Television Template‑class

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This section either shouldn't be present or should be overhauled, at least for US TV. Unlike in film, 'Producer' is not a particularly notable position in US TV, and the vast majority of the time it refers to medium-ranking writers, who exist below EPs, Co-EPs and Supervising Producers in the hierarchy - the latter two obviously not being included in the template as it exists. The exception to this are people who get a 'Produced by' credit. 115.70.7.33 (talk) 04:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think the parameter should remain, as it remains relevant for shows produced in the U.K. and other countries. However, the parameter should be ignored for U.S. shows for the reasons you have stated (it makes no sense to list producers but not co-exec. or supervising producers who outrank them), and this should be noted in the template documentation. I think it's fine for just the executive producers to be included for U.S. shows. Jimmio78 (talk) 03:06, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can we add a steaming release information parameter something? Perhaps under the release section or its own section. My7thsecret (talk) 15:38, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean? When you say "steaming release information", do you mean that a show was originally released on Netflix and you want to add the date? Or do you mean a show that was originally released on ABC and then 7 months later was released on Netflix and you want to add that information? --Gonnym (talk) 15:41, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The second one, yes. My7thsecret (talk) 15:42, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We normally only record the first date that a program airs on its original network, not subsequent releases on other networks. If we did otherwise, infoboxes would be filled with release dates on subsequent networks. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:50, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is helpful specially if you are looking for a show's (past and current) streaming home. My7thsecret (talk) 15:51, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

With streaming rights this isn't very useful. A show can be on Netfix Singapore, but not on Netflix US, while in the US it can be on Hulu and in Canada on a different one. Which one do you add? --Gonnym (talk) 15:53, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No need for the streaming release date. Just the name of the streaming service will do. Release date will be exclusive to its first release. My7thsecret (talk) 15:53, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Only those shows with exclusivity will have that info. The Mandalorian or the The Witcher, for example, which are available in Disney+ and Netflix, respectively, in all locations. My7thsecret (talk) 15:55, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Simpson's also. My7thsecret (talk) 15:57, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I understand you want that, but I've explained the issues and so did AussieLegend. For shows like Mandalorian and Witcher, they are already listed as such as that is the original network. Anything else does not belong in the infobox. I won't reply anymore to this issue. --Gonnym (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll further add that this is something best handled in the body of the article, maybe in the "Broadcast" section. --AussieLegend (✉) 23:28, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there... so for a quick run-down of the situation, America's Got Talent has had many judges on the show since it began in 2006. With Sofía Vergara announced yesterday, she will be the 12th person to be a judge on the show. As a result, I think the infobox is getting a bit crowded.

Yesterday, I changed it to be "starring" instead of "judges" in the infobox as per MOS:TV#Infobox. However, since then, it's been changed up a bit (as the history shows...), and now reverted back to the full list of judges over the years. So what should be done here?

Personally, I think it would be fine to change it to "starring" and only have the current judges, and then for the "presented by", remove past hosts and just keep the current one listed. Seems a bit too much, especially with a table further in the article listing all of these people anyways.

Other shows and how their pages handle it (keeping everyone listed) has been brought up as well, including American Idol, Grey's Anatomy, and Britain's Got Talent. The Voice also lists everyone in the infobox. However, should be noted that WP:OSE exists- just because these other articles are doing it, doesn't mean AGT needs to too. In fact, they could be doing it wrong in the first place.

Also, not to be rude/bash on the other two users involved in this, but I had a talk page message about this since July 2019, with no response from anyone. Even with the recent edits on the page yesterday regarding this, no discussion whatsoever held there, only through edit summaries, which doesn't help that much.

