Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Song Contests

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I think we should be a bit careful regarding the structure of Intervision by year articles. It's tempting to present the data as if these countries are competing with their representatives, like in Eurovision, but there is no hard evidence to support this in most cases; rather, sometimes the organisers simply pick the contestant. These articles should be copying Eurovision by year articles to an extent, but be wary of the contests' major differences — IмSтevan ^talk 04:15, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there is a lot of uncertainty and missing information about this contest, and whether the artists will be billed as "representing" the countries in the same way as at Eurovision is definitely one of them. I think how the article is currently structured strikes the right balance in that regard, e.g. not listing broadcasters in the participants table since it appears to be a direct choice of either the Kremlin or the other governments taking part, but given that the vast majority of sources out there at present make a direct link between the artist competing and the country (e.g. [1], [2], [3]), I think it's appropriate the country is listed, in the same way as it is in other international song contests. I do agree though that caution is required to make sure this article doesn't become a clone of Eurovision articles, since they are two very different contests with completely different goals. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 10:06, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Today there was a press conference where they oficially announced that 20 countries will participate, it's now covered in the media too: [4] [5] Szyign (talk) 12:01, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment: Just be mindful of the above Szyign — IмSтevan ^talk 11:51, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, what you say is not true. There are a multitude of sources with comments from the organisers (mainly Shvydkoy) that confirm that the Ministries of Culture of the countries concerned are involved, so negotiations for participation took place with the governments of those countries. At meetings with the countries, Putin himself brought up the subject of participation in the Intervision (see Qatar). There is no way for the Kremlin to select a representative from, for example, Cuba. It is the responsibility of the ministry from the country concerned to select the representative. Organizarers regularly announce that a particular artist is representing a particular country, so no - countries should not be removed from the tables, because even on today's broadcast the screen did not show the names of the representatives, but only the flags and the names of the countries as those taking part. Take a look at the official social media of Intervision - the organisers announce that a particular artist will represent the country, with its flag and name. Szyign (talk) 11:59, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing the point I'm making. I'm not seeing any sources confirming that all participants are selected by their respective countries (their respective ministries), so please add them. And if this is the case, then a new column is needed to designate that the ministries are competing, much like broadcasters in ESC. From a personal stand point I'd love to hear which government agency is picking the United States' representative. — IмSтevan ^talk 12:19, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First source that came to my mind - the whole process of selection of the representantive was held by the ministry of Kyrgyzstan, the submissions were held on their website and everything was announced by them [6] [7] Szyign (talk) 12:44, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The participation was discussed with the governments and their ministry, examples: qatar; [8] and china [9] Szyign (talk) 12:45, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

the ministry of culture of kazakhstan was the one who confirmed to russian media they're choosing the representative of kazakhstan and will announce it in june [10] [11] [12] [13] Szyign (talk) 12:46, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And another one [14] Szyign (talk) 20:01, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment:

The map is way too small in the infobox. Some countries are straight up invisible, like Qatar. Any suggestions? — IмSтevan ^talk 10:56, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tried. There's only so much you can do with a world map — IмSтevan ^talk 13:51, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, have brought up Euromix and ESCSpot over on the sources page )Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Song Contests/Sources). Would love to get some consensus on these as they are being used a fair bit now and if a source is being leaned on more than once in a while it would be great to have an understanding of to what extent we can trust them Toffeenix (talk) 08:34, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Information: Some time ago, eurovision.tv changed its URLs for detailed voting results regarding the Netherlands. For example, what once was https://eurovision.tv/event/frankfurt-1957/final/results/the-netherlands has become https://eurovision.tv/event/frankfurt-1957/final/results/netherlands (without "the-"). The original URLs are dead ("Page not found"). This has implications for the referenced URLs in the detailed voting results section in almost all "Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest"+year articles where the old URL is still included, except for the newest. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 14:04, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@EurovisionLibrarian. Fixed! Ferclopedio (talk) 19:24, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just adding that we have the same problem with North Macedonia URLs, which were previously "fyr-macedonia" and now link to "north-macedonia". As with the Netherlands' URLs the current links are now dead, and this goes all the way to 2022, three years after the country's name change.

Another thing to note, for both the Netherlands and North Macedonia, is that the archive URLs are either going to need to be changed to reflect the change in URL, or removed completely, which is probably the easiest to achieve through automation given there is also a timestamp component to the archive URLs. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 10:41, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can also add Czechia to the list, as URLs before 2023 are "czech-republic", leading to the same errors. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 10:43, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Add Turkiye to the list — IмSтevan ^talk 15:55, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed North Macedonia, the Czech Republic, and Turkey.

