March 16, 2021, 5:14 p.m.
Some Questions About the Eurovision Song Contest, Answered
Baby, I can't wait to know.
Good Screen
It’s Eurovision season, baby! 401 competing songs are headed to Rotterdam this May, even if the artists themselves might not be. To properly kick off Good Screen’s Eurovision Season, I’m answering questions about Eurovision — some of which I’ve come up with, and some of which are from my lovely Twitter followers.
Let the questions about the Eurovision Song Contest begin!
What is the Eurovision Song Contest?
In short, it’s a three-part music competition, organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. Originally conceived as a way to get Europe’s broadcasters to co-operate, it’s turned into the continent’s Super Bowl, with 41 countries currently taking part and a global audience of around 200 million people.
Each nation’s public service broadcaster selects an entry, and a pair of semi-finals whittles 41 three-minute entries down to either 25 or 26. The entries are then put to a vote — which we’ll get to later — and the winning country hosts the next edition of the contest. The Netherlands won at the last contest in 20192, so Dutch broadcasters NPO, NOS, and AVROTROS are bringing the contest to Rotterdam from May 18-22.
Honestly: I don’t know! But it’s a lot of fun, the songs are usually pretty good, and there’s a wonderful community around the contest. I’ve jokingly described Eurovision as “gay Christmas” for a while, and honestly, the anticipation that comes with the song reveals in the spring is wonderful.
If it’s the Eurovision Song Contest, how come Israel/Russia/Azerbaijan/Australia/etc. get to take part?
It’s a good question! Countries like Israel, Russia, and Azerbaijan are full members of the EBU, which means they’re able to take part if they want. The only real conditions to being a full EBU member are that your country is in the European Broadcasting Area — a big area that actually includes Northern Africa!3 — and that you give the EBU money.
Australia’s large population of immigrants from Europe means there’s been a market for Eurovision as a kind of incredibly gay breakfast television over there. SBS — who’d been broadcasting Eurovision for decades — got to send Guy Sebastian to Vienna as a treat for the contest’s 60th birthday in 2015, and they were popular enough to guarantee their participation until 2023.
What can we expect from this year’s contest?
It won’t be a normal one, that’s for sure. The contest usually brings viewers the spectacle of an arena full of fans, but this time the EBU has already ruled that out. Over the next few weeks, we’ll find out whether the contest will have a live audience at all.
Performances have to be recorded live-to-tape in conditions agreed on by the EBU, if travel restrictions prevent a contestant from physically being in Rotterdam. Pre-recorded backing vocals are allowed this year to reduce the number of performers, and the microstate of San Marino are taking advantage of this by — and this is so weird to type — having Flo Rida as a featured artist on their song.
The other thing is that, in short, most of the contestants have warmed up already — the majority of countries have re-selected their 2020 artists, because they’ve obviously not had the chance to properly compete. In short, that should mean better songs, but not everyone’s shown off their songs at time of writing!
Thanks to Jake Baugh for the next three questions.
Can you, like, go to Eurovision?
Yes! In a normal year, tickets are available for the two semi-finals, the grand final, and a whole suite of rehearsals. It’s probably a very lovely excuse for a quick European city break.
Do different countries have different ways of voting?
Yes, but they’re broadly exceptions to the rule.
In the majority of participating countries, a jury of music industry professionals awards a set of points — from 12 down to 1 — to the participating songs; the public also gets to vote for their favourites, with the points awarded based on popularity.
San Marino’s the exception to the rule here — they’re a nation of 34,000 people, they use Italy’s phone system, and the theoretical televoting audience isn’t big enough to satisfy the EBU, so they just use a jury.
Technical problems can also mean that the jury’s votes are the only ones that count, but this is a really rare occurance.
I’ve heard commentary at Eurovision, and it seems to be a little mean to the artists. How do they get away with that?
Eurovision has traditionally been presented in English and French4, but of course most of the continent doesn’t use French or English as a national language. Enter the commentators, who help explain what would otherwise be a mildly confusing, context-free song contest to their home audience.
There’s a tradition specific to the BBC’s coverage5 to gently roast the competing entries, with commentator Graham Norton and his predecessor Terry Wogan being keen to point out the odd absurdity or awful outfit.
In short, performers are frankly too preoccupied with their performances to root out reactions from more than 41 nations’ commentary teams — let alone get them translated into a language they understand — and while commentators may mock other countries, there’s nothing ever said that crosses a dangerous boundary that would cause some kind of diplomatic nightmare. It’s all pretty tame.
What’s the best Eurovision song so far?
Excluding the ones that didn’t compete last year? Euphoria by Loreen. It was a cultural reset. No further questions.
There is a huge thing going on with Belarus right now that means they might not actually send an artist, so… maybe 39?
The 2020 contest was cancelled because, well, Covid.
Morroco took part in Eurovision once, in 1980, and Tunisia almost took part in the 70s. I’d love to see them back in Eurovision, but it seems unlikely at present.
At this point, the amount of French in the contest is pretty minimal.
With thanks to those on Daði Freyr’s Discord, who confirmed that this is a specifically British thing!