Thanks. Magitroopa (talk) 14:51, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging GUtt01 and Heartfox to this as well. Magitroopa (talk) 14:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your trying to fix a problem by creating a different problem. Don't make up titles. A judge is not a "starring" role. Those are completely different TV series and functions. The real issue is sadly unrelated to this or any show, but the fact that the initial design of the infobox even let seasonal staff positions to be used in the overall infobox. This means that it will always be a spam-list, whether it's a full starring cast for long series, judges, writers, directors or others. If any list is too long, you have only 2 real solutions. Either decide that a long list is fine and keep it as is, or use a "See list" and link it to somewhere in the article which lists them. Using incorrect infobox parameters, or using the series infobox as a season infobox are both options that the infobox does not support or allow. --Gonnym (talk) 14:59, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the infobox is suitable for the program, in terms of identifying members by their role - switching Judge to Starring is a mistake, and problematic, since that states something else for a televised competition. In regards to the length of entries for those sections in the Infobox I'd say we vote on one particular option, suggested by Gonnym, we could implement - using a "See List" option. If there's a deadlock on this matter, recommend a RfC to gain further input on the matter. GUtt01 (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I hope this is the right place for this discussion. Can someone clarify what the "Country of origin" parameter should indicate? I'm contributing to these articles about US/Italian co-productions and I have a few doubts:

• My Brilliant Friend - Rai / HBO co-production
• The New Pope – Sky Atlantic (Italy) / HBO / Canal+ co-production
• The Young Pope – Sky Atlantic (Italy) / HBO / Canal+ co-production
• We Are Who We Are – Sky Atlantic (Italy) / HBO co-production
• ZeroZeroZero – Sky Atlantic (Italy) / Amazon Studios / Canal+ co-production

Given that:

1. A production company is the executive company physically producing the series and is hired by a network (sometimes through a mediator production company or department within a network like Rai Fiction for Rai and HBO Entertainment for HBO).
2. A commissioning channel/network is the channel financing the series and the one broadcasting it for the first time. If more channels are commissioning the series, the original release date is the one of the first channel AMONG those which have commissioned the series.
3. A distributor is a company who sells the series internationally to non-commissioning channels/networks.
4. A location is the country or countries where the series is filmed.

In the case of My Brilliant Friend, the production companies are Wildside (Italian), Fandango (Italian), Umedia (international), The Apartment (Italian), Mowe (Italian). The commissioning channels are Rai 1 (Italian) and HBO (American), with the first season airing in the US first and the second in Italy first (as indicated in the "First shown in" parameter in the template). The international distributor is Fremantle (a UK company with a subsidiary in Italy). The series is filmed in Italy. As of now the listed countries of origin are Italy, United States.

In the case of The Young Pope and The New Pope, the production companies are Wildside (Italian), Haut et Court TV (French), Mediapro (Spanish), The Apartment (Italian, New Pope only). The commissioning channels are Sky Atlantic (Italian), HBO (American), Canal+ (French), with first release on Sky Atlantic in Italy. The international distributor is Fremantle (a UK company with a subsidiary in Italy). The series are filmed in Italy (both) and in the US (Young Pope only). As of now the countries of origin are Italy, France, Spain.

In the case of We Are Who We Are, the production companies are The Apartment (Italian), Wildside (Italian), Small Forward (Italian). The commissioning channels are Sky Atlantic (Italian) and HBO (American), with first release unknown yet. The international distributor is Fremantle (a UK company with a subsidiary in Italy). The series was shot in Italy. As of now the countries of origin are Italy, United States.

In the case of ZeroZeroZero, the production companies are Cattleya (Italian) and Bartleby Film (Italian). The commissioning channels are Sky Atlantic (Italian), Amazon (American) and Canal+ (French), with first release on Sky Atlantic in Italy. The international distributor is Fremantle (a UK company with a subsidiary in Italy). The series was shot in Italy, Mexico, United States, Senegal, Morocco. As of now the country of origin is Italy.

So, my question is: WHAT SHOULD COUNTRY OF ORIGIN REFER TO? The country/ies of the production companies, the country/ies of the commissioning channels, the country/ies of the distributor, the country/ies of filming or a mixture of some or all of these?