Any other that would need to be fixed? Ferclopedio (talk) 20:26, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason why for example the Estonian SSR is shown separately from the Soviet Union in broadcasting schedules where ETV broadcast an edition, but the same is not true for Yugoslav republics? — IмSтevan ^talk 11:39, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry this is a late reply but I do think the Estonian SSR broadcast should be listed under the Soviet Union. It's not like they were different countries in 1990.

Edit: I've looked a bit more and also noticed that broadcasts for Netherlands Antilles, Belgian Congo, Greenland, Faroe Islands etc. are listed in the tables for broadcasts by other competing countries. I don't think these are historically considered "countries" at the time of the contest which they broadcast, but they do have a degree of autonomy which might warrant their broadcasts to be put in a separate table to the competing countries. If they weren't to be relisted under their respective "country" (e.g. Netherlands for Netherlands Antilles, Denmark for Faroe Islands etc.) then should the title of the other broadcasts table be changed from "Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries" to something that acknowledges that there are autonomous territories/areas/"countries" in that table as well? Spleennn (talk) 20:36, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The main reason why I had listed Estonia separately from the other nations of the Soviet Union was because Eesti Televisioon was only broadcast within the Estonian SSR, as opposed to Soviet Central Television which was broadcast throughout the Soviet Union. It's highly possible that ETV took the exact same feed as CT USSR, but it felt a bit disingenuous to list ETV under the Soviet Union when it was only available in what is now Estonia. This is different from the situation in Yugoslavia, as there was no central channel that covered all republics. I appreciate that the wording of the table caption could be tweaked; this was something I believe was proposed a while back but possibly reverted since?

I also believe a bit of discussion is needed around how these tables are laid out generally. There's a part of me that would like to see radio broadcasts being listed in a separate table to television broadcasts, given that radio broadcasts have always been optional, but also mindful that we don't want too many tables within this section just for the sake of it. I also have a question around what constitutes a "participating country". One key example I have is where to place any broadcasts within France's various overseas departments and territories; yes from a legal perspective there are parts of France in the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean that are considered the same as metropolitan France, but it feels weird to me that we list separate broadcasts on distinct channels in e.g. Martinique or Guadeloupe, even if these channels are part of France Télévisions, within the "participating countries" table when these areas as so far removed geographically from the rest of France. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 16:08, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has made me come to the realisation that maybe the broadcast tables should be split by participating broadcasters and non-participating broadcasters (even if the country that broadcaster is from is participating). This would make a split between "mandatory" and "optional" broadcasts – which is something you mentioned – since all participating broadcasters are supposed to broadcast the event on at least one of their channels. Spleennn (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sims2aholic8, there is nothing weird or unusual for a country to have part of its territory far away from its mainland, and considering it to have the same status as the mainland. Yes, the case of France is extreme due to the numerous territories and the vast distances, but I can tell you that for them they are part of France just as much as for the Spanish the Canary Islands are Spain, for the Portuguese the Azores are Portugal, and for Americans Hawaii is the United States, and for them it is something normal. So if the French overseas DROMs and COMs are considered part of the country, and the television stations broadcasting there are owned by France Télévisions, the most normal thing is to list them under France as the participating country and under France Télévisions as the participating broadcaster, even if it seems strange to a foreigner for the distances.

As for ETV in the Estonian SSR, I also think it should be listed under the Soviet Union. Especially since, according to the CT USSR Wikipedia article itself, ETV at that time was only a regional station of the broadcaster. Yes, I know the article's claim isn't fully referenced, but the evidence is there, and there should be someone out there who could confirm this. And the fact that ETV only broadcast in a small part of the Soviet Union can be addressed with a note.

And maybe broadcast tables should be divided between participating and non-participating broadcasters, it's something to consider and weigh the implications. Ferclopedio (talk) 07:20, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some pros I can think of straight away to splitting by participating/non-participating broadcaster:

• Separating the tables by participating and non-participating broadcasters will reduce a lot of the arbitrariness that comes with categorising by countries. The definition of country comes into scrutiny when dealing with cases like Greenland, Faroe Islands, Martinique etc. but splitting by participant status will avoid any debate surrounding this. Instead categorising them based on whether the broadcast is done by a participating broadcaster (as would be the case for Martinique) or a non-participating broadcaster (as would be the case for Greenland and Faroe Islands).
• Additionally and like I've already mentioned, broadcasts are mandatory for participating broadcasters and optional for non-participating broadcasters and showing this split could be beneficial to readers.

