chez dafyd

David blogged about last night’s Eurovision Song Contest this morning, and I posted a comment. Problem was, my comment ended up being about twice as long as his post. So I thought I might as well post it properly… The quotes, by the way, are from David’s blog:

Why are we one of the biggest contributors when tactical voting from all of the old communist and baltic states means that we will never win. Even France didn’t vote for us this year…politics anyone?

France very rarely votes for the UK entry. That’s something to do with 300 years of history.

It’s true, that since the former Soviet Bloc countries have started competing (individually), there has developed a natural bias towards those countries. I think it’s only natural that people in Latvia are going to vote for the Lithuanian entry, just as people in Ireland vote for the UK… It’s not so much political as human nature – these countries would vote for themselves if they could – they can’t, so they vote for a close neighbour.

To all of those countries (from Austria eastwards) the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium seem like big bullies who have dominated them for 100s of years. This is their only chance to make any sort of popular stand against the Western powers. And it’s harmless. They’re not blowing up buses in Paris, or taking hostages inside their embassies in Brussels – so what’s the problem?

We are one of the biggest contributors because we can be. There’s no way FYR Macedonia could possibly contribute as much to Eurovision as we do. And we’re not just talking money – the BBC has long been involved in the technical aspects – and with good reason. The UK, the BBC, are huge names in Europe. It’s for exactly the same reason that we have more influence in the EU than, say, Lithuania. One could argue that we have a moral responsability to support the smaller countries – and contributing more to a glorified talent contest is just one way we do that.

And what do you mean by this…?

Eurovision? What sort of a name is that for a contest that seems to have lost sight of where it is going since it started.

It’s called Eurovision simply because it’s organised by the European Broadcasting Union. When it was launched 50 years ago, it was a way to promote the EBU – nothing more, nothing less. It was saying to the seven (yes, 7) competing nations that this is what a combined Europe can do. To the broadcasters, it was showing that the EBU could do this sort of thing well, so maybe they should consider using their services for other things… Coincidence that the first Eurovision Song Contest was held the year before the founding of the EEC? I don’t think so. Coincidence that it happened to feature the six founding members of the EEC (plus Switzerland, the host nation)? I doubt it.

The fact that it’s no longer a closed affair among a select clique of nations can only be a good thing. And I would argue very strongly that it is the “new” nations that need Eurovision most. We saw last night quite how well the Ukraine did with it – and quite how well they did from it. The same goes for Istanbul, Riga, Talinn. And next year Athens will be able to use the fantastic facilities that they now have (from the Olympics) to make it even better.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that the UK did badly simply because everyone hates us. If we’d had a decent entry (with an old woman and a drum) I have no doubt that we’d have done slightly better. OK – we’re not going to win. It simply won’t happen, unless we come up with some fantastic entry that literally blows away the competition. But we might have got slightly more of the 1/2/3/4 points – and, of course, 12 points from Ireland.

And as for Saturday night TV – I’d argue that it was the waste of space that is the Lotto draw that pushed Doctor Who forward. But some people managed to plan ahead and work out that it would be early, and thus missed nothing…

As I said on Lemurgirl’s blog,

What’s not to like about Eurovision? 4 hours of the ultimate in kitsch European TV, incredibly predictable, and yet also incredible fun. The only thing I can think of that’s anything like it is Sing-a-long-a-Sound-of-Music…