Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision

Requested move
An editor has requested that Nemo (rapper) be moved to Nemo (singer), which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You &#32;are invited to participate in the move discussion. GnocchiFan (talk) 20:33, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

"Location" sections
The "Location" section of the contest articles is usually formatted somewhat awkwardly on desktop, with the text sandwiched between the infobox, the image of the host venue, and the location map. The "Bidding phase" subsection also has to awkwardly incorporate a table and another map, sometimes around the infobox. You can see the issue in the 2024, 2023, and 2022 articles.

Is there any way we can move things around to improve the layout? Some suggestions to start with:

A.D.Hope (talk) 15:18, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Move the venue image elsewhere, possibly to "Production"
 * Removing the cities which expressed interest but did not bid from the bidding table.
 * Remove the bidding table entirely, since it's mostly a repetition of the prose.
 * Inserting the wikitext (I forget what it is) which forces a break between the end of the infobox and the start of the first section. This would create a significant amount of white space.
 * Reducing the length of the infobox. Probably not possible?
 * Putting the map and images in gallery format at the bottom of the section, if possible.

Broadcast info for "former" countries on present-day country articles
Given the cache of new Czechoslovak broadcast information which has recently surfaced, it got me thinking about how this information is currently presented within the "country in contest" articles with regards to contests broadcast in former countries. Right now the broadcasts of the contest between 1965 and 1992 within Czechoslovakia is currently duplicated at both Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest and Slovakia in the Eurovision Song Contest, even though neither country is considered a successor state in international law, and the fact that legally Česká televize and Slovenská televízia, the two broadcasters which eventually went on to participate in Eurovision, are legally distinct from the now defunct Czechoslovak Television.

The same situation is also present at Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest for broadcasts in the former Soviet Union by Soviet Central Television (CT USSR), which was succeeded by several different broadcasters, among which the former Programme One eventually became the former EBU member broadcaster Channel One Russia. However we also know that Eesti Televisioon broadcast the contest from at least 1986 but this information is not included at Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest.

This also raises the question about how best to approach the various broadcasts in Yugoslavia, as although Yugoslav Radio Television was the participating broadcaster for Yugoslavia between 1961 and 1992, each individual constituent republic had its own broadcaster as a member of the umbrella org, which aligns with the current EBU member broadcasters in each country. While there are many gaps in broadcast history for some of these countries, the broadcasts by what is now Radiotelevizija Slovenija and Hrvatska radiotelevizija are very detailed, however these are not currently included at Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest and Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest.

