Eurovision 2016

It really depends on the host braodcasters. The interval material during the semi finals in Vienna was atrocious however in Malmo the interval acts for the semi finals were excellent. Remember Petra's brilliant 'History of Eurovision' series?

Any news on UK selection yet, at this rate I fear it may become internal selection again.

..... come on it's 25th September not January,

..... Incidentally the Dutch have already announced their performer for 2016, male solo artist Douwe Bob.

SVT put a bit more about this on their website. Effectively they appear to be replacing the brief preview video clips of six (Big 5+ Host) songs guaranteed to be in the final that they showed towards the end of both semifinals. Rather than show 6 songs briefly twice, they will only show 3 songs in each semifinal (they will be the "Direct to Final" songs that are voting in the semifinal in question). The songs won't be performed live, but will be excerpts from performances perform live during a rehearsal.

The upside is that the performers who go direct to the final get a similar number of rehearsals to those who perform in the semifinals - where previously they would get fewer rehearsals, and that the staging and live performances of the songs are shown before the final, as is the case for songs that are competing in the semi final.

By halving the number of 'direct to final' songs shown in each semifinal they could show twice as much of each song without altering the running order at all, though I suspect they may do something in the post-performance, pre-results window that isn't in an ad break, rather than doing it post-resuilts?

The Nordic ESCs are usually good for non-performance material (Oslo and Copenhagen were also pretty good) - the non-Nordics are normally pretty dreadful. (Oslo and Malmö were both scripted by the same team - so that's not a surprise)

I remember that they said they promised something at the end of summer or something.

Malmo 2013 is still the high watermark of Eurovision productions for me. SVT have an impossible act to follow there, although the production in Copenhagen was also pretty good. Not quite as good as 2013, but damn close.

No word from the BBC yet. They have a few options - one of which is to use The Voice.

I personally like the idea of the BBC choosing a big-name performer but then the public choose from 5 songs. You could even do this online and crowd source amateur songwriters, if you could announce by, say, end of next month the challenge is to write a song for X. Basically it's turning the ALW thing on its head and the process finds the song not the singer.

The UK has a bit of a specific problem - which is that the viewership hasn't turned away from it being a joke competition, whereas nowadays Eurovision is slick and professional. And boom-bang-a-bang-puppet-on-a-string tributes aren't going to cut it, frankly. The public vote went to Lithuania (gimmick - same-sex kissing, sod the song) and Poland (gimmick - "butter churning") the last two years, so sod getting them involved.

Two years ago the BBC seemed to be going in the right direction, but made a mess of the presentation on the night. This year they experimented but chose a song which was almost impossible to perform live and again messed up the presentation, camera angles etc of the song. Frankly, we owe Electro Velvet hugely because, in lesser hands, it could have been a complete car crash not seen since Jemini.

We haven't got the fact that a) everyone now takes this very seriously and they've all left us behind and b) you have to tell a story through camera angles, body language, looking at the camera etc because, beyond everything else, not everyone speaks English.

The Voice isn't a bad idea for a safe choice. Problem is, Eurovision is not all about The Voice, it's a light entertainment show which demands a performance. If we wanted a bridge from 2013's taking its seriously and not quite getting it right and 2014's making a mess of it to a safe person at a piano with a ballad in 2015, that would work. Otherwise, not so much.

A lot depends on the song; that's so often forgotten. The Voice is a competition that finds just that - a performer, so I'm not sure that having the winner automatically represent the UK at Eurovision is quite the right approach. Where will the song come from?

The reason the Scandinavian countries (and Sweden in particular) are so dominant in the contest at the moment are because they get industry-leading songwriters and performers involved and the local music industry is fully behind it, as the exposure given to the artists and songs involved always leads to good chart performance. Sweden have finished in the Top Three 4 times out of the last 5 years. The songs representing Sweden in those years have been all been Swedish No.1 records, apart from Sanna Nielsen's "Undo" which made No.2. Not a bad track record.

Quite. You need a confident performer who can deliver to an audience of Eurovision scale (both venue and viewing) without faltering. That's a big ask. Shows like X Factor, Pop Idol, The Voice do find people who are capable of that though. To succeed on those shows you do have to be able to deliver live.

But as you say - you need a song.



That's the thing though isn't it? Melodifestivalen and Eurovision drive the Nordic - and particularly the Swedish - local music markets in a ways that Eurovision, and any UK selection show, simply won't. You won't find labels forcing acts into entering a UK equivalent of MF, like they are in Sweden. Some acts - I hear anecdotally - only appear in MF because they won't get an album release without it. Couple this with the Nordic music industry punching so much above its weight internationally, particularly through production, and you have a double whammy of decent talent and lots of local industry support.

It IS interesting to see the impact of the Swedish version of Pop Idol (just called Idol) has been in recent years. Måns Zelmerlöw, Robin Stjernberg, Danny Saucedo, Agnes Carlsson and quite a few more were in Idol, and Martin Rolinski was in Popstars.

Express reporting X-Factor style BBC 'contest' to find UK entry, expect BBC Confirmation later, will then link when we have full detail.