And here are some cons or issues about this change that need to be discussed:

• Belgium swaps broadcasters every year and so the non-participating broadcaster in any given year would be in a separate table to the participating one. Separating RTBF and VRT in this regard seems weird to me even though I can't really put it to words why. I could just be stuck in the mindset of viewing broadcasts as per-country rather than per-broadcaster and a mindset shift would cause this to make more sense.
• Having a "Country" column in the participating broadcaster table is easy as the broadcaster is already tied to a country in ESC. However, this isn't true for non-participating broadcasters and so if there is a "Country" column in those tables then they would have to be designated somewhat arbitrarily. For example, should the broadcast by SvF in 1990 be counted under Faroe Islands or Denmark? Legally, the Faroe Islands is a part of Denmark, but can SvF really be called a Danish broadcaster?

Spleennn (talk) 08:21, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course there's nothing weird or unusual about countries having territories in other parts of the world; I am very well aware of geopolitics in this regard. What I was trying to get at is, yes La Première is now part of the wider France Télévisions (only from 2004 it should be added however), and while of course France has had artists from its various DOM-TOMs compete at Eurovision or in its national selections, in my head "French participation" does not extend past metropolitan France. Maybe that's just my own personal head canon, and it may not stack up in reality, but that's my current view. I know legally there's a big difference between Martinique, considered an integral part of France and part of the European Union, and other overseas territories of other countries like the Falkland Islands, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Aruba etc., but personally when it comes to broadcasting I think they should be treated similarly.

Changing from a country lens to a broadcaster lens could solve some of these questions; however, as I mentioned above, you would have a situation where French overseas departments are listed under non-participants before 2005 (because Réseau France Outre-mer was a separate entity and only joined France Télévisions in 2004) and then from 2005 would be listed in the participants. Like the Belgian example above, you would also have to split out radio broadcasters which are not part of the same organisation as the television broadcaster (e.g. Sveriges Radio is a completely separate entity to Sveriges Television). Also how would you approach Germany's broadcast situation, where one of Germany's public broadcasters competes on behalf of ARD but other broadcasters may air the show on TV or radio (e.g. in 2024 Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg provided radio coverage of the final but didn't participate as this was done by Norddeutscher Rundfunk). I've included two examples below, one for 1984 and one for 2024, to give a good overview of how changing from a country lens to a broadcaster lens would work. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 09:27, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In all honesty, the examples you have provided are clearer than the ones already on their respective Wikipedia page. Addressing some of the points you have mentioned:

• The French overseas territories being listed as non-participants makes sense to me as the broadcasters they were represented by weren't participating. They were eventually incorporated into France Télévisions and that is even reflected in how France selected their entries, as RFO took part in France's national finals in 2006 and 2007. I think what is odd about this is that the non-participant table still has a "Country/territory" column, showing Martinique as having broadcast the contest separately despite being politically a part of France. I don't think the "Country/territory" column should be removed however, as it increases readibility of the article; since without it the table would almost entirely be acronyms.
• For radio organisations, the non-participating broadcaster of Belgium, and the non-participating broadcasters in Germany, if they weren't competing then they did not have to broadcast the contest. I believe making this distinction within the article is important since any broadcast by these organisations in years they didn't participate are "extra" or "optional". For that reason, splitting them into a separate table is not too farfetched to me. The new tables also reflect how the Eurovision Song Contest works; being broadcaster-centric rather than country-centric.

Spleennn (talk) 10:42, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand better your point around the French overseas territories from that point of view, so if the tables are reorganised I think that is a reasonable solution.

