrangements with
them. However, for practical purposes the IBO rented the IBU technical centre
in Brussels and employed its staff. The BBC then proposed a new solution based
on the IBO changing its constitution so there will be only one member per ITU
country, thus ensuring a Western majority over the USSR and its satellite
states. In August 1949 a meeting took place in Stresa, Italy but it resulted
in disagreement between delegates on how to resolve the problems. One proposal
was for the European Broadcasting Area to be replaced by one that would exclude
Eastern Europe, the Levant and North Africa.
After Stresa a consensus emerged among the Western Europeans to form a new
organisation and the BBC proposed it be based in London. Meetings in Paris on 31
October and 1 November 1949 sealed the fate of the IBU and IBO, but it was
decided not to allow West Germany to be a founder of the new organisation. On 13
February 1950 the European Broadcasting Union has its first meeting with 23
members from the ITU defined European Broadcasting Area at the Imperial Hotel
in Torquay, England. The first president was Ian Jacob of the BBC who remained at
the helm for 10 years while its operation was largely dominated by the
BBC due to its financial, technical and staff input. The most important
difference between the EBU and its predecessors was that EBU membership was
for broadcasters and not to governments. Early delegates said EBU meetings were
cordial and professional and very different from the abrupt tone of its
predecessors. West Germany was admitted in 1951 and a working relationship
forged with the USSR’s Organisation for International Radio and TV which existed
in parallel with the EBU until its merger in 1993..
The first co-production was the animated series The Animals of Farthing Wood from
1993 based on the books of the same title by Colin Dann. The second animated
collaboration was Noah's Island from 1997 and more recently, Pitt and
Kantrop. Another important EBU programme is Jeux Sans Frontières.
Technical activities The objective of the EBU's technical
activities is simply to assist EBU Members in this period of unprecedented
technological changes. This includes provision of technical information to
Members via conferences and workshops, as well as in written form.
The EBU also encourages active collaboration between its Members on the
basis that they can freely share their knowledge and experience, thus achieving
considerably more than individual Members could achieve by themselves.
Much of this collaboration is achieved through Project Groups which study
specific technical issues of common interest: for example, EBU Members have
long been preparing for the revision of the 1961 Stockholm Plan.
The EBU places great emphasis on the use of open standards. Widespread use of
open standards ensures interoperability between products from different vendors,
as well as facilitating the exchange of programme material between EBU Members
and promoting "horizontal markets" for the benefit of all consumers.
EBU Members and the EBU Technical Department have long played an important
role in the development of many systems used in radio and television
broadcasting, such as: The AES/EBU digital audio interface,
formally known as AES3; Serial and parallel interfaces for
digital video; RDS – the Radio Data System used on FM
broadcasting. The EBU Loudness Recommendation R 128
and 'EBU Mode' meters The EBU has also actively encouraged the
development and implementation of: Digital Audio Broadcasting through
Eureka Project 147 and the WorldDAB Forum;
Digital Video Broadcasting through the DVB Project and DigiTAG;
Digital radio in the bands currently used for AM broadcasting through DRM;
Standardisation of PVR systems through the TV-Anytime Forum.
Development of other content distribution networks on the internet
through P2PTV; EBU Project Group D/P2P, from November 2007 to April 2008, with a
trial of selected member channels, thanks to Octoshape's distribution
platform. The EBU is also part of the European P2P-Next project.
= Greek state broadcaster controversy of 2013=
On 11 June 2013, the Greek government shut down the state broadcaster ERT, at
short notice, citing government spending concerns related to the Euro crisis. In
response, the European Broadcasting Union set up a makeshift studio on the
same day, near the former ERT offices in Athens, in order to continue providing
EBU members with the news-gathering and broadcast relay services which had
formerly been provided by ERT. The EBU put out a statement expressing
its "profound dismay" at the shutdown, urged the Greek Prime Minister "to use
all his powers to immediately reverse this decision" and offered the "advice,
assistance and expertise necessary for ERT to be preserved".
Starting on 4 May 2014, the New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television
broadcaster began nationwide transmissions, taking over ERT's vacant
Active Membership slot in the EBU. On June 11, 2015, two years after its
closure. Specifically Nerit SA closed and reopened ERT SA a comprehensive
program to all radio stations and 4 TV channels ERT1 ERT2 ERT3 and ERT HD
Members The active member list as of May 2014,
comprised the following 73 broadcasting companies from 56 countries.
