Eurovision 2012 - 22/24/26 May 2012

I find it hard to believe too...

I can, her career's gone through the floor (though granted the Hump was hardly in the public sphere at the time, perhaps he'd already been chosen). I remember the people providing that news were pretty reputable but don't ask me for a source because I can't be bothered searching!

The BBC also asked Hurts who have previously said they'd do Eurovision but they turned them down for some reason.

To be fair I think the only group, at this moment, in time that could pull off the current Euro-pop style music, for the UK, is Steps

I have to say, her cover of Shanice's I Love Your Smile is so blatantly auto-tuned it hurts!

Why does it need to be a 'euro-pop' style song? That's where the UK's gone wrong before and when was the last time a 'euro-pop' song won or did well at Eurovision?

Charlotte Nielssen in 1999 for Sweden?

Because you are thinking of 80's Euro-pop followed by Black Box style Europop, more than likely!

Current Euro-pop trend wdid actually win the contest this year!!!

ALL UK winners have had Euro-pop style songs for their particular era. Like any style of music it does evolve.

If anything Steps would be perfect entry for years contest, and we don't need any "song For Europe" competition - just let the normal Steps songwriters write it as a normal song, and nothing special!

Also, I believe that there should be no inter-country publicity of each other songs, until after the event. Then the "phone voters" can decide on the night rather than knowing what to song to choose weeks/months before.

Steps aren't going to cut the mustard.

If you're going to have a televised selection show, which is the norm and what the people expect in most countries. That's impossible in this YouTube age. You could ban them from being realised beforehand, but how would have stopped people outside of Russia seeing the Russian Grannies?

Just exactly the same way that ITV, BBC and other broadcasters prevents YouTube from showcasing its content - especially to overseas viewers.

Someone on DS has posted a site that links you to old articles from the Mirror and if you look at the headlines closely enough on the Wednesdays you should be able to find the top 10 BARB ratings for each week. Previously the UK ratings for the contest had only gone back as far as 1999 but I've managed to find the rating for the 1998 contest in Birmingham which was 9.68m, only coming sixth that week.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Tel%27s+tunes+beat+Lotto.-a060679015

Remarkable really that 2011 managed to come only 100,000 behind that (9.54m).

The contest wasn't in the top ten in 1997.

Once a news organisation has found out there is an amusing act from Russia they'll gonna report on it, and to stop something going viral then would be impossible.

They are absolutely the wrong type of act to win Eurovision. Cheesy pop has been tried before with Scooch.

It's like what I said a few pages back - the song needs to be just a good song, not what the BBC perceives as 'a good Eurovision song' - that's the mistake that's being made. I also think we'd benefit from a 'song for europe' style contest.... and I think the EBU are insisting on it next year(?).


That would be the ideal but it's absolutely impossible to do in this day and age