Given ESC is a television event, and has always been such even going back to 1956, all radio broadcasts are therefore optional, even from those organisations that have a single broadcaster responsible for both radio and television. If the tables are to be reorganised into participating and non-participating broadcasters, it then seems a bit of an anomaly to list radio broadcasts in the same table as television broadcasts. I can see two ways to address this: one would be to split all radio broadcasts out from the "participating broadcasters" table into the "non-participating broadcasters" table, which would then become a table with TV broadcasts by non-participating broadcasters and radio broadcasts by all broadcasters; the other would be to separate all radio broadcasts, regardless of country of origin, into their own table, essentially then creating three tables, two for TV broadcasts by participating and non-participating broadcasters and one for all radio broadcasts. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 12:34, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe radio broadcasts should be split into a separate table. You're under the impression that TV broadcasts are mandatory when in actuality it is just any broadcast. Take for example Monaco in 1959 which only broadcast the contest on radio. By your logic, Monaco should be removed from the participant table, which doesn't seem right. If a competing broadcaster broadcast the contest on radio, I see no reason why it shouldn't be listed with the television broadcast of that same broadcaster. Spleennn (talk) 14:10, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What is presented in the tables at present is the broadcasts that we know; it is very likely that Monaco did in fact broadcast the contest on television, but we do not have any sources to back this up. There are many gaps for contests older than 15-20 years where we have gaps in television broadcast plans for those years, but there was always an understanding that if you're participating you have to broadcast it on television. There has never been a radio-only broadcaster which has taken part, all participating broadcasters have had television operations. Also, in this particular case, the Monegasque radio broadcast would be listed in the non-participants table anyway, as Télé Monte-Carlo and Radio Monte-Carlo were two separate organisations, and it was TMC that participated in the contest on behalf of Monaco. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 14:17, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have added additional examples below to cover the latter of the two scenarios I presented above. Splitting radio broadcasts into a separate table under the lens of focussing these tables on participating and non-participating broadcasters I believe alleviates some inconsistencies about radio broadcasts, as some countries have a much bigger tradition of broadcasting the contest on radio compared to others. In the latter case broadcasters in these countries have never or very rarely broadcast the contest on radio, because public radio networks were not combined with television, the radio networks are/were not EBU members, or just because that tradition has never existed or was rarely employed.

Splitting out radio broadcasts, which for all intents and purposes was and still is optional for broadcasters, is a much more sensible option than lumping any broadcasts from radio-only broadcasters (e.g. Sveriges Radio, Polskie Radio, Ukrainian Radio before 2017 when it merged to form Suspilne) with the non-participating broadcasters while also hosting radio broadcast in the participating broadcasters table, particularly when you consider any involvement of the radio stations on the national selection process by the television branch is inconsistent across countries, e.g. Sveriges Radio regularly broadcasts and has involvement with Melodifestivalen before, but in other countries apart from broadcasting Eurovision they may have zero involvement in the actual participation of that country. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 14:48, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just have one table showing all broadcasts? Why even split participating/non-participating — IмSтevan ^talk 21:57, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because for most years I believe there is way too much information to contain within a single table. I even think the main participating countries broadcast table in most recent years is already too big and could do with splitting, which is acceptable per MOS:TABLESPLIT: For very long tables, manageability and maintenance of the page may be better served by breaking information up into several smaller tables instead of one extremely long one. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 22:17, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed scenario of two tables for TV and one table for radio is strange. I mean, I understand your points on them, but looking at the tables is confusing to have two tables for TV and only for radio. If I felt confused while understanding the situation, the average reader's mind will implode.

Certainly, the ESC is a television event between television services, and this is reaffirmed by the rules every year when they state that "the television services of the EBU member broadcasters blablabla participate in the ESC", but I assume that they participate representing the whole company; and that company, as a member broadcaster of the EBU, owns the broadcasting rights and can broadcast it on any of its channels and stations (being mandatory to broadcast it on at least one television channel). So, when I look at the table of participating broadcasters, I expect to find all the broadcasts from the same broadcaster together, regardless of the broadcasting medium. I mean, I expect to find all the BBC broadcasts together, whether it's TV, radio, online, or smoke signals. This is true as television and radio companies are increasingly merging, their services are becoming more integrated, and the separation between media is becoming increasingly blurred. And it is even more true when radio broadcasting is often simply broadcasting on the radio the audio from the television broadcast (including television commentary). Yes, radio broadcasting is optional, but it is also optional for broadcasters to air the contest on their secondary television channels and international feeds, and these would be anyway in the "TV participating broadcasters" table.

In the case of Germany, the participating broadcaster is ARD, it simply delegates the actual organisation of the participation to one of its members, who participate on behalf of the whole consortium, and the event is broadcast on the main channel of ARD nationwide. So, I also expect to find all the broadcasts of all the members of the consortium together. The same goes for the Netherlands and its complex broadcasting system.

