Eurovision 2012 - 22/24/26 May 2012

Didn't stop Germany; they built a roof on o a football stadium for their arena didn't they?

No the roof on the Dusseldorf Stadium is a permanent feature.

see here ……..

ESPRIT ARENA ON WIKIPEDIA
15-May-2011 @ 12:41

They seem to want it though so obviously have something planned. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to have a more intimate affair - once the stadia get so big quite frankly the crowd become so distant they might as well not be there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heydar_Aliyev_Sports_and_Exhibition_Complex

This one has 7,800 capacity and is the biggest in Azerbaijan. It was going to host the cancelled Eurovision Dance Contest so the EBU should already be familiar with it. Obviously that's a far smaller capacity than recently but it would actually be bigger than Kiev 2005 assuming the stage doesn't chop off 1800 seats.

They could always pull a 2001 and get a roof built on a stadium. They're that sort of government so I wouldn't put it past them.

Don't bet on it. ESC has started at 8pm for as long as I can remember. Even when Moscow hosted... Almost every country showing the contest is in CET - where it starts at 9pm. They COULD push it forward to a 7pm BST / 8pm CET slot - but that would be a pretty huge change.

Moving it to start an hour early could actually be better. For those countries on CET, it isn't that ideal running until 12.30am, I'm surprised they agree to it in the first place.

And for the UK, the BBC could slot in MOTD afterwards in almost it's usual slot.

It's always been Saturdays starting at 8pm UK time as long as I can remember. The earliest one I saw was 1978, though being 6½ years old at the time, I couldn't stay up till its scheduled end of 10:45pm. If I remember rightly, I saw most of the songs, then went to bed. I first saw the ESC to its end in 1982 (Harrogate).

Don't forget 8pm BST / 9pm CET wasn't an issue then, at the time the easternmost countries were Israel and Greece (2 hours ahead of BST). The start problem has only become an issue since the likes of Russia and Azerbaijan have joined in, and become liable to hosting next year in the event of winning.

Don't forget that quite a few Western European countries run their days later than we do in the UK. If you've been to Rome the place doesn't really start perking up until about 10pm!

Same with Spain. In fact Eurovision starting at 9 there is pretty early as primetime usually begins at about 10:30. Having it any earlier would be like putting The X Factor on at 4!

As others have said not really - in many European countries TV doesn't get going until about 10pm in the evening as the inhabitants are actually out having a life in the evenings.

General Directors of EBU and Public Television have met

Ingrid Deltenre said she was sure Eurovision 2012 would be grandiose

Immediately after the press conference about Azerbaijan’s victory in Eurovision 2011 song contest Director General of European Broadcasting Union Ingrid Deltenre met Ismayil Omarov, the Director of Azerbaijani Public Television and Radio Broadcasting.

Ingrid Deltenre congratulated the young member of the EBU, the Public Television on winning the song contest. She said she was sure that Eurovision 2012 will be organized in high level: “I remember very well how the Public Television hosted the summer session of the EBU General Assembly in July 2010. Such General Assembly was something new in the history of the EBU. I am sure that the 2012 Eurovision will be grandiose.”

more ……..

EN.ITV.AZ/EUROVISION_SONG_CONTEST_2011
16-May-2011 @ 20:39

The general rule of entries in order to get a winner is to stand out from the competition. In 2010, there was a huge amount of ballads, as a result some really great songs (like Sweden's "This Is My Life") didn't progress from the semis because of ballad fatigue. Germany won with an upbeat song.

Reacting to this, the vast majority of entries were up tempo this year! Thus we got a number of ballads through to the final that didn't really cut the mustard (Switzerland for example) - essentially 'up tempo song fatigue' in the semis.

The big mistake that the BBC could make would be submit a ballad next year because a slow tempo song winning in 2011 - it will most probably be a ballad-y year next year.