:: Eurovision 24 :: Oslo 2010

After a year-long facelift that forced music fans to tramp south of the Liffey to get their live fix, the re-christened and revamped Point Depot which hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 3 times, will open in just three months' time. The line-up for the official opening of the rather unimaginatively named O2 Arena on December 16 is still a closely guarded secret, although the Kings of Leon have been confirmed for two nights later. Counting Crows and Coldplay will also take to the new stage in the following days. Read the full report from the Irish Independent

Good news! Coming back after 11 years, Slovakian public broadcaster STV has announced that it will bring Slovakia back to the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow next year. For several years now, Slovakia was reluctant to join the Eurovision Song Contest again due to their budget problems according to popular site esctoday.com. It seems the broadcaster is now able to enter for 2009. Slovakia took part for the first time in Dublin 1994 when Tublatanka finished 19th, two years later Marcel Palonder spawned 18th place. The last Slovak entry could be heard in 1998 scoring only 8 points, what led Katarína Hasprová to end 21st, a song that did not deserve that result.

Once again, Austria have decided that they will not take part in Eurovision 2009 according to Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung. However the final in Moscow on the 16th May will be broadcast live on ORF with commentating from Andi Knoll. The semi finals won't be broadcast. This is a surprise to some people, as it was thought that they may return to the contest after the EBU announced changes in the voting procedure which sees the return of the jury. Austria withdrew from the Eurovision Song Contest after failing to reach the final in 2005. They returned in 2007 but Eric Papilaya finished 27th in the semi final and ORF withdrew again before the 2008 competition. ORF's Wolfgang Lorenz stated that in the contest "the quality of the entries is not important but only which countries sent them". Austria won the Eurovision Song Contest once in 1966 with Udo Jürgens and Merci Chérie.

Dutch broadcaster NOS just confirmed that "De Toppers" (Gerard Joling, Gordon and Rene Froger) will represent The Netherlands at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. It's yet to be decided what song they will sing.

Yes its true, you are reading it right. An Asian version of the Eurovision Song Contest is to take place next year, it has been announced. The competition is set to involve 15 countries, including India and China, with a series of regional and national heats culminating in a grand final. Several countries have expressed an interest in hosting the final, which could be watched by up to 500m viewers. Asiavision Song Contest organisers say "the universal language of music will help bring people closer together". Other countries who will be involved in the contest include Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and the Philippines. Cambodia, South Korea, Taiwan, Laos, Macau, Hong Kong and Singapore are also set to take part in the project. Andreas Gerlach, head of Asiavision, the company which has purchased the Eurovision Song Contest format for Asia, said it was "highly suited" to the region. "Its people love popular music and have strong national pride. The

At a meeting at ETV headquarters earlier today, it was decided that Estonia will not boycott the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest and will participate in Moscow. Earlier this year, a member of the Estonian Parliament had campaigned for the country to miss the event in Moscow and for Latvia and Lithuania to join them in responce to Russian activity in Georgia.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has been drafted in to help pick Britain’s next Eurovision entry. The move comes as competition bosses announced an overhaul of the final’s voting process to avoid another favouritism fiasco. Multi-millionaire Andrew, 60, is being lined up as a lead judge or mentor on an X Factor-style Saturday night selection show, hosted by Graham Norton. It comes after this year’s British hopeful — former X Factor runner up Andy Abrahams — came joint last. The contest was attacked amid claims Eastern European countries voted mostly for each other — especially towards winners Russia. So Eurovision bosses last night announced that this year, instead of each country getting its say, a jury will award points with the public also having a vote. The move will cheer the BBC’s veteran host Terry Wogan, who deplored rival countries’ tactics live on air last year. He is also expected to quit his role as the final’s commentator after 35 years in another change to the BBC’s coverage. A corpo

You will have noticed a few changes to the blog just now, as we have renamed our site to " Eurovision 24 " as part of our upgrade plan. The reason for change is due to the popular introduction of the Eurovision Dance Contest launched last year. As we were named as a Eurovision Song Contest news site, it did not feel right to talk about the Eurovision Dance Contest. By having the site named just as "Eurovision", we can cover all areas of the Eurovision Contest - song, dance and junior. The Eurovision Song Contest will be covered the most in great detail compared to the other two contests. No features to the site have been affected by the rebranding.

Although NTU of Ukraine won the rights to host the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2009, it seems that the management of the state-run UT1 TV channel has been trying hard to overcome the channel's financial difficulties, the acting head of the State TV and Radio Company, Vasyl Ilashchuk, has said in an interview with a business daily. He said that the management has decided to declare redundant half of the channel's personnel to be able to upgrade its technical equipment and launch new projects. He added, however, that the changes will be implemented gradually. Read news report

The EBU Reference Group of the Eurovision Song Contest have decided to introduce a voting model of a mix between televoting and jury votes in the 2009 Final. The decision has been greatly welcomed from broadcasters and fans. No change will be made in the voting during the Semi-Finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. The outcome was the result of lengthy considerations and detailed discussion on a wide variety of models. Details on the balance between jury and televoting outcome are still to be determined in the months to come. Ruurd Bierman, Chairman of the Reference Group, explained the decision: "We strongly believe in televoting as a way of measuring the opinion of our millions of viewers across Europe. After the public debate about neighbor- and diaspora voting, we decided to give the national juries a say in the outcome of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest." A survey amongst delegation heads from represented countries revealed that a majority is in favor of such mixed mode

