Fixing Eurovision (In Both Senses Of The Word)
Why the UK should trade its automatic qualification for the final for something much, much better (other countries may disagree)
So tonight’s the first of two Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals, but the UK won’t be appearing in either this one, or Thursday’s. Why? Put simply, as a member of the “Big 5” (a.k.a. the ones who put the most money into the European Broadcasting Union), the UK, along with Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, is automatically put through to Saturday’s Grand Final.
Now I can see why broadcasters don’t want to pay a lot of money for a final for which their country’s representative failed to qualify. But I think in competitive terms, it puts us at a disadvantage.
Firstly, while other competitors will be going into the final “match fit” having fought their way out of a reasonably competitive semi-final (10 out of 15 countries will qualify out of Tuesday’s first semi-final, with 10 out of 16 countries qualifying out of Thursday’s second semi-final), our entry will be suffering from first night nerves.
Secondly, viewers who’ve watched the semi-finals will be hearing those songs that qualified for a second time, while they’ll likely be hearing ours for the first. It’s a known that fact that if often takes a couple of listenings for a song to grab you.
So do I think we should give up our guaranteed place in the final? No. I think we should trade it.
In return for having to go through the semi-finals, we should ask to be able to put in separate entries for our nation’s constituent parts. So rather than one entry from the UK, we will instead have entries from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, and Gibraltar.
Add in Australia and well, if the Balkans think that they’ve got a good thing going, in the words of Mick “Crocodile” Dundee, “That’s not a voting block… this is a voting block.”
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