Eurovision 2018

How many of the ESC taking broadcasters also show big ticket football matches these days ? Not many I suspect?

Doesn't matter - the EBU (and RTP) wouldn't want the final to be up against any popular sporting event.

There's also the question of the EBU's resources - they handle distribution for the UCL, and I'd imagine it takes up a similar amount of their capacity as the song contest.
(That said, there was a small amount of crossover in times between Saturday's full voting rehearsal and the 10 simultaneous Bundesliga games they were distributing, plus however many Ligue 1 games on at the same time, so there is a lot of room on the network, though it's not infinite.)

Next year's UCL final is in Kiev, by the way.

There were additional, short notice, ESC feeds that the EBU provided this year that had to be shuffled in space segment terms because of other commitments... (They were pretty busy)

Just looking at some old contest clips - was Malmo 2013 really the first Eurovision to make the main stage area standing rather than seated? I always thought it was much earlier than that, seems odd to think that a song contest on the scale of Eurovision was an exclusively seated event for so many years.

Go back to the early 1990s and you don't even see many Eurovision fans in the audience, it's all middle-aged people in suits politely applauding each song. Ireland did well to bring in a younger audience during their (many) contests that decade, and by Birmingham 1998 it's a much more varied - and wilder - crowd.

I think so - but from around 2003 onwards most of the audience went rogue and stood up despite the seating.

1998 was a real turning point for the use of the audience, putting actual Eurovision fans in view of the cameras. As I've said before, 98 also served as the model for the current 'witty banter' between hosts. So it's all our fault.

I don't know if it is just me, but has anyone noticed that the past 2 winners withdrawed the year before they won? So, Ukraine withdrawed in 2015 and won in 2016, and Portugal withdrawed in 2016 and won in 2017.

Disagree. The RTE productions were incredibly old fashioned at the time, they were mainly evolutions of what went before. The most innovative show prior to 1998 was Oslo in 1996. This was the first to introduce some humour into the show, the first to have a local (younger, male) pop star co-host and the first to introduce VR graphics etc. The mid 90's were the period when the show was most disconnected from contemporary pop music and culture. The best thing to happen to the contest was Gina G's poor showing in 1996. It forced the EBU to introduce tele-voting the next year. How could a song that was number one throughout Europe be disregarded by the juries? In effect they signed their own death warrants. When the show returned to RTE in 1997 it was a much fresher production, based on Oslo the previous year and the bar was set for the BBC to raise again the following year.

Looks like a win for Yulia Samoylova next year then!



Forgot about Oslo, ironic as that's the first one I ever watched. Was thinking about the likes of Ronan Keating hosting for Ireland, but of course that wasn't until 1997, post-Oslo. Compared to the likes of Zagreb and Rome's contests it feels like decades in the future.

I was obsessed with the 1991 Eurovision in Rome because it was such a complete disaster, very much a pan-European version of the 1989 Brit Awards. The staging was revolting and Toto Cutugno was the most appalling host because he couldn't speak English or French and didn't know the rules, so the voting went on for hours and in the end Frank Naef, the EBU scrutineer, virtually had to present it himself ("Mr Naef, Mr Naef!", that was the catchphrase). As Tel said, "It was a sorry day for all of us when this man won last year". And of course it ended in a draw and absolutely nobody knew what was going on.

I was absolutely fascinated by the whole thing, and I think it was a complete embarrassment for Eurovision. Everyone was talking about how bad it was.

Italy 1991 is fascinating viewing for all the wrong reasons. Even the start sets the tone : Te Deum ... then black and silence ... then finally a peculiar still for Year of Culture or something before what can only be described as a 'very 90s dance sequence' on video. And yes, a dreadful male host (Gigliola at least being a professional tv presenter was slightly better, and a past Eurovision winner to boot)

The lighting was awful, the sound mix off and the set surreal.

The voting was a shambles.

Loved it

Birmingham was more modern than some, but still relied on a VIP and dressed-up-to-the-nines (and largely seated) audience. Plus of course the last with an orchestra. Jerusalem 1999 was back to the past, almost literally, being in a small hall. The director chose to use almost no audience shots at all to try and make it feel bigger than it was but it had a very cooped up feel to me.

I think the real turning point for the way the ESC looked on screen was Stockholm 2000. That opening still gets me.

1990's wasn't great either, all the atmosphere of a corporate internal training video and the infamous mistake with Spain's song at the start.

I think that definitely shows a difference between the Eurovision of the past and that of today - when the Spanish group realise they've missed their cue, they furiously storm off the stage, ignoring the audience completely and waiting for the track to begin again. If any contestant reacted that badly to a mistake now they'd be slated - you'd need to smile and make a joke about it, or at least continue as best as possible and request a second performance later. Imagine if Jamala had stopped the song and stormed off stage after the mooner - it probably wouldn't look very good!