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5/2/14

European Elections: Europe's main broadcasters snub EU presidency debate - by Dave Keating

On 10 May, Europe's main television stations will broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest – the annual song competition staged by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

But five days later, a first-of-its-kind political debate between candidates to be the next European Commission President, staged by the EBU, will be relegated to special interest channels or news networks.

The EBU is the umbrella organisation for all national public broadcasters in Europe, and the intent was for the debate to be aired on at least second-tier stations. However most broadcasters have opted to air the debate on obscure stations.

Until this week, it appeared that the debate would not be broadcast in France at all, with all French broadcasters refusing to air it. Yesterday TV5 announced it would carry the debate. However TV5 is technically not a French broadcaster but rather a ‘global broadcaster in the French language'.

German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF have decided to feature the debate on a little-watched special interest channel called Phoenix. British public broadcaster BBC has decided to feature the debate on BBC Parliament, a little-watched 24-hour channel monitoring the British Parliament, similar to C-Span in the United States.

As of today (2 May), five member states have no plans to air the debate at all – Hungary, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia and Cyprus. Swedish broadcaster SVT will not air the debate live, but will run a recorded version at some point before the election. Spain and Italy will air the broadcast on their 24-hour news stations. The debate will be aired in two non-EU countries – Canada and Ukraine.

Deutsche Welle, an international 24-hour news network in the German language, will also air the debate, along with European cable news station Euronews. 

Read more: Europe's main broadcasters snub EU presidency debate | European Voice

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