What are your favourite Eurovision songs for 2018 so far?
I intentionally didn't listen to the songs in advance this year, I saved the first impression for the semifinals. This might be the reason why I don't get the hype about Belgium or Poland this year at all. To me it seemed like Belgium was a bad rehash of Taken by a Stranger (Germany 2011) mixed with some Skyfall and Poland's entire performance looked like the guys had just watched Norway's entry from 2017 and wanted to recreate that, just leaving out the face mask and a song that's actually catchy and memorable.Anyway, my favorites this year (in no particular order):SerbiaIt's a beautiful song with great voices and I love the sound of Serbian language.NorwayIt's not Fairytale, but it's catchy and Rybak is, in addition of being adorable and immortal (as he hasn't aged at all since his appearance in 2009) a great performer.DenmarkI love me some pacifist Viking marching. This gives me chills.BulgariaI was somehow sure this wouldn't be in the final, but I was positively surprised. It has a very catchy chorus, kind of reminds me of Skeletons (Azerbaijan 2017)HungaryYES. I love a rock song in Eurovision. The performance was great. And they had the best delayed reaction when they were announced as finalists.UkraineThis performance was so extra, I love this guy's drama. I loved it. And the song is enjoyable.FinlandAfter three long years my country is back in the final. Monsters wouldn't have been my personal choice from the three songs we had to choose from, but while watching the first semifinal, I realized it was the best choice. I loved Queens and Domino probably is a better song, but the first semifinal was already full of slow songs that it wouldn't have stood out as much.I do like many of the others too, and I think Estonia did great as well, that song just hasn't fully grown on me yet. And Sweden managed to redeem itself from the disaster that was last year's performance.I haven't found a clear favorite to root for this year, at least not yet. But I think nearly all of the songs qualified for the final that actually should be there (apart from Lithuania which is just boring). It'll be interesting to see who wins, I can't really point out a clear winner.
What do most Europeans think about Eurovision and the fact that most of the song entries are in English?
On the one hand, it's silly to have a country's songwriting represented by a language that isn't representative of the country. It's worse than silly, because not only are most of the song entries in English but they're in lame English, banal and derivative, and I assume that the countries in question could provide much better lyrics in their own languages. On the other hand, when countries were forced to compete in their own languages there were complaints that the countries speaking major languages (above all English) had an unfair advantage because more listeners understood their lyrics. I think the answer is to rotate. One year all the songs have to be in English, next year in French, next year in Hungarian, next year in Armenian...
What do you think of a World Song Contest instead of Eurovision?
Instead of? How about as a compliment to it?It’s a good idea but needs to be trimmed. Cause every single country in the world taking part would be almost impossible to manage. Not to mention that the actual broadcast would take as long as the Eurovision week itself.It could work if it was split. Like Eurovision, Asianvision, Africavision, Southamericavision, USA-Canadavision Latinamericavision, and Oceanivision. Or similarHave each continent organize their own contest and then the top 3 from each contest go on to compete in the Worldvision. That could work and would only last marginally longer than the Eurovision.
How does the UK select its Eurovision Song Contest entry?
I would guess Derek McLean the Creative Director of Entertainment department at BBC would be the person to send the angry email to, he should at least know where to forward your angry letter :)I agree with you, it makes more sense to have a public vote, a national song selection or tie it in with some tv programme, that said if you look at the top countries this year (I didn't go through the whole lot) 5 of the top 6 places are songs selected through national selection usually in the form of a public voting in a local tv programme.1. Sweden (national selection)2. Russia (national selection)3. Serbia (broadcaster selection)4. Azerbaijan (national selection)5. Albania (national selection)6. Estonia (national selection)Let's hope there is a public vote next year ;)
What are your favorite 2018 Eurovision entries?
My favorites right now are (in no particular order): Denmark, Greece, Serbia, Hungary, Estonia and Poland. I also like Ukraine and Israel. Ask me again in a couple of weeks and it might have changed. :)
Who is your favorite Eurovision winner?
Thanks for the A2A. It’s a shame people ask about favorite winners, very rarely does the winner make my top 5. Choosing from the winners, I would take 2012 Loreen Euphoria.
