Eurovision 2013 - 14/16/18 May 2013

Petra was a brilliant host of Melfest 2009 so I'm very happy that she's doing this. I had thought that she'd actually moved on to a rival channel so I was very surprised to see that she was doing it.

Great choice as host. Definitely won't be stale with her at the helm. Just hope we have the return of Linda Woodruff doing the scoring for Sweeeeeeeeden.

It's not Kimberley Walsh.

Who is it then?

Yep - Petra was a great host in 2009. I think that was the most recent year that Melodifestivalen had a single presenter? The opening to the 2009 final was brilliant - and so knowingly OTT. (Can you imagine Tess Daly doing this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC_hP_cBJc4#t=04m04s
(Petra's the one coming in on the Golf buggy, driven by Christer Björkman, who has been Melodifestivalen Exec Prod - since the 2002 reboot, is Show Producer of Eurovision 2013, and Sweden's Mr Eurovision. He competed in the contest in 1992...)

I think it's quite a clever choice. She's experienced, sharp-witted (which helped Anke eclipse Stefan and Judith in 2011) and warm. She also speaks fluent French, and good English (though I saw reports she was having brush-up lessons).

I'd have thought Måns Zelmerlöw was considered - as he's presented Melodifestivalen (his English during the international voting was excellent and very unaccented) and currently presents Allsång (which is a really popular show, and he followed Anders Lundin in that role, and Anders presented Eurovision in 2000)

Sarah Dawn Finer would also have been an amay-zing choice - she's a great presenter and a really talented performer. Although she grew up in Sweden (and speaks Swedish natively) she has British and American parents, so also speaks English so well she can do English accents (see Lynda Woodruff!)

Sweden, Denmark and Norway start Eurovision hosting with a huge advantage over other countries, though as most of their TV hosts speak such good English they don't really have to think about it too much - whereas hosts in other countries have to work quite hard to present in their non-native languages that it can distract them from the main job of hosting. If you watch any Nordic talkshows (Skavlan is a great one - presented by a Norwegian but shown in Sweden and Norway) you'll see how good their English is when they have non-Nordic guests on and flip the interview to English for the duration.

I don't think it's a co-incidence that Stockholm 2000 and Oslo 2010 had the best hosts, in my opinion, in recent years. (Though Copenhagen in 2001 was not so great...) They also have a strong native TV production industry (with strong PSBs) so have a decent core of experienced presenters.

Zelmerlöw would have been a safe pair of hands, I suspect with Danny Saucedo leading Melfest this year, they wanted something different. I feel that MZ still covets another run at Melfest too, so giving him an insiders role would seem to preclude that.

I don't think that the presenters were too bad in 2001- they were both competent enough, but any presenting skill they had was ruined by the frankly baffling decision to make them present the whole show in rhyme! To this day I still can't fathom why anyone thought that would be a good idea.

First sketches of Eurovision 2013 stage revealed

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=73643&_t=first_sketches_of_eurovision_2013_stage_revealed

do we know what the uk entry will be

Rumours are rife that it could be Girls Aloud to compete against Cascada if they win the German vote...

Looks by that plan like the stage is probably going to be similar to that of 2011, with the catwalk extending to a second stage. Hopefully they'll find more use for it this year, in Dusseldorf it was barely used except by the hosts at the start of the show. I wonder if the curved grey line behind the performance area is just an LED backdrop?

Do hope not. LED backdrops are getting a bit predictable aren't they? Moscow 2009 was amazing - and difficult to top. I think Oslo 2010 made a clever choice in ditching LED video screens and going for more varied set elements that really gave the songs more individual treatment, and the show more 'texture'.

Dusseldorf for me was just dull and flat. (A bit like two of the three presenters. Anke was the only real high-point for me)

I don't see the word 'audience' in the space between the main performance stage, and the curve to the secondary stage and 'catwalk'. I assume there will be some sort of 'moshpit' seating, because it's going to look on the shots from the back of the arena rather empty, with a only a couple of peds and a rail cam.

I took the grey line to be a dividing wall between the main arena, and the backstage green room - look at the amount of white space that the line divides up the right of it.