In the case of Belgium, I also have that je ne sais quoi feeling. The alternation between broadcasters is a tacit understanding between them, and since one participates representing Belgium and the other is always there, from the outside it seems that it represents both. I don't know the internal story between them, and how this is seen within Belgium, but from abroad this is how it seems.

(Just a note about Sweden, SR was initially responsible for radio and television services, it wasn't until 1980 that the television service was separated into a different company (SVT).)

And I also have the same feeling for companies that were legally different but that once depended on the same entity, one was a spin-off of the other, shared the legal framework and often even the same facilities and staff, and that eventually ended up merging. I'm referring for example to RTP and RDP, TVE and RNE, or even SR and SVT. I find it strange to see them on different tables, but in this case it is more difficult to justify not separating them.

What I do find totally strange, even amateurish, is to find a region of a country in the column of countries and territories. A region in a country is not a territory in the sense that it has in this context. I mean, I find out of place to find Martinique listed as much as if it were Baden-Württemberg or Tuscany. I think it should be listed as France, and if the broadcast coverage area is wanted, a note can be added.

In short, this is just my point of view, and I still don't know if we've gained enough from the change to make it worthwhile, as it still has its drawbacks. But if I have to choose, I prefer the first proposed scenario (of two tables) to the second (of three). Ferclopedio (talk) 10:45, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand some of your points above, however I have to set the record straight on a few of them:

• On ARD, yes there are a couple of television channels which are run by ARD itself, which have input from the various regional broadcasters; however these broadcasters also have their own television channels, and most importantly all radio stations are run exclusively by these regional broadcasters. As I see it, yes there's going to be a degree of interaction between them, but it's very much the same as interaction between EBU members only on a German national level rather than international. So any radio broadcasts not conducted by the broadcaster responsible for the German participation are in my mind "optional". Additionally, all regional broadcasters are themselves members of the EBU individually (see here), so while yes ARD is the parent organisation and has overall responsibility for competing in Eurovision on behalf of Germany (since only one entry is allowed per country), so it's a lot more complicated than simply all ARD member broadcasts are considered the "participating broadcaster".
• As for the "amateurish" suggestion of splitting regions, it's not always as simple to classify these, because every country is set up differently. Taking a couple of examples, specifically overseas France, the kingdom of the Netherlands, and British overseas territories, each country takes different approaches to the various bits of land they own/control. Some parts of France, the overseas departments and regions, are considered analogous to departments in metropolitan France, whereas other islands have various different relationships with France, collectivities or territories, which are not as close to a department or territory. With the kingdom of the Netherlands, taking Aruba as an example, this is considered on par with the Netherlands, whereas Bonaire is considered a municipality within the Netherlands. Conversely, there are no overseas territories belonging to the UK, as well as the Crown Dependencies, which form part of the UK itself. With all this in mind, the main thing I was trying to get at with this proposal was to try and bring some consistency to this, and basically list any broadcasts outside of the "parent country" for want of a better word as a non-participating country. I know it's not a perfect solution, nor is it expressely accurate from a legal perspective, but it seemed the best compromise rather than having to explain the legal make-up of each of these countries in depth.

It appears I'm on to a losing case with this proposal anyway. The other proposal I would suggest is reformulating the tables to list all broadcasts in two separate tables, one for television and one for radio, regardless of their point of origin or whether said country was actually competing in the event (since this info is already present in the participating countries table anyway). Sims2aholic8 (talk) 12:27, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I didn't explain myself well with the "amateurish" thing, sorry for that. With "find a region of a country in the column of countries and territories", I mean regions that are undisputed integral parts of the country. I am aware of the different approaches of each country on its overseas lands, and those that are difficult to classify fall under "territories". And it is not our job to discern whether a land is a region or a territory; that is well defined in its corresponding, well-referenced articles. What I don't want to see listed in the countries/territories column of the non-participants table are, f.ex., all the Spanish provinces, simply because the corresponding local SER radio station aired the contest in 1969; all of them should be listed under "Spain". And this is analogously the case with Martinique, that is considered a department of France, with the same status as the mainland departments, and had to be treated like them, and listed under "France".

One good example of "separation between media is becoming increasingly blurred" is the new RNE accessibility service "RNE para todos". This service is a simulcast via DTT of the radio broadcast with subtitles onscreen and sign language interpretation, and even includes the live image from the radio studio when available. Does this fall under radio or television broadcasts?

What you say about ARD confirms how difficult it is to find the perfect solution for this, and to this example we must add the complex system in the Nederlands, which I don't even understand myself.

