ESC 2012 - EBU restores televoting window as from 2012

During last week's meeting of the Eurovision Song Contest's governing body, the Reference Group, an EBU proposal to return from full-show televoting to a limited televoting window was approved. The meeting was the first of the newly installed Reference Group.

The Reference Group decided to, as from 2012, restore the opening of the televoting window after the last song has been performed, instead of before the first song. Initially, the change was introduced to give viewers the opportunity to vote throughout the show like during many other television programmes, and to vote instantly when a song is on.

However, analysis of voting data shows that an overwhelming majority of viewers still votes after the last song. Another argument to drop the full-show voting is the appearance of graphics during the show, which take up as many as 25 percent of the screen due to the required legal information and thereby distracts from the artistic performance.

Even though analysis shows that full-show televoting does not put anyone in a competitive disadvantage and that the position in the running order does not favour contestants performing early in the show, the EBU does value the fact that some viewers perceive it as more fair to vote after all contestants have performed.

A decision about the length of the televoting window will be taken at a later stage in the lead up to the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, which is scheduled to take place on 22, 24 and 26 May in Azerbaijan.

Read more at eurovision.tv

Well I was hoping for a comeback of the old presentation of the votes. Lol. You know the one we had before 2006... Ah dreams!

Anyway, I'm fine with it. Plus it will let us nagging about the running order! Hahahaha If our favourite song has a draw between 1 and let's say 7, we'll be like "oh it would have made it the draw was #18!"! All this "nagging" might be annoying as well but hey, that's Eurovision! There will always be reactions like this one!

ESC 2012 - Misija Evrovizija for Slovenia

Following Finland's decision to leave their well-known National final format for a new talent show, RTVSLO, the Slovene broadcaster, has decided to do the same. A new talent show, called Misija Evrovizija (Mission: Eurovision) will find the one who will represent Slovenia in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest that will be held in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan.

The show will kick off on October 2nd, and it will have three stages:

1.  During the end of summer, qualification rounds will take place in various cities around Slovenia: Celje, Maribor, Koper, Kranj and Ljubliana.
2. Auditions will mark the official start of Misija Evrovizija.
3. TV Shows, where the participants will be eliminated with a combination of televoting and jury-votes, until the winner will be found.
4. The Grand Final will be held in the end of January, and will be traditionally called EMA.

Read more at esctoday.com

Ok... so we won't have an EMA. At least not one as the previous years. From what I get the Grand Final will be held to choose the song, no? No3 says that the winner will be found from tv shows and stuff so the way I see it, that winner will sing a few songs in the Grand Final (EMA) in order to give the Slovenes the chance to vote for the song they want to send to Baku.

What I don't like is that there won't be any well known artists... The rules say that those who apply mustn't have a contract with a record label. Which means no Nina Pušlar next year!! :O Oh no! No big Slovene artists at all! I was hoping for Nina or a comeback from Rebeka Dremelj maybe... I want a comeback from many euroartists! Well, that's not happening next year. 

2009, disappointment. 2010 DISASTER! 2011 back to my top! 2012? Hope they stay in my top!

Good luck sLOVEnia!

Alcazar will take a break

What a sad day was yesterday... I just did my regular everyday check at alcazarworld.com only to see in the news section that Alcazar will take a break. A few minutes of shock and then I ran to Tess’ blog to see if there's something there while at the same time reading the QX interview (page 44, in swedish) trying to understand if they'll come back at some point. Nothing but a few comments from friends at Tess' blog. In the QX interview they say that they'll deal with some solo projects and stuff until they find something new and "alcazar". They say they will come back and Tess said that too in her latest blog entry where she explains why they take a break but, there's always a but... They say this now but who can guarantee this to us, fans? Who can guarantee that they will have the excitement they need to go on with Alcazar? A lot can change in a year! Maybe two? We don't even know how long this break will last! Let's face it! Andreas and Tess are no longer 30! They don't have the same energy as they used to. Maybe by the time they decide to come back they will be tired, both physically and mentally...

I sound too pessimistic but I am a pessimistic person. To me this is 2005 all over again! I discovered Alcazar in summer 2004 and they broke up a year later! I was devastated! Mostly because I didn't get the chance to meet them. You can't imagine how I felt when I visited their website to get some lyrics in January 2008 and I saw a completely different layout! They were back! Even with Annika and Magnus missing but with their new member Lina. But now things are different. My fear is not "when will I meet them?" coz I have already met them a few times. My problem is how will we survive without their music? I was expecting an album and instead I got a break! They just left us with their collaboration with Same Difference, "Karma Karma" and "Feel 4 U" with Dream Beats...

So Alcazar's last appearance will be on August 6th in Stockholm Pride. I don't know if I'll be back in Sthlm by then! I chose a really bad time to come back to Greece or they chose a really bad time to take a break! Shit! Nothing I can do now.

All we can do is HOPE that they will come back...

ESC 2012 - New music contest for Finland

The Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE has announced a revamp to their selection process for the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku next year. There will be a new music contest, seemingly yet unnamed, that culminates in a final in Helsinki in February. YLE promises this to be the biggest and the most impressive musical show in Finland. 

