It doesn't get better than what we make of it : The importance of the Eurovision News Exchange in TV coverage of foreign news

This thesis investigates the role of the Eurovision News Exchange (EVN) as a source for foreign TV news coverage for the Danish and Norwegian public service broadcasters: DR and NRK. With the theoretical approach of political economy, I have sought to expose existing structures in international news distribution that are influencing the broadcasters’ coverage and the EVN’s distinct features within the field. A central point of the analysis has been the particular logics of the EVN, as a cooperation of member broadcasters based on public service principles, opposed to the commercial logics of the major TV news agencies. The investigation showed that the EVN supplies a fair share of the sources of the investigated broadcasters’ foreign news coverage, but also that this share does not represent a factual alternative to the share of the commercial news agencies. Certain tendencies in what kinds of themes and geographical areas the broadcasters use the two image suppliers for in their coverage are apparent, and the implications of the broadcasters’ approach to the different sources are discussed. The public service background of the EVN, and its contributing members, was examined with regard to the content in the supplied news material, and a further possible democratizing role of the cooperation in foreign TV news coverage. The analysis found that the role the EVN has to the broadcasters’ foreign news coverage depends on the individual broadcasters’ financial situations. The cooperation also emerged as a necessary supplement to the commercial news agencies. The public service background further proved to both strengthen and weaken the EVN, and a partly unused potential of holding a democratizing factor in the international news flow, was largely connected to this dynamic