That would work, you'd just need to re-dress the set a little bit.
I stand by what I said last night - if we can hire Edward in on a freelance basis (the script was, once again, great - it was the technical side of things that spoilt it) why not Christer too to produce it? If we shared with SPOTY, we could stick the show on the Saturday night before Christmas on BBC One. Before anyone cries "ratings" I've thought of that too - get the winning Strictly duo on as an interval act!
I've always thought we've got it the wrong way round with those two shows. SPOTY lends itself more to a television studio (especially as the winner is often on a remote linkup anyway) whereas EYD is the show that should be in an arena.
Just as an aside - why has CuePilot not been adopted by British galleries? Quite a few NFs, especially the Nordic ones and I know Festival De Cancao in Portugal, use it, but we still mix manually on shows like X Factor, The Voice and EYD. (Strictly has a live band so I could understand that as you timecode to a backing track so you'd need to give the conductor a click track.) Surely it's not a union thing?
Perhaps a strategy would be to market the selection similarly to Melodifestivalen, keeping the purpose of the contest as finding the next eurovision entry - but leaving ‘Eurovision’ out of its name. Unfortunately it’s still kitsch in the publics eye (and no wonder - BBC still treats it like that) and the way around that is to market it as a new contest to get people like the X Factor and The Voice crowd watching and engaging with it to skew public perception. Spend a bit of money on it, market it as trying to find the best new original song - do it properly, and we might just get somewhere.
Perhaps a strategy would be to market the selection similarly to Melodifestivalen, keeping the purpose of the contest as finding the next eurovision entry - but leaving ‘Eurovision’ out of its name. Unfortunately it’s still kitsch in the publics eye (and no wonder - BBC still treats it like that) and the way around that is to market it as a new contest to get people like the X Factor and The Voice crowd watching and engaging with it to skew public perception. Spend a bit of money on it, market it as trying to find the best new original song - do it properly, and we might just get somewhere.
You've nailed it! Israel took exactly the same approach. Eurovision is very niche in Israel (primarily among European ex-pats and ancestors). The broadcaster needed to take action as the audience ratings were appalling. They had a clear choice - pull out of Eurovision, or go all-in. They opted for the latter, using the Rising Star show as a platform for selecting their entry. The show is one of Israel's most-watched programmes, and we all know how strongly the country has performed since adopting this approach.
To put it bluntly - and turning an old adage on its head - if it IS broke, FIX IT!
Watching it back now, Freaks might be the worst song to ever grace a UK NF stage, and that’s saying something. Parts of the Maid version were simply unlistenable.
I’ve said it before but I’d love to see an indie produce this, genuine pressure to deliver a good show and songs or they lose the contract. Otherwise we’ll just be coasting along with the same lazy show year after year.
Part of the problem is the corporation itself. I can’t remember if this was posted last year but it’s a really extensive Vice article on Surie and it has some very interesting tidbits like this:
“"Doing Eurovision with the BBC is a fascinating process," she replies, pausing briefly. "They're a public service broadcasting company – they can't endorse products. Essentially, I'm a product, so they can only support me so far." Take SuRie's Eurovision single: its release is a requirement of competing, but SuRie explains the BBC can't help promote it or push it out. "Everything they can promote is for the BBC shows, not brand SuRie," she says, matter of factly.”
Yet there was huge promotion for It's My Time in 2009 - I'm guessing the record label can do what it wants independently of the BBC?
Maybe, just maybe, we need to go totally the other way and ditch the idea of having a dedicated national final? Why not use All Together Now for the process, and the winner goes to Eurovision off the back of it?
As for the song, we ask a major name to write and produce the song. Here's the thing: every year Ed Sheeran, Robbie Williams, or someone like that says "I could do better." Sheeran in particular has said he wouldn't perform, but he'd be happy to write. Let's call him out on it! Why aren't we asking him or Gary Barlow to write something? Why aren't we asking Nile Rodgers to produce it? (yes, he's American but he's done quite a few documentaries for BBC Four and spends a fair amount of time here.)
Ten years ago we came 5th - we didn't have a high profile singer but we did have two high profile writers. Sure, everyone knew ALW, but Diane Warren is a hugely respected songwriter in her own right.
It's not the singer that makes or breaks the song. It's the writer and especially the producer (different era but look how Nile Rodgers took Sister Sledge from the smallest act on Atlantic to the biggest with We Are Family, and more recently took Daft Punk into the mainstream with Get Lucky?) that does that. Melodifestivalen might not have household names singing (well, not household outside of Sweden) but I bet if you listen to any pop radio station regularly for a week or so, you'll hear at least one song produced by a producer, or written by a writer, who's had a song entered into MF in the last 5 or 6 years.
Just as an aside - why has CuePilot not been adopted by British galleries? Quite a few NFs, especially the Nordic ones and I know Festival De Cancao in Portugal, use it, but we still mix manually on shows like X Factor, The Voice and EYD. (Strictly has a live band so I could understand that as you timecode to a backing track so you'd need to give the conductor a click track.) Surely it's not a union thing?
CuePIlot has largely been adopted by countries that don't have a history of music scripting and beat/bar counting. They had to invent CuePIlot in Denmark to get their version of X factor as tight as the UK version. The early versions of CuePilot weren't great either - with no beat detection and only second duration counting.
