When investigating the use of address forms in different languages, it is essential to find comparable enough data. One alternative for the comparison is a television format broadcast in several countries. Our paper discusses Finnish and Hungarian versions of Got Talent. Got Talent is a television format which runs in dozens of countries. Unlike many other TV competitions, Got Talent showcases several artistic disciplines, not only singing, and it is open for participants of different ages. Its idea is to look for the most talented artist. The competitors perform in front of the jury which chooses the best competitors for the (semi)final. In addition to judges, the hosts of the programme have an essential role in the programme.

Finnish and Hungarian are (remote) cognate languages. In spite of many similarities, their address practices differ from each other in many senses. Compared to Finnish, V forms are used more frequently in Hungarian, and terms of endearment as well as kinship terms are favoured more.

Our data consists of try-outs, semifinals and finals of Finnish and Hungarian Talent formats – approximately 6 hours per country. There are c. 40 competitors in both datasets, and their ages vary from 5-year-olds to almost 80-year-olds. In our presentation, we will summarise our findings concerning the address practices among the participants. We will pay attention to e.g. the age and “status” of the competitors from the sociopragmatic perspective. On the basis of our preliminary results, T forms are favoured in both versions, but there is more variation in the Hungarian Talent among the older competitors. The use of first names seems to increase after the try-outs in both countries, but other nominal terms are used more frequently in the Hungarian format.

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