If you haven’t watched it already, I suggest you to go watch Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga[0] , a brilliant comedy movie that captures the Eurovision’s spirit very well. They also speak the truth about the voting: Nobody likes UK, so zero points :)
Jokes aside, Eurovision is a cringy but at the same time euphorically positive event, fetching 200M viewers worldwide every year.
Even Australia is now in the contest(didn’t make it to the finals but I think they should have made it, there are worse songs that did).
correction: Apparently Australia is in the finals! As they deserve.
(As an Australian) it depends on tone it was delivered in but this sounds like pretty standard AU-UK banter. Understandably we have a pretty similar cultural sense of humour.
That’s from the Norwegian finals! The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation has such an impressive and passionate technical crew, it is really fascinating how they manage to make truly world-class productions with a comparatively limited set of resources, both in terms of manpower and money.
they certainly did a great job! Things like the rain overlays for the polish performance were pretty stunning, and it made me wonder how stuff like this is done.
The music is getting better, these last few years. There seems to be less of a stigma associated with doing Eurovision. You still have plenty of the downright odd stuff though.
This year Ukraine should win and it helps that their entry is genuinely pretty good. Norway have fielded a song about feeding bananas to a wolf, riffing on Little Red Riding Hood, in errm yellow. Spain's entry sported a pretty close shave and manages to lose even more clothing - quite a decent song too.
UK (my homeland) are hoping for a decent result after taking quite a few beatings over the years - "null points". Our boy has absolutely smashed it on the socials so should be OK. [Greece have just ticked under 18]
Whatever happens, we have our Irish compere to get us through the night. Graham Norton and before him Sir Terry Wogan, have been the voice of the Eurovision SC in the UK for absolutely yonks.
I just made the same comment about Ukraine winning irl.
But then they would be responsible for hosting the next games, which I think is a little bit too much to put that responsibility on them now.
———
Also; I’m not a fan of the fact that the Eurovision Song contest is basically a popularity contest between countries.
EDIT: Apparently this is controversial (-2 karma), tell me why! Cowards!
EDIT2: -3. Aight. I don’t try to add new points of view to topics anymore I guess. It’s good manners to inform why you’re downranking, unless it’s trolling..
If it could be hosted in a UKR city - that would be something but I'm sure the rules can be changed and another country could host it provided there was a lot of gold and blue.
The UVSC is what it is and it beautifully reflects the state of the rather nebulous concept - "Europe".
Father Ted was commissioned in the UK after being turned down by an Irish broadcaster (I think the state one - can't recall). It was deemed too Irish, which was probably fair enough at the time.
Thankfully it was broadcast because it is a classic in my opinion. Mrs Doyle's ("Won't you have a cup of tea") mud and cocaine cake is up there in the comedy pantheon, along with elderly priest football and the milkfloat parody of "Speed".
Beautifully insightful parody without ever being cruel.
That was then. I personally know one or two Irish Catholic priests and they are not offended by Father Ted and at least one is a massive fan.
I went to a pretty posh school in Oxfordshire back in the day. The school priest (Church of England) made us watch "Life of Brian" by Monty Python's Flying Circus and discuss it in our "Divinity" studies - an O Level (nowadays GCSE - 13-16 year old).
One of the other Masters (teacher) intended and was going through the process to become a CofE priest and was massively offended by Life of Brian. Perhaps he felt he had to be holier than thou or whatever. He was my rugby coach and was once a player for the Harlequins a long, long time ago so a good egg in my eyes but a bit whizzed up over a comedy film. I will grant him that LoB is a pretty robust parody/critique of Christianity (and English/Britishness and more besides).
Oh and there was a band at my school called On a Friday - they played by the Cricket Pav at the end of summer term 1989 to a load of kiddies enjoying end of term relief and glorious weather. You'll know them as Radiohead. Funny old world.
"Boob shock"? What's the "shock" part needed to tick that box? It is EUROvision, there could be boobs in every performance, and still no-one would be shocked.
The bingo seems written from the North american cultural and religious bias. One of the unselected song for the Spain delegation was about that... with special appearance of Zuckerberg imperial boob (censor)ship.
Probably there's rules of fairness, for those who don't want to show. Otherwise, to have a fair chance of winning, everyone would be required to perform naked.
Yep, A LOT of politics in eurosong.... some come from neighboring countries giving votes to eachother, some due to "politics", some due to people living across the border, and a lot due to similar cultures, especially with etno-sounding songs. Add then all the expats (eg. turks in germany), and you get those votes too.
This year, ukraine will probably get a lot of pity votes due to the war, maybe even enough to win.
Depending on my mood I find the blatant politicking/nepotism either infuriating or part of the kitsch charm of the whole thing. Greece for example could spend 3 minutes with one guy banging a spoon on a saucepan while another strangled a cat, and Cyprus would still give them 12 points.
Edit: fun fact - this was apparently the first ESC ever without a single entry in French - the French entry was sung in Breton.