YLE is accepting demos to the new contest from the 15th of August and until the end of September. The contest is open to all musicians and the style of music is free. The new contest will appear on TV screens in January. There will be jury selections, auditions and club gigs, and it will all culminate in the big final in Helsinki in February.

Read more at esctoday.com

This sounds very interesting. Jury selections, auditions, club gigs... Really interesting! Will they be fliming the auditions and all that or we'll get to see only the finals on tv? I hope this new contest will help Finland to choose a great song and score a top 10. It's been 5 years since their victory!

Eurovision Song Contest: 2010 VS 2011

Ok, something feels wrong lately. I have the feeling that this year I like more songs than last year. Most of eurofans, including me, say that 2011 was a quite weak year but as I said after the ESC week I don't think so. So what I'm going to do is based on a game we had last year at esctodayforum.com (and now I wonder why we didn't do it this year...). This is very simple: I'll write all the competing coutries of both years. If I like the 2010 entry more than 2011, 2010 will get 1 point and 2011 0 and so on. So here we go! Time to see if 2011 is indeed a weak year or not (according to my taste of course :P). 

If a country didn't compete in one of these 2 years, there will be no point given to any of them.

1	Albania	0
1	Armenia	0
-	Austria	-
0	Azerbaijan	1
1	Belarus	0
1	Belgium	0
0	Bosnia & Herzegovina	1
1	Bulgaria	0
0	Croatia	1
0	Cyprus	1
0	Denmark	1
0	Estonia	1
1	Finland	0
1	France	0
1	FYROM	0
0	Georgia	1
1	Germany	0
1	Greece	0
-	Hungary	-
1	Iceland	0
0	Ireland	1
0	Israel	1
-	Italy	-
0	Latvia	1
0	Lithuania	1
0	Malta	1
1	Moldova	0
1	The Netherlands	0
0	Norway	1
0	Poland	1
1	Portugal	0
1	Romania	0
0	Russia	1
-	San Marino	-
0	Serbia	1
1	Slovakia	0
0	Slovenia	1
0	Spain	1
1	Sweden	0
0	Switzerland	1
1	Turkey	0
0	Ukraine	1
0	United Kingdom	1
18	TOTAL	21

Oh my God! I was right!! 2011 was a stronger year! :O Just wow! Plus, I liked San Marino's entry and of course Hungary! But even without them 2011 won by 3 points!! I can't believe this! Hahahaha The phrase that I repeated the most this year was "low quality" but look at this!!

I just have to say that Bulgaria was the most difficult choice!! I love both entries to death! But I had to go with 2010. Sorry Poli!

I am quite shocked now. Hahaha But I really liked this! I'm gonna do it every year! :P

Save the planet! Yeah right.

I'm sure many of you have thought about this topic the way I do. So what's the real reason for trying to save our planet? All these organizations like Greenpeace and WWF are trying to save the planet and the animals on it but what they're really trying to do is saving the human kind! Now don't get me wrong. I'm not against them. On the contrary, I support what they do because they're saving lives (talking about the animals and the plants here). But what I'm saying is that everything happens for us. To save us. Even if it's done subconsciously. "We are trying to save our planet". Well we're not. Because even if we die, the planet will still be here. There won't be any kind of life on it but after what? A hundred thousand years? One million years? It will get back to normal. Perhaps new life will be created. So stop saying "save the planet". Of course now you can say to me "and what should we say? Save our lives? It's so selfish". Well it is but that's the truth. Whether we like it or not. Personally I try to "think green" but as I said, subconsciously, I'm doing this to save myself! 

But the point is that we did this to us. WWF was founded in 1961, Greenpeace was founded in 1971. Why weren't we trying to save the planet earlier? Huh? I guess those organizations were founded when we started realising the harm we do to "our planet and the animals" (i.e TO US!). "If we don't do something now, in 150 years the human kind will be extinguished!". I'm sure that's pretty much the story of all of this. 

I am not saying that Greenpeace or WWF shouldn't exist. I just wanted to share my thoughts about this topic. And because saving the human kind and not caring about the animals or the plants is so selfish we are hiding the real reason behind the last two. And once again, the most important word: "subconsciously"! ;)

ESC 2012 - The german NF goes Melodifestivalen! (?)

Unconfirmed reports from our Message Board state that talks came to an end yesterday between German national broadcaster NDR and Brainpool, the production company run by Stefan Raab, which will see the German selection process for Eurovision 2012 go a bit Swedish.

It appears that Brainpool's music division had asked artists if they would consider appearing in a selection process with semi-finals, and enough positive reactions were received to make the idea feasible. If the news turns out to be true, the result is likely to be four semi-finals of 6-8 songs each broadcast on Pro7, with some of these proceeding direkt nach Hamburg (or perhaps Berlin, or Bremen, or Osnabrück) for a final broadcast on Das Erste.

Labels are now asked to submit suitable songs and artists to Brainpool, where a committee will pick the competing songs. There may also be wildcards or specially invited acts along with those from the submission process, with further details to be confirmed.

This decision comes several years after it was reported that NDR had purchased the Melodifestivalen show format from Sweden broadcaster SVT.

Source: escnation.com

That's great! If it's true!! Two Melodifestivalens!! :D Of course the german one won't be like the original but I love that format! Give me as much music as you can!! Many semi-finals until the big final! Oh please let it be true!!!