There's probably a job to be had with all of the broadcast tables across these articles, as many of them are largely unsourced, as well as a question about how best to structure these tables going forwards, since on many articles the tables have become very unwieldy; this however is a different conversation for another time. Right now I'd like to get thoughts on the matter above and to agree on a way forward which is consistent for all articles and situations. In my mind we could either add all relevant broadcast details for former countries to the article on the present-day country, which would mean adding any confirmed broadcasts from those broadcasters which align with the current broadcasters of present-day countries (i.e. Yugoslavia for Croatia, Slovenia et al.; YU/Serbia and Montenegro for Serbia, Montenegro; USSR for Russia); or we remove any broadcasts which were not made by the present-day country entirely from those articles (so removing any Czechoslovak broadcast from Czechia, Slovakia; Soviet broadcasts from Russia). If we go with the former, that however raises the question about what to do with the table at Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest, whether broadcast information is retained at the Yugoslavia article as a duplicate or we just provide links to the tables at the respective successor states. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:00, 20 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi. I think that the best approach is to be historically accurate. I mean, everything about Yugoslavia between 1961 and 1992 should be only in the Yugoslavian article, and in the current countries articles there should be a link like "for information prior to year XXX, see the Yugoslavian article".
 * The same for Czechoslovakia. I think in this case there should be created the corresponding article for Czechoslovakia, taking in consideration that at some point Czechoslovak Television (ČST) was eligible to participate and it has a broadcast history of the contest. (Lebanon has its own article). And I think that the article for ČST should also be recovered (now it redirects to ČT, and I think that is wrong as they are legally distinct and it overshadows STV's history).
 * Regarding USSR, as it never had a broadcaster eligible to participate, its broadcasting history should be keep only in the corresponding contest article. Ferclopedio (talk) 17:00, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't believe creating an article for Czechoslovakia in the Eurovision Song Contest (currently a redirect to List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest) would be useful, as they never entered or had intention to enter before their dissolution. This is different to Lebanon as they actually intended to participate in 2005 and had selected an entry before withdrawing. Potentially we could create a section for Czechoslovakia at List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest and add a table there for broadcasts in that country before 1993, and similarly create a table at List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest for those broadcasts before its collapse in 1991. I still have questions about the Estonian broadcasts, since ETV had been a distinct organisation from the central Soviet TV, and it doesn't seem right to me to lump the two together. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 17:20, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I was also thinking about Estonia since I send my answer, I think that in this case, as it is the same broadcaster that first broadcast it and then participated (ETV), is ok to have its information in the Estonian article. Ferclopedio (talk) 17:27, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * In any other case (USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia), the broadcaster was not the same, it was a successor of it. Ferclopedio (talk) 17:30, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I think in the case of Yugoslavia the individual broadcasters from each country which were part of JRT essentially are the same as the broadcasters now. They just changed names and broke the link with JRT. This differs from Czechoslovakia to Czechia and Slovakia, and the Soviet Union to Russia, as these were new organisations founded in the 1990s, mainly using the structures and people from the former orgs. I think it would be disingenuous to treat Estonia one way and the former Yugoslav states another way. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 21:29, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I think I didn't explain myself well. When I said that the broadcaster was a successor I meant that in Yugoslavia the participant broadcaster was JRT, which was the EBU member, and which participation counts, and in the current countries it was succeeded by the current EBU members in each country. Yes, the broadcasters can be the same now than back then with different name, but their situation is not the same, as they are now full EBU members and participate on their own representing the current country, and back then they were mere affiliates of JRT, that was the participant representing Yugoslavia as a whole.
 * The case of Estonia is different, and more like Australia, we have a broadcaster that was broadcasting the contest before it could take part on its own, in a country that had never participated, nor had a EBU member broadcaster back then, so I see its situation different that the Yugaslav one. Ferclopedio (talk) 21:54, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi. I have done more research on this topic and am reconsidering the Estonian issue. I asked myself: How did ETV obtain the rights to broadcast the contest?. If it was not a EBU member until 1993, and it was an OIRT member only in 1992, how did it get the rights before, if the OIRT member in USSR was CT USSR?.
 * The wikipedia article for CT USSR says:
 * According to this, ETV was an affiliate of the Soviet Central Television during the USSR, information that is omitted in the ETV article. So we have the same case than in Yugoslavia. CT USSR was the exclusive broadcasting right-holder in the country (as JRT was in Yugoslavia), and ETV was one of its affiliates simulcasting the event (similar to what happens now in Switzerland). So, I change my answer about Estonia during USSR to "the information in that period has to go only in the section about the Soviet Union". :) Ferclopedio (talk) 12:45, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The quote from CT USSR that you've added here is completely unsourced. Either way, the Baltic programming was only available in those countries/republics, so I think it's still reasonable to consider adding these broadcasts to the relevant articles on the present-day country. The difference between CT USSR and Channel One Russia in my mind is that CT was a Soviet-wide broadcaster, and that while C1R ended up using the facilities for CT's Programme One after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it's a different situation because at that point C1R was focussed only on the Russian market and not the other 14 post-Soviet countries. This is the same I believe for Czechoslovak television, as the new broadcasters which were created during/after the Velvet Divorce are distinct from the company which existed in Czechoslovakia which broadcast to the entire country. There is however no discernable difference between ETV during the Soviet occupation of Estonia and ETV after it regained its independence, and personally after considering the information that this conversation has brought up I think the post-Yugoslav broadcasters should be treated similarly, that is to say that any known broadcasts by the future Slovene, Croatian, Serbian etc. public broadcasters during the era of Yugoslavia should be considered to be added to the individual articles for those countries. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 14:31, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * We agree on the facts, but with the information we have, I have come to the opposite conclusion than yours. Let me explain my point of view: you are focusing the issue on whether or not broadcasters are the same then and now, and I believe that to make the history of broadcasts, we have to focus on who was the owner of the broadcast rights. A broadcaster obtains broadcasting rights in its territory because, either it is an active member of the EBU, or it was an active member of the OIRT (which had an agreement with the EBU for its members), or acquires the rights directly from the EBU (whether it is an associate member or not).
 * The case of Czechoslovakia is easy, as ČST was an OIRT member first and a EBU member later, it had the broadcasting rights in all Czechoslovakia, and ČT and STV are different companies. So the information for Czechoslovakia has the right to have its own place. And I still believe that, to be completely correct, the article for Czechoslovak Television should be recovered.
