Maybe realising they were in with a good chance of winning, I wonder if he is floating the possibility of some changes to the contest in the coming year to lower the cost to the host, or maybe trying to raise the issue of cost looking for greater contributions? I don't know enough about the technicalities of how the funding works, but interesting that it's been raised quite publicly in advance of the win.
SVT already successfully downsized the contest in 2013 from the mega venues of the preceding decade. The contest is pretty well financed by a range of sponsors now but last years event in Copenhagen was a financial disaster with the event coming in at twice the estimated cost and a lot if accusations of cronyism amongst the organisers.
The song 'Building Bridges', as performed last night at the opening, is now available on iTunes to download. The artists are 'Conchita Wurst, Left Boy, Arabella Kiesbauer, Mirjam Weichselbraun, Alice Tumler, Die Wiener Sängerknaben, The Suparar Kids & The ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra'!
SVT already successfully downsized the contest in 2013 from the mega venues of the preceding decade. The contest is pretty well financed by a range of sponsors now but last years event in Copenhagen was a financial disaster with the event coming in at twice the estimated cost and a lot if accusations of cronyism amongst the organisers.
Copenhagen involved building a special venue didn't it? And DR hasn't got a great track record in managing building projects. Their current HQ went massively over budget and cost so much they had to sell significant sports rights off to stay solvent ISTR.
SVT already successfully downsized the contest in 2013 from the mega venues of the preceding decade. The contest is pretty well financed by a range of sponsors now but last years event in Copenhagen was a financial disaster with the event coming in at twice the estimated cost and a lot if accusations of cronyism amongst the organisers.
Copenhagen involved building a special venue didn't it? And DR hasn't got a great track record in managing building projects. Their current HQ went massively over budget and cost so much they had to sell significant sports rights off to stay solvent ISTR.
Yes, they had to convert the old B&W Hallerne in the docks into a suitable venue within around 6 months. It's amazing they managed to do it so well and for it to look so great on screen. It cost around $20.2 million just to convert the arena. The production costs were an additional $32.3 million, the total was therefore $52.3 million. In comparison Malmo cost around $18.5 million. Copenhagen pales in comparison to Baku which cost a reported$65 million! It's not certain if that figures includes the building of the Crystal Hall!
Then establish one. We've got four options I think.
One is for the BBC to send Ed Sheeran, Jess Glynne or one of their peers.
Not an option - no established contemporary UK act would or will enter Eurovision. Their label and management simply wouldn't let them. They have almost nothing to gain and lots to lose. The only real option is if an act were so big that they were able to not care.
They are already international stars. They don't need the 'launch pad' in the same way that big domestic acts in other countries might. They have already been launched.
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One is to go all out and do a UK Melfest with established stars.
See above. Plus with Strictly and The Voice there isn't really space, scope or commissioning appetite for a weekly Eurovision show. The Lloyd Webber show only happened because there wasn't a West End show to cast in the run of Maria, Joseph, Nancy shows...
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One is to revisit Song for Europe but using BBC Introducing. Let's get five or six new singer-songwriters from varying genres and put them to a public vote. It doesn't even need a Saturday night shiny floor TV show, it could be done online.
Possibly more of a go-er. But will you find someone with the level of experience who will be able to stand on a stage in front of 200m viewers and really sell a song?
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And one is to revisit Your Country Needs You. Get a major songwriter - or even singer/songwriter - to write the song, and then have a public vote of vocalists who could nail it in Sweden.
Less likely - for similar reasons to 1. Established talents won't touch the show with a bargepole. It's a no-win situation for them.
The reality is that until big labels in the UK decide they want to win Eurovision, we won't. It's all about label support, not the broadcaster.
Sweden doesn't do well just because of the TV show Melodifestivalen. It does well because labels FORCE artists to enter - promising them an album deal because they will get great single sales from appearing on the show. MF entries fill up the iTunes Sweden chart during MF season. That simply doesn't happen in the same way in the UK.
