Skip to main content

ESC 2013 ON MAY 18 AND SMALLER?

EBU has its press conference yesterday and some interesting provisional facts were announced about the next year's contest, wherever it will be:
- The provisional dates are May 14 and 16 for the semifinals, 18 for the final
- Possible that future contests may be on a smaller scale and there may be possible changes to rehearsal schedules to economise on time and financial costs. This indeed sounds good. The venues don't work well if too big in my opinion (remember Denmark?) and kind of lose a bit of the feeling. Smaller is cosier and much more fun! Even when you look at it on TV. I think a venue with 15-20.000 is ideal. How they will shorten the rehearsal schedules? I have no idea. Longer days for everybody? This year's timetables were very friendly if you compare to Helsinki 2007 for example but on the other hand if you look  country like Iceland, they have to be in Baku for over 2 weeks and that can't be very cheap!
60th anniversary is approaching in 2015 and looking at ways to celebrate it, and discussions are taking place with various broadcasters
Archive project on full speed. Digitalised and restored to obtain the best copies of each year. First phase completed as we approach the 60th contest in 2015. Can't wait for this!
- They have also apparently talked about the internal selections like they did already last year. Every country should let their people to have a say somehow, so at least they should be able to choose between songs, like Belgium this year, or the artist like Slovenia, or rather in both. EBU seems to favor a fully open selection in every country. If they could also introduce the rule that the artist and songwriters should be of the country they represent that would be fine with me! Or at least somehow connected to the country. Or that the same composer for example could participate in one country only per year.... 
This year Montenegro, Israel, San Marino, Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia, Turkey, Slovakia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, United Kingdom, Azerbaijan, France and Italy gave their people no choice at all. Interestingly half of them made the final, half of them didn't so it's no longer a working so well for the semifinalists. Also 4 out of six Big5+1 chose to select their entry internally, only Spain letting people choose on the song (artists selected internally) and Germany did the other way: people chose the artists while the song(s) were selected internally but people still had the final say.

Comments

Miyazaki said…
"This year (...) Hungary (...) gave their people no choice at all." --> In Hungary there wasn't an internal selection, people could vote in both semi-finals and in the final too, but the jury had the final decision.

Popular posts from this blog

ESC 2016 WISH LIST: MARGARET FOR POLAND

Małgorzata Jamroży aka Margaret has also been tipped for Eurovision and apparently she did turn it down but she'd be perfect. She's got a look and persona you can't unnotice nor forget, she's got hit songs, she has been voted or nominated for everything from Trendy artist to the Hope of the Year, Fashion Icon and Glamour Woman of the year besides the usual best video, song, album, debut..... Oh she's also a fashion designer! She's very clever with social medias and would surely use it to her advantage if selected for Stockholm 2016. Her debut album is titled Add the blonde , do we need to say more? Except it includes mostly Swedish written pop tunes like Tell me how are ya , Wasted , Start a fire and Heartbeat . And of course her debut single and internationally noticed Thank you very much that you can enjoy below with all its anti-textil feel. I think she's Eurovision perfection, she's cheeky and fun, can we have her?

SONGS OF THE YEAR 2015: #5 KRISTA SIEGFRIDS - ON & OFF

Krista Siegfrids is delivering nice pop tunes one after another and this one is particularly catchy and soon you will be singing along..... Hopefully her Melodifestivalen entry will be equally good!

MALTA: THE QUEEN OF L-GHANJA TAL-POPLU - CORAZÓN MIZZI!

If The Travellers have proven recently one can do great singing in Maltese there's also someone else doing great stuff: Corazón Mizzi. While in Malta I was looking for some Maltese CDs only to find out they pretty much don't exist, and the most helpful staff in legendary D'Amato - probably the world's oldest record store today - suggested me Corazón's Hawn jien (2014 album). Having nothing else really to bring home I decided to go or it without even realizing it is the Corazón from Maltese Eurovision selections. And what a find it was! Thank you D'Amato! But let's start from the obvious: Eurovision. Corazón has been offering us songs in the Maltese Eurovision selection since 2009, actually making her best result this year with Falling glass , one of my favorites btw. I also liked last year's Secretly but that failed even the final. But Corazón's true calling is singer-songwriter in Maltese as this excellent album clearly shows. We have al

ESC 2016 BELARUS: NAKED WITH WOLVES?

Today's funniest Eurovision related story comes from Belarus. Some sources claim Ivan wants to perform on stage naked and with live wolf or wolves. It surely would be a first on Eurovision stage! We have seen some forgotten underwear over the years, and some cardbox animals though..... Is it time to take things a bit further?  No, according the rules live animals are not allowed, and Eurovision being a family show nudity won't do either. (It seems to be ok to be half naked if you are a dancer though..... )

EUROVISION 2024.... COMING UP!

 

GREECE: HELENA PAPARIZOU HITS AGAIN WITH HAIDE

Eurovision song contest 2005 winner Helena Paparizou has been enjoying Top-5 hits every year since 2003 with the exception of 2010 and 2014, this latest one being already her 27th! And Haide is charting also in Bulgaria and Finland, of all places. The catchiness of her hits has changed less over the years than her face....  Here's the English version , below the Greek version. 

EUROVISION TWEETS REVEAL DETAILS....

Brandwatch, one the world's leading providers of analytics of social medias has summed up the Twitter buzz during the Eurovision 2013 final on May 18, 2013. Over 1,8 million tweets have been analyzed and it's rather fascinating stuff. On top you can see the figure showing topics. Romania and Ireland got the tweeting go wild as did Greece, Belarus, Malta and Armenia. And you can see political tweets took over during the voting..... The figure above is for the emotions. Once again Romania and Greece got it going wild. A lot of love and joy was spread all over during the show while hate & anger increased during the voting. Is someone surprised? But have a look and analize yourself here . And here you can access to country by country details. Did Ukraine's giant get people's attention? or Moldova's outfit? Did Ireland have sex factor? Or Azerbaijan? And what about Belgium's dance routine?

FINLAND: CONGRATS HANNA PAKARINEN - BABY IS COMING!

No more leave me alones as Eurovision 2007 veteran Hanna Pakarinen has published in her Youtube channel a video unboxing the Finnish state's maternity box aka layette set thus announcing she's due to have a baby later this spring. Congratulations!

ESC 2016 ARMENIA: IT'S IVETA MUKUCHYAN!

Armenian tv has revealed tonight the name of their artist for the 2016 Eurovision song contest in Stockholm. It's 29-year-old Iveta Mukuchyan. Born in Yerevan she moved with her family to Germany when she was 6. At 23 she moved back to Armenia and continued her music studies. She has taken part in the Armenian Pop Idol finishing 5th in 2010 and she also did The Voice of Germany . In 2012 she was voted the Sexiest Armenian.  Armenian tv has made a call for songwriters all over the world to submit a song for her by November 13, 2015.  Let's see which direction the final choice will go, Freak or her latest release that you can hear below.... Whatever it is it will be an improvement from last year's fiasco.....