Euronews

Euronews (styled euronews) is a European television news network, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The network began broadcasting on 1 January 1993 and covers world news from a European perspective. It is a provider of livestreamed news, which can be viewed in most of the world via its website, on YouTube, and on various mobile devices and digital media players. In 1992, following the Persian Gulf War, during which CNN's position as the preeminent source of 24-hour news programming was cemented, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) proposed a channel to present information from a counterpart European perspective. Euronews SA was founded by a consortium of ten EBU members (national public broadcasters), titled SOCEMIE (Société éditrice de la chaîne européenne multilingue d'information Euronews): CyBC, Cyprus France Télévisions, France RAI, Italy RTBF, Belgium RTP, Portugal RTVE, Spain TMC, Monaco Yle, Finland ERTU, Egypt The BBC, as well as German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF, opted not to join the consortium. The Swiss public broadcaster SRG SSR was admitted later as a non-founding member. The channel's headquarters was to be established in Lyon, which was chosen out of a series of candidates also including Munich, Bologna and Valencia. The inaugural Euronews broadcast was on 1 January 1993 from Écully, Lyon. In 1996, an additional broadcast studio was set up in London. In late 1997, the British news broadcaster ITN purchased a 49% share of Euronews for £5.1 million from Alcatel-Lucent. ITN supplied the content of the channel along with the remaining shareholders. In 1999, the broadcast switched from solely analogue to mainly digital transmission. The same year, a Portuguese audio track was added. In 2001, the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) acquired a 1.8% stake in SOCEMIE. A Russian-language service was launched later in the year. In April 2003, ITN sold its stake in Euronews as part of its drive to streamline operations and focus on news-gathering rather than channel management.