--TheVampire (talk) 14:28, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've always viewed it as "who owns the show". In today's day and age, you frequently have multiple production companies from around the world, and they don't all provide equal portions. It's whatever the main company can do to cut costs, and so I don't necessarily see the list of production companies as the way of determining "country of origin". I don't particularly like the idea of "Country of origin" anyway, because there's an implicit idea of "where did it start", but that's not indicative of where it's from necessarily.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:23, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, I don't like it either because it's confusing. With "who owns the show" do you mean the commissioning channel(s) or the production companies? Because sometimes you have a production company owning the show and the commissioning channel calling it an 'original series' at the same time, with the production company bound to produce the show for the channel by contract. So, let's take The Young Pope for example: it was made by three production companies: 1 Italian, 1 French, 1 Spanish and it was commissioned as an original series by three channels: 1 Italian, 1 French, 1 American. What should the country of origin list? Italy, France, Spain OR Italy, France, United States OR Italy, France, Spain, United States? I'm lost :D --TheVampire (talk) 18:06, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think your examples are a great way of why it's so confusing. I mean who actually owns the rights. To give you an example that is a bit easier to follow: Lucifer is owned by Warner Bros. So, the show was primarily produced by WB, with like 3 or 4 other companies include Jerry Bruckheimer's company. They don't own any piece of Lucifer, they just get a piece of the profits. WB owns it outright and when Fox cancelled the show Netflix picked it up. Netflix still lists it as an "original series", but they don't own it. In fact, they are in negotiations to get another season from WB for it. As WB is the owner, I see the country of origin as "the US", nowhere else, even if some other company happened to be located in another country. At the end of the day, only 1 person owns the property.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:58, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So, would you say looking at the copyright at the end of an episode would be helpful? For The Young Pope there's this: "Copyright Wildside / Sky Italia / Haut et Court TV / Mediaproducciòn 2019. All rights reserved". That is 2 Italian companies, 1 French and 1 Spanish. That means that they share the copyright and that the series is then Italian, French and Spanish of origin, despite being broadcast by HBO, too?--TheVampire (talk) 19:18, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That depends. There's a difference between owning the episode and owning the rights to the story. I'm not sure how easy it is to find that out, which always takes me back to the question of "why do we need 'County of Origin'"? WB shows are always fairly easy to figure that because WB rarely licenses out their stuff other than for distribution purposes. I mean, there's a pretty solid chance that "The New Pope" is not owned by HBO. Everything that I can find for most of those shows link back to an Italian ownership with distribution and possibly some production assistance from American companies. My concern about "County of Origin" has always been that simply because another production company from another country works on the show/film, that doesn't make it theirs and doesn't really indicate that's where the show is from. Otherwise, you end up with a lot of "American/Canadian" productions because Hollywood films a lot in Canada because it's cheaper.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'll leave them as they are for now, I guess. Thanks for your comments. We'll see if, in the future, this problem will rise again and what the consensus will be on the use of this parameter of the template.--TheVampire (talk) 23:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Country of origin" (|country=) is in my opinion wrongly set up here. It currently represents two different parameters - The show's country of origin and The country or region where the show was first broadcast. Omit if the same country as country of origin above or if the show has only been broadcast in one country or region. (taken from |first_run=). These two are completely different functions and should never have even been used together. The "what country owns the program" is completely irrelevant in the infobox, and I'd say even in the article itself. A country does not own a show. A cooperation owns it. So, should The Boondocks (2020 TV series) which airs on a American network, produced by a Sony Pictures Television and Sony Pictures Animation which are American companies, and are owned by Sony, a Japanese conglomerate, be listed as "United States" for country of origin? A much better usage, which is the one that most editors and readers are actually using this for, is "where did the show first air?" (as in "for what country was it produced for"). I'd be in favor of changing the infobox to reflect this. --Gonnym (talk) 09:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the examples I mentioned, I put "Italy" in the |first_run= parameter because that was the first country where these series were broadcast. However, these series were later broadcast in France and/or in America, on Canal+ and HBO or Amazon, which acted as co-commissioners for the series (for The New Pope for instance, every poster from HBO says "a joint production SKY/HBO/CANAL+"). So if you have more than one commissioning channel/network, what is the country of origin? Is it a list of the countries where the commissioning channels are based or is it a list of the countries where the production companies are based? That was the doubt, because the |first_run= parameter is pretty straightforward and it only includes the single country where the series is broadcast for the first time if there are multiple commissioning channels from different countries. Since we already separate production companies from the international distributor and the original networks, the parameter (|country=) is misleading because it is not clear what it refers to.--TheVampire (talk) 12:19, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In my view (which is currently counter to the infobox), I would say that the |first_run= parameter should not be used as a "competition" parameter, as in, "who was able to place the show in the earliest time slot", which is why I said above "for what country was it produced for". So in your examples of join productions from different countries, each of those countries would be valid to list, as each of those channels/networks would also be valid to have the show in a original programming category for that channel, such as Category:HBO original programming. --Gonnym (talk) 12:31, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey team, I see this has been discussed before here with apparently no follow-up, so just bringing attention back to it. Currently it is suggested to use |website=hide if you don't want to display the wikidata URL in the infobox, but instead of just hiding the field it is displaying "[hide Website]". Does anyone know how to address this? - adamstom97 (talk) 22:53, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up question. Why do we even need website info in the infobox anymore? Can't we just include it in an external links section at the bottom of the article? Just looking at other media infoboxes (film and video games), they don't include websites in their infoboxes. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:01, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, there I'm just asking if a show such as Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway has broadcast from one off filming locations such as Walt Disney World, is it acceptable for that Location to be mentioned in the infobox? Pepper Gaming (talk) 15:59, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Location should be the main/primary filming location. One-off locations shouldn't be mentioned in the infobox, but can/should be noted in the article body/appropriate area. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:21, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Can you edit that and add something that says no one off locations? And why shouldn't be included? Pepper Gaming (talk) 18:46, 4 April 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Can someone answer my question please Pepper Gaming (talk) 16:41, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Added "primary" to the location section, as that is what it has always meant.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:44, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Bignole: Cheers, otherwise people will believe that one off locations are accepted (like me, until GUtt01 said otherwise)