SVT also don't have any major "reality' shows (Let's Dance = Strictly and Idol are both on the Swedish equivalent of ITV) - so they have a real appetite for a weekly music show with viewer participation in a way that we don't.
SVT already successfully downsized the contest in 2013 from the mega venues of the preceding decade. The contest is pretty well financed by a range of sponsors now but last years event in Copenhagen was a financial disaster with the event coming in at twice the estimated cost and a lot if accusations of cronyism amongst the organisers.
Copenhagen involved building a special venue didn't it? And DR hasn't got a great track record in managing building projects. Their current HQ went massively over budget and cost so much they had to sell significant sports rights off to stay solvent ISTR.
Yes, they had to convert the old B&W Hallerne in the docks into a suitable venue within around 6 months. It's amazing they managed to do it so well and for it to look so great on screen. It cost around $20.2 million just to convert the arena. The production costs were an additional $32.3 million, the total was therefore $52.3 million. In comparison Malmo cost around $18.5 million. Copenhagen pales in comparison to Baku which cost a reported$65 million! It's not certain if that figures includes the building of the Crystal Hall!
SVT already successfully downsized the contest in 2013 from the mega venues of the preceding decade. The contest is pretty well financed by a range of sponsors now but last years event in Copenhagen was a financial disaster with the event coming in at twice the estimated cost and a lot if accusations of cronyism amongst the organisers.
Copenhagen involved building a special venue didn't it? And DR hasn't got a great track record in managing building projects. Their current HQ went massively over budget and cost so much they had to sell significant sports rights off to stay solvent ISTR.
Yes, they had to convert the old B&W Hallerne in the docks into a suitable venue within around 6 months. It's amazing they managed to do it so well and for it to look so great on screen. It cost around $20.2 million just to convert the arena. The production costs were an additional $32.3 million, the total was therefore $52.3 million. In comparison Malmo cost around $18.5 million. Copenhagen pales in comparison to Baku which cost a reported$65 million! It's not certain if that figures includes the building of the Crystal Hall!
Absolutely! As you well know the Malmö contest was significantly smaller in scale than even that years MelFest itself. For much the same reasons i wouldn't count out a return to Malmö or to the Scandinaviumin Gothenburg.
I have just been looking at the statistics for this year's contest. The fact Armenia and Azerbaijan don't get on is hardly a secret, and therefore, it's unlikely many people in one country will vote for the other on those grounds. (In fact, looking at the statistics, the Azerbaijani public voted less for Armenia than they did any other track, and vice versa.) It's okay, though, it won't be unfair, because we've now got the impartial judges who watch each and every country's performance, offering a fair opinion on each, before ranking them from favourite, (in this case, first) to least favourite (in this case, twenty-seventh) in an entirely honest and unbiased way...
Well... a very brief look at the Eurovision website statistics page shows that every single one of the
impartial
Armenian judges ranked the Azerbaijani entry the lowest possible, (27th position). Every single one. The song wasn't that bad that you could feasibly believe that every single judge genuinely believed it to be the worst song out of almost thirty.
It gets better, though, because exactly the same situation took place in reverse, with every single one of the five
impartial
Azerbaijani judges voting the Armenian entry the worst song in the bunch. There's no way that's coincidental, either. None of them might have genuinely been too keen on the song, but there's no way they would all have ranked it twenty-seventh of twenty-seven fairly without collusion.
How was this not spotted and put an end to? They can't bring in juries to make the voting less politicised and then just allow the jurors to vote politically? Would it not be better for the jurors to watch each performance blind, then rank the songs, and then, and only then, find out which country provided which song? Surely that's the only way you can have a fair vote on how each song/performance was without inevitable politics?
Would it not be better for the jurors to watch each performance blind, then rank the songs, and then, and only then, find out which country provided which song? Surely that's the only way you can have a fair vote on how each song/performance was without inevitable politics?
It's a good idea- but in practise there's really no way they could possibly enforce this. Any jury member can quite easily find out before the contest which song belongs to which country.