 * The case of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union are similar. JRT was the EBU member and had the broadcasting rights in all Yugoslavia, and CT USSR was the OIRT member and had the broadcasting rights in all the USSR. Both of them had regional affiliates (CT USSR had also national), that broadcast the event just because they were part of the parent organization. This is similar to what happens in Switzerland. Whether or not those regional broadcasters evolved in independent companies that became EBU members later, does not interfere in the fact that the broadcasting rights-holder was the parent company in all its territory as the EBU/OIRT member. So, the information about the broadcasts within Yugoslavia has to be in the Yugoslavian article, and the information for the broadcasts within USSR has the right to have its own place. And the same for "Serbia and Montenegro".
 * With this approach, in addition to being historically accurate, we can be consistent in all articles and situations. Ferclopedio (talk) 19:13, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok I understand your reasoning on this a lot better now, thank you for the explanation! I do agree that a consistent approach is the best option here, so I'm happy to concede that keeping all broadcasts for the former countries separate from the current countries and their respective articles is definitely the better approach on that front. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 21:27, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Totally agree! I'm glad my explanation was helpful.
 * Now the question is, where is it better to put the information about the USSR and Czechoslovakia. It's fine for me to put it in a section in List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest. But its "Other countries and territories" section is a mishmash. Countries whose broadcaster is a full member of the EBU, and therefore eligible to participate but for some reason or another have not done so, are mixed with countries whose broadcaster has tried to join the EBU but has not yet been able to -or simply does not have a broadcaster-, with countries with governments that have simply expressed a desire to participate, with countries in which the ESC has simply been broadcast, and with countries with broadcasters that have participated in other Eurovision events. And to this mess, the "Broadcasting" table is added below. From my point of view, this list of countries has two completely defined groups that should be totally separated: those with a full EBU member, and all the others.
 * The Soviet Union section is something like political fiction. It tells you about a desire that politicians had to participate, ignoring the main fact, that to participate the CT USSR had to be an active member of the EBU, something totally improbable in the middle of the Cold War. So the phrase "but it made several attempts in the late 1980s." is quite implausible.
 * And I see statements like "Kazakhstan is negotiating to join the European Broadcasting Union" as if a country could join the EBU. Ferclopedio (talk) 21:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've now completely rewritten List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest to remove the 1987 material and to add in known broadcasts within the Soviet Union, which only covers from 1986 onwards, and broadcasts prior to 1992 have been removed from Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest, with a new hatnote to link to the new table on Soviet broadcasts.
 * I keep coming back round to how to best approach broadcasts in the likes of Estonia or the former Yugoslav countries however; I think about the broadcast information we already know in the likes of Poland and Hungary, which is obviously non-contentious about where to place this, but these countries were not members of the EBU until the 1990s either. This kinda raises a bit of a question within me about why we are not then treating in the same way other countries, either newly formed or reestablished after the collapse of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, that had their own independent broadcasters within specific regions from the 1950s to early 1990s that now correspond exactly to present-day countries. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 14:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * We are treating them the same way. Let me apply my reasoning to Poland for example. We have TVP that, as an OIRT member first and a EBU member later, has had the broadcasting rights in all Poland then and now. So, its broadcasting history has to be in the Polish article. The same for Hungary, Bulgaria, etc.
 * Croatia, for example, has an EBU member now, but back then it had neither its own member of the EBU nor of OIRT. The ESC was broadcast in its territory by an affiliate of JRT, who was the rights-holder as the EBU member in all Yugoslavia. That is why the information about the broadcasts there back then is in the Yugoslav article.
 * And that is why the information of the broadcast in Estonia in 1992 is in the Estonian article, as ETV was an OIRT member in 1992. Ferclopedio (talk) 17:16, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * OK I can see your point there as well, thanks for clarifying! On a related note, I have spent some time to completely overhaul the broadcasts table at Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest, expanding to cover all nine known Yugoslav broadcasters which showed the event between 1961 and 2002, and removing all manner of completely unverifiable material. It is a very bulky table now, given there are columns now for nine channels and nine potential commentators, so if anyone has any ideas on how to format this table in a better way then please do contribute here! Sims2aholic8 (talk) 13:40, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * WOW. That table is awesome and the archaeological work you have done is amazing. Good job. The table only needs its own horizontal scroll so that it does not overflow the Wikipedia layout.
 * Looking at the table, now I have doubts about the period 1993-2002 in the FRY, whether that information should be in the Serbia and Montenegro article instead. I have no doubts about 1992, as its participation was still under JRT and it's in the right place. After that contest, JRT was disbanded, the FRY was sanctioned by the UN, and its broadcaster UJRT didn't join the EBU until 2001. I don't know when UJRT was created, because the article doesn't say it clearly. And I assume that if they were able to broadcast the contest in FRY it was because they had a direct agreement with the EBU (something I see a little strange if they were under UN sanctions), or because they simply hacked the signal -jointly under UJRT or separately-. According to its article, FRY is Serbia and Montenegro, only the name changes. So, with the little I know about the history of television broadcasting in Serbia and Montenegro during the Balkan war, and applying my reasoning, I think that the information about that period should be in the "Serbia and Montenegro" article. :) Ferclopedio (talk) 16:58, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you. It was really a joint effort with other users over the past couple of years, I just compiled all the various verifiable information that exists in the yearly articles and placed them within the one table.
 * The "FR Yugoslavia = Serbia and Montenegro" argument with relation to Eurovision on Wikipedia has a looooong history. I'll refer you to Talk:Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest and Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-08-24 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest. Granted this case was close to 16(!) years ago now, however I still think the simplest way to approach this, which was what was agreed upon within mediation, is to keep everything related to Yugoslavia at Eurovision, whether that was SFR Yugoslavia before 1992 or FR Yugoslavia up until the name change in 2003, within the same article, i.e. the Yugoslavia in ESC article. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 17:36, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * OK! If it was already discussed, I have nothing to say. Ferclopedio (talk) 18:34, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * OK! If it was already discussed, I have nothing to say. Ferclopedio (talk) 18:34, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Removed broadcaster references
It has come to my attention that in a number of "contest per year" pages ranging from 1956 to the 1980s at least, some references about broadcasters, particularly Austria and Monaco, have been removed. The reason behind those edits, albeit carried out by respectable members of the WikiProject, remains unclear in my eyes as the edit summaries don't give sufficiently information on these reasons.