Which countries like Eurovision the most?
Here are some viewers numbers (in million) among the Big Countries.Eurovision Song Contest, 2018. British/Spanish/German/French/Italian tv numbers:BBC One: 6,9mThe most watched show that night, beated Britain’s Got TalentLa 1: 7,17m (43,5% SHR)Highest audience number (for Eurovision) from the last 10 yearsDas Erste: 7,71m (33,3% SHR) + ARD Digital One 0,5mThe most watched show that nightFrance 2: 5,15m (28,5% SHR)The most watched show that night, beated the French version of The Voice finalRai 1: 3,42m (18,63% SHR)Slighty lower the the last year which was the highest audience so far lately. Italy just recently joined back to EurovisionOf course, different countries have different number of population (for example more people live in Germany than in Italy).BUTI also added the share number. That shows how many percentage of tv viewers watched that specific show in their national market. So that means is from the big countries Spain and Germany like the Eurovision the most.I would also add the Nordic countries, because their national song contest are very popular in their countries, so if those songs reach the final, their tv viewer numbers will go up in the Grand Final as well.
Why on earth does Israel compete in the Eurovision Song Festival?
BECAUSE.... THE RIGHT to participate in the contest is contingent on membership of the European Broadcasting Union. The statutes of the Union limit membership "primarily ... to organisations in the European Broadcasting Area. This area, as defined by the International Telecommunications Union, extends from the Atlantic to the meridian 40 deg E. It is bounded on the south by the 30th parallel." Jerusalem, the official headquarters of Israeli Television, is 35 deg E, and on the 32nd parallel. This definition also allows for participation by Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, the Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia. Israeli participation deters these countries on a point of principle, although Morocco did enter in 1980 when Israel withdrew for Passover. Samira Bensaid sang "Betakit Hob", a plea for racial harmony based on the distressing observation that, "while our skins may be different colours, we are all red on the inside". It came second from last and Morocco has not repeated the experiment. The only country ever refused entry to the contest is Liechtenstein, turned down in 1976 on the harsh grounds that it had no television station or transmission facilities of any sort. In a compromise to avert a diplomatic incident, Swiss Television agreed that their entry be officially that of "The Swiss Confederation and Liechtenstein"; this is a nice point, since the full name won't fit on the scoreboard. A further complication is that of Eastern Europe. Yugoslavia has always been a member of Eurovision; indeed, Croatian television staged the contest this year in Zagreb following their famous 1989 victory with "Rock Me, Baby". The other countries of Eastern Europe - except Albania - have a parallel organisation called Intervision, with its own song contest. In the state of flux now characterising the old structures of Europe, these countries may be expected to avail themselves of Eurovision membership, thereby increasing the length of the contest by about an hour and causing terminal seizure of the voting system. Gorbachev has a lot to answer for. Andrew Latto, Thornton Heath, Surrey. The question should be "Why does Israel want to enter the Eurovision Song Contest?". But to be serious, Israel does "compete" in a number of European events (such as Soccer and Basketball). I think the main reason for this is that its Middle-East neighbours might not be too happy about it competing with them.
Should Eurovision bring back language diversity?
As a native-English speaker, please yes.The majority of the the English-language songs are of especially poor lyrical quality, and all but a handful fail to go beyond regurgitating the same clichés. Although one could argue quite rightfully that English-language pop music is guilty of this generally, Eurovision entries are consistenly in the worst offenders category.The language rule in use until 1998 needs to be brought back in some capacity. It would improve the overall quality of songs for starters in both a lyrical and musical sense, as well as bring more variety that the show desperately needs while also adding more cultural relevance with distinct cultural offerings.My personal idea for a solution:Perhaps there should be a rule where you are free to enter in a song in any language you wish, but only a maximum of 8–10 songs in any one language can qualify for the final, (Depending on the language entries of the “big 5”)Once the semi-final qualifying spots in that language are filled (in practice only likely in English at present), the remaining qualifying spots are filled by the next best ranked entries in other languages. If this took the total no. of songs in the final below 26 then so be it. It would cause a gradual change if there was a consequence behind this.