Time to pay equally for Eurovision?

So it’s been a week since the Eurovision Song Contest happened and the United Kingdom, despite entering a reasonable song, getting just 14 points and coming in last place.

The reason I’ve left it a week before writing an article on the contest is because I didn’t want to just come up with the usual ‘all down to politics’ blog post.

Actually I DID write that same old boring blog post on Sunday morning but decided not to publish it, I’m currently overwriting it as I type.

In it I basically suggested that as everyone votes for their neighbour we stand no chance of ever winning the Eurovision Song Contest again - a typical British baby and bathwater blog post.

I don’t completely agree with that anymore - yes Russia got a lot of votes from its ex-comrades but that might just be because people living in those countries share a similar musical taste with Russia.

I think there is more to it than just political or taste based voting. I think there IS political and taste based voting but I also believe there’s another element.

That is jelousy. OK that sounds patronising - not jelousy of our wealth but of the fact that four countries automatically qualify for the final without having to go through the previous stage - that sort of thing builds a resentment among people that take this thing seriously.

We, the Big Four, are in the final automatically because we contribute a considerable percentage of the Eurovision Song Contest budget every year - but maybe now it’s time to stop that.

Maybe it’s time for every country in the Eurovision Song Contest to pay exactly the same amount towards the competition and enter on an equal footing.

I’m not the only one thinking about it either - it seems that both the EBU and the BBC have considered this route. But I think if we, the UK, agreed to this it would have to come with other reforms to the voting.

The head of the Eurovision Song Contest, Svante Stockselius, was asked about the performance of the big four and whether he felt it was down to countries voting against them for political reasons.

He said that “It could be. I don’t think it is jealousy, but it might be that people think: ‘Why should we vote for them when they are automatically in the final? Lets vote for someone else’. It could be something like that.”

He also said that it wouldn’t matter too much if the big four cut their funding as a side effect of entering the semi-finals and losing their automatic placement.

He said that “Of course we would have to look into funding, but we have such big sponsorship now it could manage.” Which is nice for them.

The BBC’s controller of entertainment commissioning, Elaine Bedell said that “We are going to sit down with the EBU pretty soon to see what the best way forward is.”

This year saw a drop in ratings for the normally high interest contest - last year viewing figures approached 9 million but last Saturday’s show dropped to 7.7 million - not for off a good episode of Doctor Who or even Top Gear.

If the UK does NOT make it to the final you could see that drop to less than 3 million. And under the current voting system I don’t think we would qualify for the final.

So that leaves the BBC with a dilema - as part of their EBU agreement they have to show the Eurovision Song Contest in Prime Time on BBC One - would they really want to hand over three hours of prime broadcasting time on the main channel to a contest not involving the UK that will likely get little more than 3 million viewers?

I suppose they’re doing it for the football - so why not Eurovision. But that point aside - Doctor Who skipped a week for Eurovision - thats fine when there are 8 million people interested in the Eurovision final - it’s more than Doctor Who gets BUT if the UK isn’t in it and it drops to just 3 million, that means there would be a bigger audience, and therefore more interest in almost anything else.

So the BBC needs to make some tough calls.

Do they drop out of the competition completely? Just heavily cut funding to put them on a par with everyone else and enter through the semi-finals and risk not reaching the final?

Do they change their agreement with the EBU so Eurovision final can be moved to BBC Three if the UK doesn’t make the final? Or do we push for voting reform?

I personally want to see the later happen. I think we need to drop the exclusive televote and go back to jurys - with say a nine member Jury and the televote counting as the 10th member.

But with strict rules on the make-up of the Jury - NO POLITICIANS. They would have to be made up of people from the arts and entertainment industry of that country.

BBC sources said the corporation had an “open mind” about the UK potentially losing its automatic place in the final. “We would have to think clearly about it, although it would be a bit odd giving over primetime without the UK in the final.”

BBC insiders said that as well as potential changes to the contest’s structure, questions also had to be asked about what acts the UK put forward in future. “The viewing figures [for this year's contest] were fantastic, but we need to think about the sorts of musical acts we put forward in the future and how we want to approach it.”

It can’t be ALL down to the song to be honest. Over the last few years, between the big four, we’ve entered songs of almost every genre, variety and quality - yet we still end up in the bottom ten every time.

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