OIRT
The International Radio and Television Organisation (official name in French: Organisation internationale de radiodiffusion et de télévision, OIRT), more often called Intervision (Russian Интервидение, Polish Interwizja), was an East European network of radio and television broadcasters established in 1946 with the primary purpose of exchanging productions between its members.
The members of the OIRT were Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the USSR. From 1950 onwards, its headquarters were located in Prague. The prefix inter- refers to the internationalism which was (hoped to be) one of the key traits of communism.
Between 1977 and 1980 the OIRT organised 4 contests of the Intervision Song Contest in Sopot, Poland, in an attempt to emulate the highly successful Eurovision Song Contest.
In 1993 it merged with the European Broadcasting Union (which runs the Eurovision Network).