= Past active members= = EBU membership applications=
Below is a table of broadcasting networks who have submitted applications
for Active EBU Membership and are either still under review, or have had their
applications rejected. = Associate members=
Any group or organisation member of the International Telecommunication Union,
which provide a radio or television service outside of the European
Broadcasting Area, are permitted to submit applications to the EBU for
Associate Membership. Countries which have this status also pay an annual fee
to maintain this status, if a fee is not paid, then their Associate Membership is
revoked. It was also noted by the EBU that any country that is granted
Associate Member status does not include any access into the Eurovision system.
The list of Associate Members of EBU, comprised the following 34 broadcasting
companies from 20 countries as of January 2014.
= Approved participant members= Any groups or organisations from a
country with International Telecommunication Union membership,
which do not qualify for either the EBU's Active or Associate memberships,
but still provide a broadcasting activity for the EBU, are granted a
unique Approved Participants membership, which lasts approximately five years. An
application for this status may be submitted to the EBU at any given time,
providing an annual fee is paid. The following seven EBU broadcast
members had status as Approved Participants in December 2014.
Organised events The EBU in cooperation with the
respective host broadcaster, organises competitions and events in which its
Members can participate, if they wish to do so. These include:
= Eurovision Song Contest= The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual
international song competition, that was first held in Lugano, Switzerland, on 24
May 1956. Seven countries participated – each submitting two songs, for a total
of 14. This was the only contest in which more than one song per country was
performed: since 1957 all contests have allowed one entry per country. The 1956
contest was won by the host nation, Switzerland. In this competition, only
countries that are members of the EBU can participate. The first winner was
Switzerland, and the most recent is Sweden.
= Junior Eurovision Song Contest= Junior Eurovision Song Contest, is an
annual international song competition, that was first held in Copenhagen,
Denmark, on 15 November 2003. Sixteen countries participated – each submitting
one song, for a total of 16 entries. The 2003 Contest was won by Croatia and the
current winner is Italy. = Eurovision Young Musicians=
Eurovision Young Musicians is a competition for European musicians that
are younger than 19 years old. It is organised by the EBU and is a member of
EMCY. The televised competition is held every
two years, with some countries holding national heats. Since its foundation in
1982, the Eurovision Young Musicians competition has become one of the most
important music competitions on an international level.
The first competition was held in Manchester, United Kingdom on 11 May
1982. = Eurovision Dance Contest=
The Eurovision Dance Contest was an international dancing competition that
was held for the first time in London, United Kingdom on 1 September 2007. The
competition was repeated in 2008 when it was held in Glasgow, United Kingdom, but
has not been held since. = Eurovision Young Dancers=
The Eurovision Young Dancers is a biennial dance showcase broadcast on
television throughout Europe. The first competition was held in Reggio Emilia,
Italy on 16 June 1985. It uses a format similar to the
Eurovision Song Contest, every country that is a member of the EBU has had the
opportunity to send a dance act to compete for the title of "Eurovision
Young Dancer". The act can be either a solo act or a dance couple, and all
contestants must be between the ages of 16 and 21 years and not professionally
engaged. The winner is chosen by television viewers across the EBU
through a real-time, electronic and onscreen voting mechanism.
= Let the Peoples Sing= Let the Peoples Sing is a biennial choir
competition, the participants of which are chosen from radio recordings entered
by EBU radio members. The final, encompassing three categories and around
ten choirs, is offered as a live broadcast to all EBU members. The
overall winner is awarded the Silver Rose Bowl.
= Jeux Sans Frontières= Jeux Sans Frontières was a Europe-wide
television game show. In its original conception, it was broadcast from 1965
to 1999 under the auspices of the EBU. The original series run ended in 1982
but was revived in 1988 with a different complexion of nations and was hosted by
smaller broadcasters. = European Sports Championships=
The European Sports Championships is a multi-sport event involving some of the
leading sports in Europe. The European Governing Bodies for athletics,
swimming, cycling, rowing and triathlon, will co-ordinate their individual
championships as part of the first edition in the summer of 2018, hosted by
the cities of Berlin and Glasgow. See also
Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union BBC World News
Caribbean Broadcasting Union Commonwealth Broadcasting Association
Commonwealth Press Union Europe by Satellite
North American Broadcasters Association Organización de Televisión
Iberoamericana TV5Monde
WRN Broadcast References
Notes External links
EBU Website