Eurovision Song Contest - Belgrade 2008

Great Britain = the England/Scotland/Wales land-mass.

This is "Great" in the proper sense of the word (i.e. as in "big", rather than "fantastic"). This is because, of the two main land-masses of the British Isles (the England/Wales/Scotland land-mass, and the Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland land-mass), the former is obviously the larger of the two. Hence it is therefore " Great Britain".

United Kingdom = Great Britain (including any-and-all English/Scottish/Welsh islands), plus the Province of Northern Ireland .

Indeed, the full name for our country is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", as it says on UK passports.

well since those eastern european countries have come into Europe, its been very hard for western europe countries to even make inroads, think is though there were some crap songs from like the France and Spain, yet even those scored more points, no wonder Terry Wogan was chessed off.

I wasn't... if you don't like a male black singer that's fine, if you don't particularly like the sound that usually accompanies that genre. I don't know you though, and I have no desire to, so to say I'm painting you as anything would be a waste of both of our times.

That makes Ireland "Little Britain."

Not really - when they were present many countries put them in the wrong place so they were usually nastily cropped (partially) when DVEed into the scoreboard.

If we want to reform the selection process, how about this?

Go back to the original Song for Europe name. Five semifinals, held regionally each night in a local theatre with a mid-size audience and no intricate sets. These regions could be Wales, Scotland, N Ireland, N England and S England. Invite the public to send in songs and bring in a panel from outside the BBC to judge them and select the best 5 - 10 songs from each region.

Perform these songs in front of the studio audience. Broadcast each final, approx. an hour and a half per final, on BBC1 (or BBC3 if we're not too adventurous) - if you start immediately after The One Show, the prized 9pm slot is still available. Put Eastenders on total hiatus. Let the public decide for each song which is to go through to the final - 2 from each semi goes to the final. Put a greater emphasis on the songwriters rather than the singers. (This could, however, be done on a weekly basis, provided Maria/Joseph/Valjean isn't on)

The final, live from Wembley Stadium, at 8pm on Saturday night. Presented by Paddy O'Connell and Caroline Flack. The 8 perform their songs. During the first interval act, juries in the BBC regions vote for their songs on a 1,2,4,6,8,10,12 point basis. The telephone lines then open for 15 minutes, allowing the public to vote for their favourite song, using Sweden's 11, 22, 44, 66, 88, 110, 132 system. After that, we have a winner that is both hopefully quality and the public's choice.

Does this work?

The thing is that in my opinion it's not based on the song that we enter, as this years song was not a bad song at all compared to recent years. But should we go over and get some American producers to work with us and create a great song, it seems to have worked for Russia!

Apologies if this has already been posted somewhere between the '7 million TVs' argument and this post, ie nestled amongst Tumbly's megapostofdeath.

The BBC has revealed that 9.3 million viewers watched the contest, a massive 50% share. Grauniad article

Hello TV Forum,Belgrade calling .I just came to write something like "ending credits" after this year ESC final.
Just like I wrote in my previous post on saturday that Russia will win probably,it came true on sunday.Cogratulations to Russia but did they desreved that win?I'm not sure...Yes,their song is good,Timbaland's team was behind that song,world's number one in ice skating took a part in performance on stage,just like great violinist from Hungary with old Stradivarius,too...Excellent performance,nice song,but everything has bad taste after all.Stupid block-voting came out on suface again.It's not even grose anymore,it's disgrace!!!I'm from Serbia,we are part of so called "third block-vote region"(1st is of course ex-SSSR,2nd Scandinavian countries),and don't think that we are looking this on other way then you.For normal people this is big disgrace,watching how your country is giving the maximum points to neighbour country just because it's some kind of a "deal" between them.But,ex-Yugoslavian block is not so big problem.The biggest problem is,of course,ex-SSSR block....It's so annoying.How to solve it?I think it's impossible.I am for boycott.Yeah,boycott of ESC by all west-European countries until the organisation team guarantee total regularity or change the rules.If that is impossible,then we don't need this competittion anymore.Im saying "all western countries" coz it's obvious that eastern won't try to fix this problem...Lets make this fair again,like before and let the best song win...
Cheers from sunny Belgrade!!!

This is what we should do -- make up a load of carp about splitting the UK into 32 different countries, all put in an entry and vote for each other (because in reality we all come under the same sphere of influence).

Well it worked for Yugoslavia and Russia.....

Isn't that the Swedish selection process?

In that case the ESC finale would last for whole day .I can imagine how torture it would be to watch ESC whole day