Well yeah... but usually the scandinavian countries gave eachother high points, and balkan countries did the same, eastern bloc, etc, so they were on similar high ground (while countries like UK didn't get any, but noone cared), and the winner basically depended on the few other countries, and 3, 4, 5 an 6 points from the balkan/scandinavian/... countries.
What happened yesterday was kinda predictable with all the "1 vote" = "1 thought and prayer" logic,but kinda ruined the voting and the end-results-suspense for me. I also didn't really like the song, also because it's not something I can see layed on non-ukranian radio stations, but yeah... politics.
It is a shock. It was quite funny when the UK got nil point last year. I feel a bit sorry for the performer, but (and I say this as a UK national) the UK has been acting like a massive jerk towards their neighbours and allies (as well as it's own people) for the last few years.
Why, oh why does Eurovision prevent itself from being viewed in the US?
You could argue "licensing", but I'm guessing you're going to be hard pressed to find a contestant band / manager that says "we're trying to keep this low-key/limit publicity for now".
Blame NBC, the local broadcasters decide if they want to block it or not
NBC is not the "local broadcaster" in the sense that the BBC is the local broadcaster for the United Kingdom, or ABC is the local broadcaster for Australia. Broadcasting in the U.S. doesn't work that way.
That said, NBC does air American Song Contest, which is Eurovision production, and receives very poor ratings. Because of this, I surmise that Eurovision doesn't air in the United States because none of the broadcasters will pay for the rights if it's not going to bring in enough viewers to make up for the fee.
If Eurovision really wanted its program to be seen in the U.S., there is no shortage of small networks, cable/satellite networks, LPTV networks, or OTT providers for getting its program seen. It just has to offer the show at a reasonable rate.
I don't think this is a case of the usual HN cliché of "Evil company blocks me from seeing something for no other reason than to be evil."
>Eurovision doesn't air in the United States because none of the broadcasters will pay for the rights if it's not going to bring in enough viewers to make up for the fee
Eurovision has been watchable on free livestream in the US for close to a decade. Originally directly from eurovision.tv, later via LOGO. I agree that NBC's rights purchase is probably due to launching ASC, though.
As of this writing, youtube downloader sites are mostly not hosted in the US due to this same issue - so if you can get one to work, it works around the GeoIP block. (Note: I got one to work, but it quit 4gb into the 6gb download)
The better way - which I am happy to be patient for - is to wait until someone rips it. I like to a few weeks later see if I can find the UK broadcast (usually a torrent), since a few years Graham Norton was the MC and was lightly poking fun of everyone the whole time.
Last year and this year we watched it on the Peacock app (casted to TV), which I hadn't even known existed before looking for a way to watch Eurovision. Last year it was free to watch, but this year I had to sign up for a subscription ($5) to watch it... which I immediately canceled after it was over.
Gonna be interesting to see where 2023 is actually gonna be hosted. I imagine they're not gonna send the production to a war-torn country even if it was away from the active conflict zones, and I'm not sure if I see the situation getting settled before decisions need to be made.
If they can’t find a way to host it in Ukraine (I think they, and the rest of Europe, will try very very hard to make that happen, and should!!) I wouldn’t be surprised to see it hosted in Poland as their closest neighbour and supporter. Alternatively the UK as a major funder of the event (we get a weird free pass to the final due to significantly funding it) and coming second place, I could see us taking it if no other option is found.
Well, they could host it in some eastern Ukraine city. Granted they ask the Ukrainian armed forces to stop the bombing that have been going on since 2014 ;)
Exactly, (as someone in the UK) couldn’t be happier for Ukraine.
Absolutely unbelievable result but so much more important to send that message of support to our friends in Ukraine. Congratulations!
IMHO the audiovisual shows were always good and the last few years there are actually good songs(even UK sent a decent entry). Also, in an increasingly hostile world I feel like the cringe of the multiculturality and neighbour love is not as strong, it's actually a fresh breeze of positivity.
The main problem with this year's broadcast imo that the hosts are not speaking _that_ good english. The whole thing just doesn't feel natural, it really comes across they speak a foreign language.
One of the hosts is actually English - the bloke in rather vivid pink. His Italian is deemed fluent but no one has criticised his accent (which is probably odd).
I think that all of them manage a pretty decent English, especially the English bloke.
People normally watch it with commentators from their national broadcaster talking over the host presenters, adding an additional layer of comedy or cringe depending on who's commentating. I miss the irreverence of the British commentator but have learned to enjoy the often misplaced disdain of the German guy since moving to Germany. Oh no am I telling you that you're watching it wrong? Uff I might be: sorry; I know that might be a bit annoying.
If you haven’t watched it already, I suggest you to go watch Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga[0] , a brilliant comedy movie that captures the Eurovision’s spirit very well. They also speak the truth about the voting: Nobody likes UK, so zero points :)
Jokes aside, Eurovision is a cringy but at the same time euphorically positive event, fetching 200M viewers worldwide every year.
Even Australia is now in the contest(didn’t make it to the finals but I think they should have made it, there are worse songs that did).
correction: Apparently Australia is in the finals! As they deserve.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest:_The_S...