Were the references quoted (particularly eurovision.tv) deemed not good enough for proving the broadcast itself (in which case a "better source needed" or "source needed" could have been added instead to clarify)? Were any references for these particular countries deemed unnecessary since participating broadcasters were required to broadcast the contest anyway and Austria and Monaco only had one television channel at that time? Or is there any other reason?

Sorry for not being able to read thoughts of other editors. Clear and unambiguous edit summaries or a topic on this very talk page for edits on such a large scale would be helpful. Thank you! EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 17:03, 20 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I had originally added these references maybe a year or two ago when I took it upon myself to clean up these sections. Previously there was a lot of unsourced information related to the channel and commentators, which I subsequently removed and have retained only the information which was verifiable. You can still see much of the old, unsourced and unverified information on the country in contest articles, which I have also intentions to completely clean up. The inclusion of these refs was before the participants tables were added to the article, so before then there was no place to actually provide information on the participating broadcaster at the top level.
 * I believe that Bray0829's intentions with removing these references is that they don't actually provide any information on the specific channel/commentator, and that as you correctly state for some of these countries at that time there was only one television station on which the contest could be broadcast. There is a slight WP:SYNTH issue with this approach, given that it's predicated on the assumption that by participating the broadcasters are required to show the contest live on television, which is why I included the eurovision.tv refs as a way to verify the broadcaster in those countries.
 * Ultimately I'm not sure what the best approach would be to these countries where a specific ref showing the channel is not available; given we now have the participants table showing the participating broadcaster for each country we could approach the broadcasts table in the same way as for non-participants and simply remove those rows where no direct reference is available to verify the broadcast channel; in the case of Eurovision Song Contest 1960 as an example this would mean removing the rows for Austria and Monaco entirely. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 17:14, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I’m not 100 % sure either how to deal with that case.
 * Since the section always includes the sentence “Known details on the broadcasts in each country (...) are shown in the tables below”, a removal of the rows lacking any references would be okay, in my opinion. It is, after all, a table showing where and on which channels the contest actually was broadcast – not a table showing where it had to be broadcast according to the official rules.
 * Online sources for Austrian and Monegasque TV listings and newspapers are unfortunately very rare in the early years. But printed sources exist and their TV programs sometimes also are printed in German (for Austria) and French (for Monaco) periodicals at that time. It only takes time and energy to request and go through all that material in various libraries. Replacing the references with “citation needed” templates would mean that some contest pages will have these templates in the broadcast tables for many years. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 18:02, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I would tend to agree that "citation needed" templates could be counterproductive and possibly mean that the information would remain unsourced for quite a long time. I think removing the rows entirely is possibly the best course of action at this moment, especially that given my push to get these articles to GA it's likely that this may be something that could crop up during the review and possibly derail it, or at least raise questions by the reviewer. A lot of the later Austrian broadcasts are covered by German/Swiss references, and occasionally Austrian references in Slovene which are accessible through Slovene online portals, however it's tricky to find Monegasque references since the broadcasts from Monaco would only reach a small section of France and possibly Italy. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 21:32, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, agree with removing the concerned rows when no other suitable reference can be found for the moment. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 18:54, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Usage of images
Hi everyone.