And just remember that this whole discussion started over whether ETV fell under the Soviet Union or not. :) Ferclopedio (talk) 15:03, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This conversation may have been hijacked a little by this I must admit, but one question did lead into the other in my mind. On the Estonia/Soviet Union point I really have no preference, it just didn't make sense to me that a station only broadcast within the Estonian SSR, and which is analogous to the present-day country of Estonia that now takes part independently, should be listed under the Soviet Union, just as I don't personally see why a channel that just broadcasts in Martinique should be listed under France, as if the whole country can access that channel. At the same time I am also comparing this to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which although part of Denmark are nominally independent in all matters, and I really can't see a situation where you bundle Kringvarp Føroya and Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa under Denmark without getting some serious pushback; in the same way that in a hypothetical situation I can't see myself agreeing to place TV3 under Spain and not Catalonia if they were ever to broadcast the contest.

It's just a very confusing situation where we have one rule for one territory and another rule for another territory, which yes when you look into it does make sense but is also not very clear from a layman's perspective if the proper context isn't provided (which isn't our job to do in these articles). Splitting the table into "participating broadcaster" and "non-participating broadcaster" doesn't always fix this situation, since France Télévisions covers overseas departments, considered an integral part of France, and collectivities and territories, which are more remote, as part of La Première; nor does splitting the tables into television and radio, since that then raises the point around whether or not to list a given broadcaster/channel under a certain country or territory. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 17:14, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the end my point is that Yugoslavia's broadcasts should be divided by its republics much like Estonia is from the Soviet Union. If they were indeed all available in each other, then surely this should apply in modern times as well and we should be listing, say, HRT in Serbia, as it's near universally available, right? Also, should TV Koper-Capodistria, which broadcast quite a few contests, be listed in the table under Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as it's available there? — IмSтevan ^talk 19:00, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has no sense to divide Yugoslavia as the sole participant broadcaster and EBU member was JRT, and all stations broadcasting were its affiliates. Just as we do not divide Switzerland. Ferclopedio (talk) 19:38, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We also do not list in a country broadcasts from foreign broadcasters in any case. Ferclopedio (talk) 20:05, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like you've missed the point of this part of the discussion. Splitting the tables into participants and non-participants will make deciding which country belongs to which broadcaster in the participant table extremely easy, as broadcasters compete in the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of countries. Therefore making the correlation between broadcaster and country in the participant broadcast table reflect how the Eurovision Song Contest functions.

The problem is with how to delegate which "country" belongs to which broadcaster for non-participants. I don't think the column should be removed as without it the table becomes entirely acronyms which is extremely hard for readers to understand and/or navigate. The column should therefore be kept as it allows the reader to see at a glance where in the world the contest was broadcast.

The best solution in my opinion is to list the country (or autonomous region if their status as "country" is debatable, e.g. Faroe Islands, Isle of Man, Aruba, Greenland etc.) in which that broadcaster broadcasts in. If the broadcaster only broadcasts in one region of one country (and that region isn't autonomous in the same way that the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Aruba etc. are) then it should be listed under country with a note explaining that it is only broadcast in a certain region. E.g. the ETV broadcast in 1990 being listed under Soviet Union with a footnote explaining that ETV only served the Estonian SSR, or a similar thing with Martinique and France. Spleennn (talk) 22:58, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is I completely disagree. I don't want to see for example Belgium in 2 or 3 different tables — IмSтevan ^talk 23:03, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I am against splitting radio broadcasts into a separate table so my proposal would see Belgium split into two tables.

Belgium only occupies one table at the moment because those tables are country-centric rather than broadcaster-centric. It seems weird to me that the tables showing broadcasts are not being sorted by broadcasters, and instead being sorted by countries. This isn't how the Eurovision Song Contest works. Spleennn (talk) 23:08, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that all broadcasts, from competing and non-competing countries, should be in one table. I would accept separating TV and radio broadcasts, but then not separating competing and non-competing countries — IмSтevan ^talk 23:12, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So you want all broadcasts in one table, and also taking into account what you said before, you also want countries/broadcasts to be split up by region, as far as including Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Estonian SSR, and all Yugoslav Republics separately in the table? I think your solution is extremely convoluted and not reader-friendly at all. Spleennn (talk) 23:23, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ofc not, it was an exaggeration to prove a point — IмSтevan ^talk 23:46, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've retracted my statement around TV3/Catalonia, cause clearly I was wrong on that point.

