European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union is an alliance of public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area or who are members of the Council of Europe., it is made up of 123 member organisations from 56 countries, and 31 associate members from a further 20 countries. It was established in 1950, and has its administrative headquarters in Geneva.
The EBU owns and operates the Eurovision and Euroradio telecommunications networks on which major television and radio broadcasts are distributed live to its members. It also operates the daily Eurovision news exchange in which members share breaking news footage. In 2017, the EBU launched the Eurovision Social Newswire, an eyewitness and video verification service. Led by Head of Eurovision Social Newswire, Derek Bowler, the service provides members of the EBU with verified and cleared-for-use newsworthy eyewitness media emerging on social media.
In April 2025, the EBU, in partnership with its Members, launched Eurovision News Spotlight, a collaborative network for fact-checking and open-source intelligence to actively combat online falsehoods and misinformation across Europe.
The EBU, in co-operation with its members, produces programmes and organises events in which its members can participate, such as the Eurovision Song Contest, its best known production, or the Eurovision Debates between candidates for president of the European Commission for the 2014, 2019 and 2024 parliamentary elections. Noel Curran has been director-general since 2017.
General description
EBU members are public service media broadcasters established by law but are non-partisan, independent, and run for the benefit of society as a whole.EBU members come from as far north as Iceland and as far south as Algeria, from Portugal in the west to Azerbaijan in the east, and almost every nation from geographical Europe in between. Associate members from the United States include ABC, CBS, NBC, CPB, NPR, APM, and the only individual station, Chicago-based classical music radio WFMT.
Membership is for media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area, as defined by the International Telecommunication Union, or who are members of the Council of Europe.
Members benefit from:
- Access to content ranging from exclusive sports rights to exchanges for news, music, and children's programmes.
- Representatives in Brussels, and in other international arenas, lobbying for PSM and ensuring the optimal legal and technical framework for broadcasters.
- Opportunities for sharing, learning and collaborating through conferences, working groups, training, and dedicated advice and guidance.
- A centre for learning and sharing new technology and innovation with a team of experts providing strategic advice and guidance.
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. The EBU is a member of the International Music Council.
Most EBU broadcasters have group deals to carry major sporting events including the FIFA World Cup and the inaugural European Championships. Another annually recurring event which is broadcast across Europe through the EBU is the Vienna New Year's Concert.
Eurovision Media Services is the business arm of the EBU and provides media services for many media organisations and sports federations around the world.
Ident
's Prelude to Te Deum is the hymn played before and after broadcasts organised under the Eurovision network, including the Eurovision Song Contest.History
The EBU was a successor to the International Broadcasting Union that was founded in 1925 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 thereafter the Allies viewed it as 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. The United Kingdom 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 1940s both the IBU and IBO vied for the role of organising frequencies but Britain decided not to be involved in either. 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 International Telecommunication Union 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 any broadcaster from West Germany to be a founder of the new organisation. On 13 February 1950 the European Broadcasting Union had its first meeting with 23 members from the ITU defined European Broadcasting Area at the Imperial Hotel in Torquay, United Kingdom. The first president was Ian Jacob of the BBC who remained at the helm for ten 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 governments. Early delegates said EBU meetings were cordial and professional and very different from the abrupt tone of its predecessors. Broadcasters from West Germany were admitted since 1951 and a working relationship forged with its Eastern counterpart, the International Radio and Television Organisation, which existed in parallel with the EBU until its merger on 1 January 1993.
In 1967, the first concert in the International Concert Season of the European Broadcasting Union was broadcast from the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.
Technical activities
The objective of the is simply to assist EBU Members in this period of unprecedented technological changes. This includes the 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.
- and 'EBU Mode' meters
- Digital radio through Eureka Project 147 and the WorldDAB Forum.
- DVB through the DVB Project and DigiTAG.
- Digital radio in the bands currently used for AM broadcasting through Digital Radio Mondiale.
- 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.
Controversies