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Eurovision 2019


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Eurovision is about much more than the song contest and has nothing to do with the EU - almost half the current entry are not EU members.

According to friends I have in the TV and radio industry being one of the big 5 Eurovision members bring a lot of technological advantages from a broadcast PoV which is why the Uk is still a member. However on the other hand having to host a Eurovision Song Contest Final is now impossible financially without government aid, so there is an unwritten rule that the UK entry must not be even remotely capable of troubling the top spot.

If the rest of the Eurovision nations hated the UK as much as people think, they would have a much sweeter revenge by ensuring the UK entry won, and then watching all our broadcast institutions go bankrupt trying to organise the final. As it is they have little or no interest in UK the UK and just get on with voting for their friends or the songs they actually like.

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18 minutes ago, Davo-London said:

Why have an American artist in the Euros?  I mean with all the European talent available, do we really need an American on the show at all?  It sends all the wrong messages to the USA, ie they are best etc.  They are not.

Davo

Hmm. Katrina and the waves won it and she is from the US. But with so many countries pulling out of the contest, they have had to make the numbers up with Australia etc.

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1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

Eurovision is about much more than the song contest and has nothing to do with the EU - almost half the current entry are not EU members.

According to friends I have in the TV and radio industry being one of the big 5 Eurovision members bring a lot of technological advantages from a broadcast PoV which is why the Uk is still a member. However on the other hand having to host a Eurovision Song Contest Final is now impossible financially without government aid, so there is an unwritten rule that the UK entry must not be even remotely capable of troubling the top spot.

If the rest of the Eurovision nations hated the UK as much as people think, they would have a much sweeter revenge by ensuring the UK entry won, and then watching all our broadcast institutions go bankrupt trying to organise the final. As it is they have little or no interest in UK the UK and just get on with voting for their friends or the songs they actually like.

Spot on. Seems to me many Brits think Europeans are UK fixated when in fact most of them don't give a flying feck and pay little attention to Brexit, the Royals, etc. In 14 years living in four different countries, whenever anyone asked me about Britain 99% of the time it was about the Premier League. So yes, the UK's poor showing in the Eurovision is more about the half ar$ed way the UK goes about it, mostly choosing unknown performers singing forgettable mush and with very little effort gone into production

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2 hours ago, Hobbayne said:

Hmm. Katrina and the waves won it and she is from the US. But with so many countries pulling out of the contest, they have had to make the numbers up with Australia etc.

That's not right. There are now so many countries competing that not all of them make it to the finals these days.

Edit - 42 competing nations of which only 26 make it to the finals on Saturday night.

Edited by BigRedX
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51 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

So yes, the UK's poor showing in the Eurovision is more about the half ar$ed way the UK goes about it, mostly choosing unknown performers singing forgettable mush and with very little effort gone into production

AFAIK, this is deliberate. As I said in my first post, the UK probably couldn't afford to host the show if they won, so acts and songs which have as little chance as possible of winning are picked.

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36 minutes ago, KevB said:

I really don't think finance is a factor at all. Not wanting to host something like this quite possibly, couldnt afford to? no way.

I read that the cost of hosting this year's Eurovision Song Contest was around €45 million. For that kind of money you can make a 13 episode season of a typical high quality TV show with a reasonably well-known cast and believable special effects.

I don't think it would look very good for the BBC if they had to spend that kind of money on Eurovision in the present political climate.

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3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I read that the cost of hosting this year's Eurovision Song Contest was around €45 million. For that kind of money you can make a 13 episode season of a typical high quality TV show with a reasonably well-known cast and believable special effects.

I don't think it would look very good for the BBC if they had to spend that kind of money on Eurovision in the present political climate.

How much did Eurovision make from the texts and app votes? Surely some of that goes to the host to fund the event?

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24 minutes ago, Daz39 said:

How much did Eurovision make from the texts and app votes? Surely some of that goes to the host to fund the event?

Each vote costs 15p to make. If the organisation hosting the final gets to keep all of that, it would require approximately 250 million people to vote in order for the voting to cover the costs, which is more than the total television audience. For last year's final the viewer vote was approximately 5% of the total watching audience.

Viewer voting is a nice earner but it hardly covers the costs of hosting the competition.

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These seem to mirror the various figures I have seen.

"EBU give the organizers about 5-6 million euro (which is a registration fee from the participation countries). Rest of the budget is covered by the host broadcaster, advertisment partners and the host state. So in this case sky is the limit, but EBU directive is usually 10–20 million euro.

So about 15 -25 million euro is the average budget for the show.

Some budgets from the past

2018, Lisbon ~ 20m euros
2017, Kiev ~ 30m
2016, Stockholm ~ 14m
2015, Vienna ~ 26m
2014, Copenhagen ~ 25m"

 

And EBU figures before the above years.

 

 

Capture.JPG

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And there was me thinking that in amongst the usual Eurovision dross, there were actually a few decent songs.

Well, half decent, commercially viable pop songs, that would get some air play on various radio stations.

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19 hours ago, Hobbayne said:

Hmm. Katrina and the waves won it and she is from the US. But with so many countries pulling out of the contest, they have had to make the numbers up with Australia etc.

At least The Waves comprised UK muso's. Canadian Celine Dion won for Switzerland in 1988:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest_1988#At_Eurovision

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2 minutes ago, bazzbass said:

why the @#$% are we Aussies in it?

I know a lot of europeans migrated here, like my parents, but they consider themselves Aussies these days. Desperate for another audience I suspect.

Two reasons the Aussies are in it.  There's a massive audience for it in the antipodes (so a ready audience/advertising revenues) and it also has something to do the broadcaster who carries the show in Australia owning a sizeable percentile of the main European Broadcasting union that owns the broadcasts rights.

Israel?  Not a clue.  

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1 minute ago, NancyJohnson said:

Two reasons the Aussies are in it.  There's a massive audience for it in the antipodes (so a ready audience/advertising revenues) and it also has something to do the broadcaster who carries the show in Australia owning a sizeable percentile of the main European Broadcasting union that owns the broadcasts rights.

Israel?  Not a clue.  

dunno if our 25 million really make a difference, but yes, SBS has an interest in it. Did not know they part own EBU, are you sure?

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1 minute ago, bazzbass said:

dunno if our 25 million really make a difference, but yes, SBS has an interest in it. Did not know they part own EBU, are you sure?

This came up on something I was reading last week.  While I couldn't quote you SBS or EBU, those acronyms do sound familiar.  It came through on my newsfeed from somewhere.  As I'm not really a devout follower of Eurovision, I just read it and filed it away in my head.  

 

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17 minutes ago, bazzbass said:

money.

 

Plus desperation to feel included in something - given that most of their neighbours are generally disinclined towards them. Can you imagine an Asia Minor/Middle East song contest?!

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On ‎21‎/‎05‎/‎2019 at 21:42, Daz39 said:

Plus desperation to feel included in something - given that most of their neighbours are generally disinclined towards them. Can you imagine an Asia Minor/Middle East song contest?!

years ago Australia had to play Israel in the Oceania FIFA world cup playoffs.....coz no one else wanted to play against them

EDITED

Edited by bazzbass
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