Yes I understand they are still eligible to compete and they’re in Africa of course. The word is their broadcaster can’t or won’t pay the necessary fees to enter again.
As is Australia… With its predominantly European diaspora, from many European countries. Case in point, the Cypriot entry this year being Australian, as was Johnny Logan, Olivia Newton-John and the New Seekers. Oh, and Gina G.
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Also, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya and Tunisia have broadcasters who are members of the EBU but so far have not entered the competition.
Apparently, Lebanon and Tunisia had prepared to enter in previous years but withdrew their entries at the last minute.
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Also, Anja Nissen who represented Denmark.
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I tell you who doesn’t want us there… Graham Norton! He has made comments to the effect in the past and he even rolled his eyes when mentioning Australia. I cannot stand him! And hopefully he’ll never host again. I really liked the other hosts.
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Worth noting that the Euro actually means European Broadcasting Union, therefore countries with member status could theoretically participate (most via invite).
That’s why we are allowed to participate.
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Australian broadcasters are associate EBU members not a full members though. As are other country broadcasters like from Malaysia, Japan, Bangladesh and even USA and Brazil . I don’t think that is the main reason that determines why Australia participates.
I have read that New Zealand wants to participate in Eurovision.
He was redundant hosting the GF. Hannah and Julia very ably hosted together. Alesha was ok but a bit of a third wheel. Norton can go.
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I thought the same thing. He really didn’t add anything. It was great with the three hosts in the semi-finals. Hannah and Julia on stage for most of it and Aleesha as the roving host.
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My thoughts:
- Austria was robbed, that’s the exact type of act I tune in to see.
- voyager did well to get 9th, it was one of our weaker submissions imo. I thought the public vote was fair.
- as for next year, I hope we can participate. Surely the EBU can’t be too choosy. Countries are dropping off. Russia and Belarus won’t be coming back any time soon. Bulgaria, Montenegro, Hungary, Turkey, N Macedonia, Bos/Hertz, Andorra, Monaco, Slovakia didn’t show up this year. Serbia probably next to drop off. It will get to the point that two semis are not viable and they go back to a one night event.
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The only good songs in the final were ours, Cyprus, Croatia, Finland and the one that finished last, Germany. Most of the rest were dismal including the winner. The two best songs from the 1st semi-final didn’t even make it, Ireland and the Netherlands. Wasn’t my favourite but Finland was far better than Sweden.
This song contest has got so far away from what it originally was intended to be! It was originally all about the song’s composer. There was an orchestra on stage and everyone sang live. Now it’s all about “staging”, pyrotechnics and other gimmicks. Also the political voting of most Eastern European countries gets so many terrible songs into the final.
I wish SBS would get rid of Joel, he is so annoying! Myf I usually like but she bugs me with comments e.g. “this is a good track”. Myf, they’re songs, tracks are what you play on the radio from a CD or vinyl album.
Graham Norton has been doing commentary for the BBC since 2009 and I’m sure he’s still going to whether he likes Australia or not. His commentary is usually much more interesting and entertaining than Joel and Myf. He tends to “send it all up a bit” in the style of his predecessor Terry Wogan. No fawning over contestants like our Joel and Myf!
As an oldie, I have been listening or watching Eurovision since 1959 when the English entry was “Sing little Birdie” by Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson. I started listening on the radio as we didn’t have tv because I liked the song. Originally from Northern Ireland I am proud that the country with the most wins is Ireland.
Ireland is now tied with Sweden for the most wins
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I assume Australia’s future could rest on how many countries are participating.
Some of the countries you mentioned have been out for quite a while but I’m sure the likes of Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro would be very likely to return at some point, as they haven’t participated strictly due to financial reasons. Luxembourg are also making a return next year, so it would be nice to see a couple others come back too
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Personally I would be very surprised if we’re not back next year.
On another note, does anyone have any theories as to why the Greeks abandoned Cyprus in the vote this year? Their 12 points is normally a given and it was otherwise a pretty popular song. Did they blame Cyprus for not voting hard enough to get them into the final? Or do they only trade 12 points with their neighbour when they know it can be reciprocated?
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Referring to BBC audience.
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I feel the opposite.
I suspect the early announcement of Luxembourg re-joining after 30 years for next year is the timed good news story to counter a later announcement that we won’t be back as they’ll be able to refer to that on to counter any “negative”
The Greek public still gave Cyprus 12 in the televote, as usual. The jury obviously had other thoughts.
That’s probably one thing that has hidden away a lot of the accusations of such, even though, for sure they are still there - bundling all the televoting into one lot in the show [and then releasing the broken-down numbers later]. I get it in a way due to time constraints, and it adds to some suspense (if you’re not counting the number of televotes left, as suggested above) - but it’s definitely one of the bigger changes that’s come about from the “two sets of votes” era.
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As revealed in today’s ratings, the ESC final had 299k watching the winners announcement with the final averaging 202k. Those are the highest ratings since 2019.
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One thing that may sway the discussions between SBS and the EBU (if they’re continuing), I wonder, is also this “rest of the world” audience vote they brought in this year - something using the online platform that we already had to use to vote (because Australia doesn’t have full-rate premium phone/text numbers anymore, so can’t actually “televote” per se*).
I wonder whether SBS gets much out of it with the expenses of sending an entry (even if it’s an internal selection), or whether the bigger thing is audience participation - and with the introduction of the RoTW category, they don’t have to participate to let hard-core Aussie ESC fans vote like they had to in the last several years. So it may not be as cut-and-dried.
The relative costs of it for the voters themselves would be interesting though… SBS only charging AU$0.65 a vote, vs. the rest-of-the-world charge of €0.99 (or about AU$1.60) - ouch, especially if you’re a hard enough type to put the maximum twenty in.
Of course, as others have pointed out, SBS would always provide their own commentary team (for the final at least) and that’s always a bit hit or miss, naturally - but I think in the early days of that change, people just missed Terry Wogan’s sarcasm about it all, as it kinda matched the feeling of it as a continental oddity back in the day (as I’m sure many in the UK probably felt about it too). For the first year or two, they replayed it the weekend after with Wogan’s commentary, for those who wanted that.
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AFAIK that only happened in 2001 because SBS copped such a backlash for its butchered ESC coverage hosted by Effie. For 2002 SBS went back to BBC/Wogan commentary and from 2003 SBS movie host Des Mangan took over with Australian commentary.
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