More news from meetings in Moscow today have confirmed that France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom will not lose their 'Big Four' privilege of an automatic place in the Eurovision Song Contest final. Are we surprised? no. I get the sudden feeling that if they lost that "privilege" of their place in the final, then I would not be surprised if one or two countries withdrew. We must admit though, they do finance about 40% of the contest. Following another year of poor results for the Eurovision Song Contest 'Big Four', many media speculated that the four countries would surrender their automatic place in the final of the competition. As the four large financial contributors to the competition, their entries have been automatically qualified for the final since the introduction of a semi final in 2004. There will be no change in that status in Moscow. In Belgrade, Spain finished in 16th place and France could only manage 19th position, despite having two of

The Reference Group of the Eurovision Song Contest has been in Moscow since yesterday discussing issues ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. Channel One Russia, Host Broadcaster in charge of the contest next May has been noted for been muted since winning the contest in May. It is no surprise that today, the Reference Group of the Eurovision Song Contest has officially approved Moscow as the Host City of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, as proposed by Channel One. The governing body of the song contest also approved the Olympiski Arena as the venue of the event in May 2009. Svante Stockselius, EBU's Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, said to Eurovision.tv: "Moscow is an impressive city and the proposed venue gives us the fantastic possibility to put everything under one roof. We are confident that Channel One Russia will organize a fantastic 54th Eurovision Song Contest." Today, the Reference Group is discussing another much debated issue - the vo

TVP, the Polish broadcaster have not ruled out the possibility to withdraw from the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, but their final decision will be made after the EBU announces any changes in the voting procedure according to ESC Today . One of the changes proposed by TVP is the introduction of an international jury whose role will be similar to the one in the Eurovision Dance Contest. TVP have submitted a proposal to the EBU, regarding changes in the voting system, which they feel will help in the direction of diminishing the impact of neighbourly voting on the outcome of the contest and place more emphasis on the artistic value of the song. The Polish broadcaster proposes, among other things, the introduction of an international jury similar to the one used in the Eurovision Dance Contest. Aneta Wrone, TVP spokesperson, announced that any decision on whether Poland will participate in the next Eurovision Song Contest will be taken after the EBU has announced new rules and will depend

In this week’s edition of the UK’s biggest selling celebrity magazine Heat, Nicky Johnston, interview Sir Terry Wogan. Read the full report from ESC Today

Andorran Television has confirmed that it would be participating at ESC 2009 with a revised setup according to Oikotimes . Andorran Television will be fully in charge of choosing the person to represent Andorra in Moscow. The proposal includes a suggestion for three semifinals, which will involve both a Jury and televoting. After this there is a proposal for one final where the representative will be chosen.

Congratulations to Poland, deserving winners of the 2008 Eurovision Dance Contest which was held in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom on Saturday 6th September. 14 countries took part in a well organised production show by the British broadcaster, BBC, which also hosted the contest last year. Marcin Mroczek & Edyta Herbus won the contest with their fusion of Rumba, Cha-cha & comtemporary Jazz Dance to a medley of Michael Jackson songs. Second place went to Russia and Ukraine finished third. However the way the judges votes were sorted have confused viewers. 4 professional judges give their votes after each dance from 1 - 12. After the judges gave their votes, Denmark were in 1st place. Ireland, Austria and the Netherlands who had the lowest number after the judges vote, were given "0" when it came to the public voting. Many viewers from Austria, Ireland and The Netherlands have expressed their disappointment with this way of the voting as there was no way after the ju

Although not confirmed yet, Oikotimes is reporting that Philipp Kirkorov is close to signing a deal with Channel One Russia to become the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest host. The news is soon to be officially confirmed, according to Oikotimes sources. Kirkorov has had a long history with the Eurovision Song Contest. He represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995 held in Dublin with the song "Kolybelnaya dlya vulkana" and finished in 17th place. He co-wrote the Belarusian entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 , "Work Your Magic" for Dmitry Koldun , and wrote the 2008 Ukrainian entry "Shady Lady" , performed by Ani Lorak . He was also a judge in the second season of Music Idol in Bulgaria.

This morning's Mirror UK newspaper reports that next year's Eurovision Song Contest is under threat after ex-Soviet states called for a boycott after Russia invaded Georgia. Baltic nations Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia may pull out of the contest in Moscow in support of the embattled country. A poll in Estonia has already backed a boycott. Pressure is rising for a Polish withdrawal. Both the Baltic nations and former eastern bloc countries helped clinch victory for Russian singer Dima Bilan, 26, this year. Estonia's culture minister Laine Janes, said: "Solidarity must exist with Lithuania and Latvia to show consolidated support for Georgia." But Svante Stockselius, of organiser the European Broadcasting Union, said: "These issues should not be linked. We are organising a non-political event."

News source from: Oikotimes Morocco only entered once at the Eurovision Song Contest and the result was not encouraging - 2nd last place in with Samira Ben Said's Bitaqat hob. For 28 years Europe has been waiting for a follow-up entry from Morocco, but none have been forthcoming. However, with a new Moroccan broadcaster interested in becoming an active member of the EBU, this could change in the next few years! The Moroccan broadcaster, who is a founding member of the EBU and took part in the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest, is SNRT. After coming 2nd last in the competition, SNRT decided not to enter again. Probably SNRT was also influenced by political motivations. However, a rival Moroccan television station, one that is not directly influenced by the Moroccan government, is now interested in joining the EBU. 2MTV has long been a source for free speech and taboo-breaking in Morocco, and is especially popular with the Moroccan Diaspora in countries like France and the Netherlands. A