I don't know if it has already been raised, but I want to reconsider the use of images not related to the event to which an article refers (ESC, national final, etc.) in this project. I am referring to the use of images of people, or buildings, not taken at the event to which the article refers. I don't know what value the photo of the façade of the venue adds to the article if it's not dressed up for that specific event, or the photo of a singer or presenter if it is not from its participation in the event. I know that it is fancy to have images in the articles, and that for old events is difficult to find photos of them, but instead of adding photos from another time, I think it is better not to have them, even more so if they are interfering with the tables and the infobox and breaking the format of the article in some cases. What do you think? Ferclopedio (talk) 11:40, 28 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I disagree. It's always better to have pictures from that specific time, but if none are available, then another picture should be used — IмSтevan  talk 12:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I disagree. While it's ideal to have pictures from the specific event, using related images when none are available can still add value to the article. Ktkvtsh (talk) 16:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I concur with ImStevan and Ktkvtsh on this. I believe that as a project we are very cognisant of what images are included on the articles, at least I know I am. Are there any examples where you believe the addition of images detracts from the article that you would like to share? If there's something that you think is in contravention of MOS:IMAGES then I think that is worthy of discussion, but I definitely do not support a blanket ban on the use of images of people, or buildings, not taken at the event to which the article refers. If we were to take your suggestion and apply it as a rule consistently then there would be a lot of articles which we would never be able to add images for because of copyright law, and the lack of suitable free imagery which has been made available on Commons. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:52, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * There are already many contest articles that do not have any image. And also many who have photos of their own edition. The use of photos out of time is not everywhere, but there are some contests that have them. There are cases that those images have a good size for the place where they are located, don't interfere with any table, and have sense to be there, like, I'm fine with that. But there are cases like , , , , , , , , and that have vertical photos of a big size, not from that edition, that interfere with a table (or making it narrower -what expand it vertically- or leaving a big white space before the table in some screen sizes), and that makes me wonder why that exact photo is there. Also  with photos of good size and of the event that interfere with the table and  with a vertical photo of other event too big for the section. Cases like those are the ones that raised that question in me and that's why I asked here about that. Ferclopedio (talk) 23:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes of course not every article requires an image, but I think for Eurovision, where there are a lot of people involved, images are a very useful tool that adds value to these articles, and I believe that for the vast majority of our articles MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE is being maintained. Being illustrated by relevant media where possible is also one of the Good article criteria. For the vast majority of instances which you listed, and granted a lot of them are articles which I improved to GA status, what images have been placed where has been given some thought, e.g. a notable past participant, a former winner returning etc. It's not just random images being added to articles because we can, there is thought being put behind it. Additionally, as you can see at WP:WHITE, sometimes white space is unavoidable anyway, depending on your browser, font size, screen size etc. We have a lot of tables within these articles, and particularly the Participants table is near the top of each article, so even the placement of tables in relation to the infobox is going to create white space. Sure sizing of the images could potentially be looked at again, but I think for the majority of cases the sizing of each image is also generally ok. It's not been something that's come up in my past GA review for example. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 09:52, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

ESC Director
If "the ESC Director will oversee the work of the existing Executive Supervisor and a new role entitled Head of ESC Brand and Commercial", then surely the infobox should from 2025 onwards display the director, as that role seems to now trump the supervisor, right? — IмSтevan  talk 08:20, 2 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I think we could possibly do that, however given the roles are still being developed and there is a lot unknown at this stage about how the team will look (and since we don't even have confirmed names for any of the named roles directly involved in ESC production in 2025 bar the SRG SSR exec producers) I'd say we can hold off for now until we get more clarity about what the roles are and how they intersect with the contest. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 08:43, 2 July 2024 (UTC)