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The European Broadcasting Union (EBU, or UER for the French name, Union Européenne de Radio-Télévision) is a professional association of national public service broadcasters with its main seat in Geneva, Switzerland. It has 74 active members in 54 countries of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East and 44 associate members in 25 countries from other regions of the world. The EBU was founded in February 1950 by Western European radio and television broadcasters. In 1993, after the end of the East-West conflict, it merged with the OIRT (Organization for International Radio and Television), which had been its counterpart in Central and Eastern Europe (see Zeller, 1999).

According to its website, the EBU works on behalf of its members in the European area to negotiate broadcasting rights for major sports events, to operate the Eurovision and Euroradio networks, to organize program exchanges, to stimulate and coordinate co-productions, and to provide a full range of other operational, commercial, technical, legal, and strategic services. At its office in Brussels, the EBU represents the interests of public service broadcasters vis à vis the European institutions.

Although the main focus of EBU's activities is the exchange of news and sports events (discussed following), it also facilitates co-productions between members regarding programs for children and young people. Over the years, several series have been developed, including one program from each participating broadcaster that has been adapted to other European languages and thus distributed to children throughout Europe. Television cooperation extends to educational programs, documentaries, and co-productions of animation series, and competitions for young musicians, young dancers, and screenwriters. It also includes traditional light entertainment, such as the Eurovision Song Contest; the live broadcasts from this annual event are distributed in almost all European countries and thus create a real pan-European audience.

There is also collaboration in the field of radio, covering music, news, sports, youth programs, and local and regional stations. Each year, the Euroradio network relays 2,500 concerts and operas, and the Radio Department coordinates the transmission of 440 sports fixtures and 120 major news events.

Eurovision

The most important activity of the EBU is the Eurovision permanent network for the exchange of TV news and programs, which was created in 1954. Most news and sports pictures on European screens pass through this network. In its first years, it was used primarily for transmissions of important events, but since 1956 it has also included systematic news exchange between the EBU members. Eurovision participants contribute items to the exchanges on a reciprocal basis, using the Eurovision network for distribution. The exchanges are organized at regularly scheduled times or as required by news developments and are managed by the Eurovision Operations staff in Geneva. The content of the Eurovision news exchanges reflects the participants' own national and international news gathering.

Today, the network manages more than 100,000 transmissions per year; around 30,000 news items are exchanged between the partners, using 50 paths on 5 satellites. The network's members reach about 350 million television viewers.

An important strategic function of the EBU is to build and maintain partnerships with international sports federations and to negotiate transmission rights for the members. Eurovision's sports acquisitions include European and world events such as, for example, the Olympic Games, the European Football Championships, the World Championships in Athletics, and the Tour de France.

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