Eurovision 2017

Doesn't matter if we're competitive or not if the overall contest is entertaining enough to pull in the viewers and fills three nights of primetime on the BBC. I do wish people would separate politics from it though.

I hope this year they avoid the rather crass and unfunny jokes about a straight jacket, mental health and the ESC merchandise store.

Sweden put on an amazing show last year but I'd agree the straight jacket joke was unwise, the one bad note in the whole show. I think they were trying to make the blatant advertising segment entertaining, but ran into something which may well be funny in one country but really unwise elsewhere.

Don't even remember it and if you write Eurovision with the intention of not offending any of the 50+ watching countries you're going to end up with a fairly dire show.

I agree - but that particular joke was pretty ill-judged.

That slogan makes me choke a bit. Celebrate Diversity? Russia?

First picture (I think) of the concept for this year's stage. If it looks rather familiar, it's been designed by the same person who's done the last three.
http://www.eurovision.tv/save-files/resizes/ab/27/b3/1f/9b/5e/25/f0/87/40/a6/8f/d7/e9/75/f7/Stage1.png

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=253503

And reading that, two other nuggets of news.

ARD have requested (and EBU have granted) that Germany votes in the 2nd semi final (Thursday) and SRF have asked (again, granted) that the Switzerland entry perform in the 2nd semi final as well.

Is there a sporting event on the Tuesday, that makes ARD/SRF nervous about viewing figures, that they've asked to take part in the Thursday 2nd semi final evening instead?

Semi Final Allocation Draw today

Results

Champions League semi finals are on the Tuesday evening.