This infobox uses |show_name= with |name= as an alias. This is inconsistent with most infoboxes with |name= being the field normally used. This also causes an issue with the ongoing conversion of television film articles to use this infobox rather than {{infobox film}}. The field is normally overlooked when manually converting, resulting in Category:Pages using infobox television with alias parameters being populated. I am therefore proposing that we deprecate |show_name= in favour of |name=, with |show_name= becoming the alias. This will not affect any existing articles as |show_name= will still work. Articles can be "fixed" on an ad hoc basis unless somebody wants to organise a bot to change all infoboxes. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support: more intuitive, consistent and pragmatic. — Bilorv (talk) 09:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: No opposition from me. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Question: @AussieLegend would this change include also |show_name2= to |name2=? --Gonnym (talk) 16:59, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it would have to. (I actually forgot about that one) --AussieLegend (✉) 17:15, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, support both parameter changes. I would actually prefer the end result to have a bot replace the parameters (User:PrimeBOT is set up to handle such operations) and then remove it from the infobox code. --Gonnym (talk) 17:50, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@AussieLegend and Gonnym: Actually, if we're going to make these adjustments, would it be better and potentially clearer to make |name2=, |alt_name=? I think just by looking at the parameter with that name, it is super clear what it should be used for. Right now, |name2= has ambiguity to what it could be used for in the template. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 19:38, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That seems quite appropriate. --AussieLegend (✉) 02:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, I just hope that there won't be confusion between it and |alt=. --Gonnym (talk) 11:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The actual field is |image_alt= but it is interesting that I've found a lot of articles where image_alt has been removed because editors thought it referred to an alternate image, and "alt" when it has been included has been removed because editors thought it referred to an alternative name. I t seems a lot of people don't preview before saving. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support for continuity. Helps to clear confusion for new (and long time for that matter) editors. MarnetteD|Talk 17:24, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• 10 days have passed with 5 supporters and no one opposing. I'm going to implement the sandbox changes. --Gonnym (talk) 13:41, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • When you make a change like this, please purge the docmentation, so that it updates (I've done that now). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted today's changes, because [[Category:Pages using infobox television with alias parameters|]] was showing as raw text in articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:07, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The issue was with a tracking template, so I've restored the edits but without tracking, for now. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:12, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]