Eurovision 2019

Switzerland only sends one delegation. The country has a federal broadcasting model, reflecting the different languages, but all broadcasters are members of SRG SSR, which you could think of as something between the BBC and old school ITV.

As for Belgium, they continue to swap between RTBF and VRT. It works for the broadcasters and the country as it doesn’t force VRT, for example, to put forward French entries, which would cause issues for its remit - as the Flemish language broadcaster of Belgium.

Hope that all makes sense. The EBU is very European in its weird and wacky ways!

Not that I'm aware of - AIUI the Swiss broadcast model means that the various language broadcasters are still overall part of an umbrella broadcast organisation rather than being totally separate. I'd imagine they send a combined delegation?



Last I heard that was still the case.

Belgium definitely switch back and forth, as do Russia. The BBC and ITV could do the same but there's obviously little good reason to do so.

SVT are revealing all of the 2019 Melfest entrants and the songs which have got through the in house sift exercise next week.

.... An aside

Junior Eurovision was held in Minsk Belarus this afternoon with Wales and Kazakhstan participating for the first time. Interesting that Global internet voting was permitted including from non participants too. Jury votes all over the place as usual. Australia won the judges vote (Wales got ZERO also ending up bottom)

Poland won from France and Australia in third.

....

Bit of a shame for Wales. I have to say the political voting was worse than the adult version at times.

As an aside, S4C showed quite a lot of the programme on a short delay in order to get some commercial breaks in (leaving in a green room chat with Manw and the interval acts.)

They caught back up by the time the voting closed, however. I was flicking between S4C and Avrotros in Holland and it seems that they cut the second recap in order to get back in-sync with the world feed.

The other interesting thing was no visual flashing images warnings - given how many the BBC put up and the fact it's a kids show, I was expecting to see bilingual warning astons. As I was on an IPTV feed of S4C (hence the English alternative track wasn't available to me) I can't tell you whether the commentator mentioned it as I don't speak Welsh.

Welsh speakers tell me he did a fairly good job, however, but I felt speaking over the hosts patter wasn't really needed; I'd reasonably expect the audience to be fluent in both English and Welsh.

I wonder if they’ll get a rap on the knuckles from Ofcom on the flashing images front, the rules are pretty stringent in the UK. Also, I didn’t think it was allowable to delay the contest at all? Maybe the JESC has totally different rules.

Yes, it’s a real pity that Wales didn’t score a single point.

They were also late opening the voting window which may get them an Ofcom. I know in Kyiv last year at the adult show the BBC showed the interval act on a short delay (or possibly used the Jury Final recording) but I'd have thought competitive content was a different kettle of fish?

Like I say, considering the lengths the BBC go to I thought visual text warnings in both English and Welsh would be mandatory.

There are allowed to delay JESC, Ireland doesn’t air the show till 7:30 for example.

Wales didn’t do very well because it was a very poor song couple with some frankly bizarre choreography, it was like they were dancing to a different song. She was a good performer riddled with a very weak song and as a whole it didn’t deserve any more point than it got. Voting wasn’t particularly political this year.

The JESC public voting was weird this year anyway. It was all online via the web. Each IP address could vote for 3, 4 or 5 of their favourite entries with no barring of voting for any entry. Yes Welsh viewers could vote for the S4C entrant. In addition non-competing country viewers could vote as well. At least the previous, lets give everyone 12 points to start fiasco wasn't in play this time around.

Whoever thought a political ecology song in Welsh would work needs their head examining, for letting it into the elimination competition, let alone let it become the entrant.

They used that system last year as well.

UK shakes up Eurovision entry selection process :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46400377