The reason the broadcast tables are sorted by country is purely for ease of access by the reader. Countries are a much more identifiable way of sorting this, rather than by the broadcasters themselves, and if the country aspect were to be removed we would end up with a mass of acronyms in the first column, which is not helpful for any reader, even Eurovision savvy ones that know what most of the broadcasters are.

I'm content if the decision is to remove the distinction between participating and non-participating countries from these tables; however I just don't think given how massive the tables already are in the most recent years that it's beneficial to place them all in one table, it makes it incredibly difficult to parse and actually understand the content of the table when there are so many columns and rows, especially on smaller screens and mobile devices. However I can understand the point around separation between media becoming blurred, so while radio/television splits would work up to a certain point, it then could get murky about what counts as a radio broadcast etc.

As for the discussion on the "is this a territory that should get its own line", on reflection I don't think there's any "one size fits all" approach, and it's probably best to just address the situation as it arises in future, and work through these on a case-by-case basis. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 10:13, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also I don't support splitting the tables in any of the suggested ways at all — IмSтevan ^talk 19:01, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have one rule for one territory and another rule for the others. We have a region that belongs to a country that is considered a indivisible part of that country and that is treated as the rest of the regions of that country, and we list it under the country itself, and we have "other territories" that are usually treated separately. And you are trying to equate that region with those other territories instead of with the other regions of its own country. Martinique is a region of France, as the Canary Islands and Catalonia are regions of Spain, and the Azores of Portugal. And French overseas collectivities are still considered an integral part of France. The case of Greenland and the Faroe Islands are totally different.

And of course, any hypothetical broadcasts of TV3 should be listed under Spain, together with any other hypothetical broadcast of any other Spanish regional broadcaster, as we already do with the regional broadcast of Ràdio 4; and with any other broadcast of any regional broadcaster in any other country. There is no point in further populating the tables with regional flags.

And the same applies to Estonian SSR that should be under the Soviet Union and ETV under CT USSR (if is the case), as we do with Yugoslavia and Switzerland. Ferclopedio (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely agree here. If any specificity is required for what region of a country a broadcaster is broadcasting in then it can be put in a note (e.g. only in Martinique, only in Catalonia, only in Estonian SSR). However, these notes might not even be needed as the wikipedia page for those channels/broadcasters will explain where they broadcast to. Spleennn (talk) 23:01, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't support merging all broadcasts into a single table. In addition to the aforementioned reason regarding the table being oversized and the consequences of this, I don't think that having the participants listed with the no-participants without any criteria (countries, other territories, and broadcasters all together mixed) improves the table's readability, makes it easier to understand, or reflects reality better. In fact, I believe it worsens all that due to the completely different levels of involvement of participants compared to non-participants. Starting with that, the participating broadcasters co-produce the event itself, both financially, legally, technically, and organizationally; something that non-participating broadcasters do not. I've already said in previous discussions that, according to the rules they are co-producers of the event (legally), they pay for their participation (financially), they provide fundamental parts of the show itself -the voting segment f.ex.- (technically), and they elect the reference group that represents them all and makes the decisions (organizationally). Regarding broadcasting rights, which is what matters to us in this table, they are also obtained in a completely different way since broadcasters have different access rights to them. Participating broadcasters have the broadcasting rights (for all its media) guaranteed in their countries and broadcasting the event is mandatory for them (at least on national television), while other EBU members (in those and other countries) have also access to the broadcasting rights (for a fee, of course) and broadcasting the event is optional for them (except when they were forced to broadcast it if they wanted to participate the following year). Other broadcasters can only obtain broadcasting rights if they are available in their country/territory because there is no EBU member using them. Furthermore, the extent of the coverage of the event varies greatly between participating and non-participating broadcasters, being for non-participants an event external to them.

Regarding whether we should stay as we are or reformulate the tables, I am not against the transition to the two tables "Broadcasts by participating broadcasters"/"Broadcasts by other broadcasters" scenario; I just have the concerns I mentioned earlier. Ferclopedio (talk) 18:20, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we should take a poll on what changes people would like to see? And maybe in a new section as this discussion has been derailed from the initial topic on the 1990 ETV broadast. Spleennn (talk) 13:12, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 July 11#Bo J about the redirect Bo J → Joacim Persson, which could benefit from familiarity with sources about Eurovision. Please comment there if interested. Adumbrativus (talk) 06:54, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]