There is now a French rival, called LiveEdit, which is being used as well. (LiveEdit is also used for manual show script prep as it has similar functionality to that used for UK music scripting)
Countries that have always done scripted music with beat/bar counting (or those who have returned to it - like the US) are less likely to pay the extra costs to use CuePilot (it's not cheap). It also serves no real use on fully live music - so as a whole, isn't great for the industry.
Part of the problem is the corporation itself. I can’t remember if this was posted last year but it’s a really extensive Vice article on Surie and it has some very interesting tidbits like this:
“"Doing Eurovision with the BBC is a fascinating process," she replies, pausing briefly. "They're a public service broadcasting company – they can't endorse products. Essentially, I'm a product, so they can only support me so far." Take SuRie's Eurovision single: its release is a requirement of competing, but SuRie explains the BBC can't help promote it or push it out. "Everything they can promote is for the BBC shows, not brand SuRie," she says, matter of factly.”
I had the pleasure of hearing SuRie speak at the Eurovision fan club meeting this year and she highlighted many of these issues. She said that for the period leading up to Eurovision she was essentially a BBC employee on a wage. This meant she had to take a neutral stance on many issues. When it came to interviews leading up to the Contest she had to avoid any questions that would elicit an opinion from her. In this social media age this puts too many restrictions on an artist. Essentially I think this is one of the biggest barriers to them getting a decent established act to represent the UK. No one, with any amount of personality, wants to be a puppet of the BBC not allowed to voice their own opinions.
It's not the singer that makes or breaks the song. It's the writer and especially the producer (different era but look how Nile Rodgers took Sister Sledge from the smallest act on Atlantic to the biggest with We Are Family, and more recently took Daft Punk into the mainstream with Get Lucky?) that does that. Melodifestivalen might not have household names singing (well, not household outside of Sweden) but I bet if you listen to any pop radio station regularly for a week or so, you'll hear at least one song produced by a producer, or written by a writer, who's had a song entered into MF in the last 5 or 6 years.
You were so vitriolic in your opinions of the UK songs that I wondered if you even realised the calibre of the songwriters involved? ‘Sweet Lies’ was co-written by Lisa Cabble who WON the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Only Teardrops’ in 2013. ‘Bigger than us’ was written by John Lundvik and his team, the singer who came third in last years Melodifestivalen and who is competing again this times. For all the dislike of ‘Freaks’ this was co-written by John Maguire who has a sterling track record of writing NF songs. It’s not as if the BBC just went out into the street and picked random songs. They are using the same songwriting teams that most of Scandinavia are.
JM
JamesM0984
Well I could see they were Scandi names, but once again the BBC are five years behind the curve. The Scandinavian songwriting factory approach worked at the start of the decade - Running Scared, Euphoria, Only Teardrops and Heroes all coming from more of less the same stable. Since 2016 there's been a shift away from those sort of songs - look how badly Dance You Off fared in the public vote.
Yes I was vitrolic but I care. The BBC are still using a formulaic approach to try and find a winner, but it's one that's now outdated.
Well I could see they were Scandi names, but once again the BBC are five years behind the curve. The Scandinavian songwriting factory approach worked at the start of the decade - Running Scared, Euphoria, Only Teardrops and Heroes all coming from more of less the same stable. Since 2016 there's been a shift away from those sort of songs - look how badly Dance You Off fared in the public vote.
Along with Benjamin Ingrosso ‘Dance You Off’ was written by an Australian and two Americans, produced and recorded in LA.
Bad example to use to try and make a point.
Both ‘Fuego’ and ‘Nobody But You’ were written mostly by Scandinavian songwriting teams.
Just as an aside - why has CuePilot not been adopted by British galleries? Quite a few NFs, especially the Nordic ones and I know Festival De Cancao in Portugal, use it, but we still mix manually on shows like X Factor, The Voice and EYD. (Strictly has a live band so I could understand that as you timecode to a backing track so you'd need to give the conductor a click track.) Surely it's not a union thing?
CuePIlot has largely been adopted by countries that don't have a history of music scripting and beat/bar counting. They had to invent CuePIlot in Denmark to get their version of X factor as tight as the UK version. The early versions of CuePilot weren't great either - with no beat detection and only second duration counting.
There is now a French rival, called LiveEdit, which is being used as well. (LiveEdit is also used for manual show script prep as it has similar functionality to that used for UK music scripting)
Countries that have always done scripted music with beat/bar counting (or those who have returned to it - like the US) are less likely to pay the extra costs to use CuePilot (it's not cheap). It also serves no real use on fully live music - so as a whole, isn't great for the industry.
Ah, so, some countries work on minutes and seconds, whereas we work on beats and bars in the actual music? I just imagined you had a script with the lyrics there would be arrows and annotations pointing to what to cut to, what the camera needed to do in that shot, and for how long, or similar.
Well I could see they were Scandi names, but once again the BBC are five years behind the curve. The Scandinavian songwriting factory approach worked at the start of the decade - Running Scared, Euphoria, Only Teardrops and Heroes all coming from more of less the same stable. Since 2016 there's been a shift away from those sort of songs - look how badly Dance You Off fared in the public vote.
Along with Benjamin Ingrosso ‘Dance You Off’ was written by an Australian and two Americans, produced and recorded in LA.
Bad example to use to try and make a point.
Both ‘Fuego’ and ‘Nobody But You’ were written mostly by Scandinavian songwriting teams.
Dance You Off was a brilliant song - maybe too good/slick that it put people off voting?