James Masterton, "legendary" chart observer, sums it up nicely in
his column this week. I can only concur with this view...
Quote:
Finally for this week Great Britain's spectacular achievement in coming joint last in the scoring at the Eurovision Song Contest is neatly rounded off by the appearance of our entry 'Even If' from Andy Abraham at the rather lowly position of Number 67. Whilst you will see plenty of hand-wringing and grumbling over the result and the usual whining about Eastern Europe block voting in other places, I will simply maintain that Britain's continual failure to live up to our own high standards in the contest has little to do with regional politics and everything to do with our continual insistence on submitting songs that are both utterly useless and sadly indicative of a woeful ignorance of European musical tastes. Place all the blame for that on the people at the BBC responsible for drawing up the song shortlist. Replacing them with people who actually know something about music cannot come a moment too soon.
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?
It's a nice idea but sadly I fear it would be considered to be rather old fashioned. In the current climate of reducing budgets, particularly regionally, I'm not sure the BBC would sponsor such audience shows, held in theatres and presented to the nation. While Scotland, Wales and NI have resources to hand that would probably do a very good job of producing such OBs, I can't imagine BBC 'North' (which doesn't really exist, it would have to be a co-production with all the North regions and possibly BBC MIdlands as it's a Network Production Centre) or BBC South producing anything of equal magnitude. Remember that outide the nations, the BBC Regions have little experience these days of really major OB production. I could of course, all be independently produced however, but then is it really any different from the whole shebang being done in London?
The idea of regional presenters delivering votes from across the nation has been tried before a few times and I quite liked it, but it did look a little OTT and slightly pompous IMO, that the BBC was trying to do a mini ESC all on its own.
Yes, I agree the this year's ESC was a disappointment. It lacked the excitement for me of previous contests. Looking back on it, I don't think the voting was actually any more outrageous than previous years. We haven't a hope in hell of winning, at least for the time being. But I remember thinking that all through the 80s and 90s until we eventually won in 1997. That was a gap of 16 years between wins. All I hope is that the ESC still exists in another 5 years when maybe we'll have another chance
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).
Pretty much - though Melodifestivalen is much less "regional" than it appears. Whilst each show is an OB from various different Swedish towns and cities across the nation - the songs competing in each final don't have to be from that region.
The way Melodifestivalen seems to work is that SVT request song submissions at some point in the year. They get thousands. The submitted song demo must be performed by someone who is prepared to perform it at Eurovision BUT SVT can chose to ask someone else to perform it if they prefer. (There have been "issues" with this in the past - when someone has wanted to perform but not been allowed to, or has performed on the submission but declined to take part in the contest)
The submitted songs are whittled down by committee, and performers for them chosen (often but not always the performer who is submitted on the demo) and 4 semi-final shows are held. Each sem-final, shown on prime time on saturday evening, has 8 competing songs - 7 chosen by the committee and one by a wild card ISTR (i.e. by the show producers)
Each semi final has a public televote. The top two songs go straight to the final at the Globen Arena in Stockholm, the next two songs go to a run off called Andra Chansen (aka Another Chance) which is held the weekend before the final. (Previously it was a compilation show shown on a Sunday after the last semi)
Andra Chansen takes the 8 3rd and 4th place songs from the 4 semis, and allows the public to televote their favourite two into the final.
The final thus has 10 songs competing (8 from the semis, 2 from Andra Chansen) - and is held in a Eurovision quality arena - the Globen in Stockholm in recent years. There are both regional juries and televoting to chose the winner - the jury vote and televotes are approximately equal in influence.
The Melodifestivalen final is the most watched TV show annually in Sweden - and record companies have been known to force artists to submit songs - as appearing on the show pretty much guarantees a Top 20 single in the Swedish charts if you are anything close to well known.
Contrast that to the UK where no record company gets involved these days - and the only acts who compete are currently without record deals...
This, taken from the MF09 rules, explains why SVT were so delete-happy at the finals.
19. Selected entries may be made public, published/distributed or otherwise made available to the public and marketed at the earliest from the following dates:
-- Entries placed 5-6-7-8 in semi-finals may be made available to the public from the moment the semi-final is completed;
-- Entries placed 4-3-2-1 in semi-finals may be made available to the public from the moment the fifth semi-final (a.k.a. “Andra Chansen”) is completed.
Exception: It is permissible for the news on television to broadcast images and music for a maximum 15 seconds each if the contributions reach the final or andra chansen. This is only permitted during Saturday evenings, from the live coverage until the end at 00.00. Note that elements from this exception should not be played either online or on the radio.
There where better songs in the competition, and we were let down by the position we sang in.
I think you'll find that the biggest handicap we had was that the song was labelled as the "UK Entry".
I'm in Belgrade at the moment. The people here have caught wind of Wogan's dismay. Their comment to me was, what about Champion's League football, what hope do they have of ever getting into the competition, never mind winning, when it's dominated by big money Western Europe teams ?
I'm in Belgrade at the moment. The people here have caught wind of Wogan's dismay. Their comment to me was, what about Champion's League football, what hope do they have of ever getting into the competition, never mind winning, when it's dominated by big money Western Europe teams ?
Football may be a multi-million pound profit-driven business, but at least it's always played on a flat pitch!
