Eurovision, Dead or Alive?

It’s that time of year again. Yes that show the has four or five memorable songs and many not worth the light of day- yet they get a platform to perform to hundreds of millions across the world. The Eurovision in recent years has become nothing more than a circus, no morally better than Big Brother. Nevertheless every year a certain song or songs does take Europe by storm. Last year we had Alexander Rybak with Fairytale (You know the guy with the shiny teeth and who went through violin strings like no tomorrow), 2008 had the Dima Bilan with Believe – a truly magical song even if a tad bit eerie being sung by a Russian. 2007 had Marija Serifovic with Molitva, yet another amazing song.

Can Kavanagh Qualify?

All of the last three years winners qualified through the semi finals proving  that the more a song is heard, the better. However these three great songs doesn’t hide the massive failings that is modern Eurovision. Many countries no longer appear to be able to qualify from the semi finals at all. Ireland being a prime example of a country that just can’t seem to do it. Yet many more weaker, pathetic songs do qualify simply because of geographical location. They now are finally trying to fix this with 50/50 split between phone and jury voting. Naturally this idea required juries to vote based on merit and not geographical location- a massively flawed ideology. Examine the countries that up to recent years voted solely by jury, many of whom still gave 12 points to their neighbour.  I accept occasionally they would give the 12 to a meriting country, but not always and that’s the point. The voting system has been a total failure, especially for western states who don’t have ten brother states to rely on. For countries like Ireland we are sending fairly decent songs again, yet we are still unlikely to qualify. Take this year. Examine the list in our semi final, it includes Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan,Lithuania and Ukraine. Straight off, one can assume that Armenia, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan will totally help each other out. If three out of  four aren’t in the final I’d be shocked and that’s before listening to their songs. Same goes for the Russian bordering states. This leaves a  fight off for the remaining places between Ireland, Holland, Sweden and Denmark. Does Scandal Central believe Ireland should be confident? …and that with the new voting system we will definitely get a fair crack of the whip? The answer is doubtful.We certainly do have a greater chance of qualifying this year, but I’m still far from confident. However if we were to qualify this could make things very interesting. As I said the last three winners have come from the qualifiers. Furthermore the last two winners and ten out of the last eleven have been songs in English. Consider this and the fact that Niamh Kavanagh has a profile across Europe and has a proven track record and suddenly I become hopeful. But this all depends on qualification, something which is far from guaranteed. Failure to qualify this year will truly be the nail in Ireland’s coffin, for our participation is coming at such a high cost to RTÉ that they are surely dying to pull this expensive plug.

The image below highlights voting patterns in 2008. It shows where the winner Russia got its 12′s and where the highest points in the final were geographically. Notice the 200′s in the south-east of the map? Notice the absence of countries over 100 points in the west?

Russia: deserving winners?

To be fair, many could describe the way Ireland and the UK give each other points as the Anglo- Irish agreement. It also should be noted that Scandinavian states do tend to vote for each other. This neighbour voting pact’s are rampant throughout Europe. The only way to get rid of it, is to fully get rid of tele-voting, something which I can’t see happening very soon.  So it now appears we are totally at the mercy of these juries. The 27th of May will reveal all. It will tell us if this competition is one which Ireland can actually compete in. Perhaps it truly no longer is, similar to many Olympic Sports.

One important to point to note, is that Eurovision itself is now no longer a song contest, its a revenue generating exercise. If ever proof that raw capitalism is dangerous, then this is your example. Tele-voting may plague the nature of the result but it generates a lot of money. Europe is also apparently expanding. How countries like Azerbaijan and Israel qualify is beyond me. Does Europe not stop where the map says it does? I hear China is joining next year followed by Mexico and Australia.  There is no doubt, for this commentator Eurovision 2010 is the final chance to see if the show is broken beyond repair. Vote carefully, Europe is watching!

Links:

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/oslo2010/the-participants/semi-final2