:: Eurovision 24 :: Oslo 2010

The European Broadcasting Union postponed the third Eurovision Dance Contest. The number of broadcasters that signed up for participation did not reach the desired level. The European Broadcasting Union aim to organise a new format to make a more attractive and financially more sustainable production next year, planning to reach larger number of broadcasters. The Eurovision Dance Contest is planned to be organised in Azerbaijan in the autumn of 2010. -

No surprises about the Host city but the dates announced are a shocker! The host city as well as the dates for the 55th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest have now been confirmed by the EBU and NRK although the exact venue remains still to be decided. As announced today by the EBU and host broadcaster NRK, the final dates for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest will be Tuesday 25 May and Thursday 27 May for the semi finals, the Grand Final will take place on Saturday 29 May, 2010 in Oslo. The date for the final was earlier set to the 22nd May but this clashed on the same day with the Champions League Final which is being held on a Saturday for the first time next year. Greece (ERT) and Spain (TVE) were two broadcasters who officially complained about the date. The last time the contest was held on the 29th May was when Israel (IBA Television) held the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest on that date. The Venue for 2010 is still to be decided. According to NRK two options are being considered

Norwegian broadcaster along with several other national broadcasters are surprised with the selection of the provisional dates as the Eurovision 2010 final is set for May 22, the same day with the Champions League Final. It would be a bad day for Greece and Spain as those two broadcasters officially complained about the date. There seems to be two choices. Either a final on May 15 or on May 29 as NRK would like to have the thousands of Eurofans to celebrate the Constitution Day. After all this is what happened back in 1996. Source: Oikotimes. -

This year's Eurovision Song Contest will be memorable not only for being one of the most magnificent shows produced to date, but also because of its very remarkable viewership rates, reaching over 122 million people across the 45 countries broadcasting the event. These figures show an increase of 17 million over Belgrade 2008. 17 million more viewers mean, in relative terms, an increase of 16%. The Eurovision Song Contest viewing figures peaked especially in several countries, such as France, the Netherlands and Estonia, and in many more there was also significant growth in terms of audience. In general, viewing figures for the Eurovision final on May 16 were double the average rates for a Saturday prime time. Source: ESC Today -

The results of the jury vote from all the 42 countries taking part in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest are known. These are the results from the 210 European music professionals: 1. Norway (312 points) 2. Iceland (260 points) 3. United Kingdom (223 points) 4. France (164 points) 5. Estonia (124 points) 6. Denmark (120 points) 7. Turkey (114 points) 8. Azerbaijan (112 points) 9. Israel (107 points) 10. Greece (93 points) 11. Moldova (93 points) 12. Bosnia & Herzegovina (90 points) 13. Malta (87 points) 14. Germany (73 points) 15. Armenia (71 points) 16. Ukraine (68 points) 17. Russia (67 points) 18. Portugal (64 points) 19. Croatia (58 points) 20. Lithuania (31 points) 21. Romania (31 points) 22. Sweden (27 points) 23. Albania (26 points) 24. Finland (12 points) 25. Spain (9 points) Notice how Azerbaijan and Turkey are a bit down the order compared to their result of 3rd and 4th in the final results. If the results were base

Three times winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980, 1987 and writer in 1992, Johnny Logan appeared on early morning television on commercial broadcaster TV3 Ireland's flagship morning show Ireland:AM . Johnny speaks of his reasons why he doesn't watch the Eurovision Song Contest anymore, why Ireland hasn't had much success in the past ten years, how the Eurovision Song Contest has changed and his new album. You can watch the interview here . -

ESC Today reports that Armenian broadcaster APT accuses the broadcaster of the neighbouring country Azerbaijan to have manipulated the voting during the final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest by obscuring the screen when the Armenian televoting number was shown. Political relations between the two countries have been tense for more than 20 years. APT launched an official complaint to the EBU claiming a severe violation of the Eurovision Song Contest rules. Like in 2008, Azerbaijan gave no points to Armenia. However, even if Azerbaijan had given 12 points to Armenia, the country would have still finished in tenth place behind Bosnia & Herzegovina. Armenia gave one single point to the representatives from Azerbaijan, AySel & Arash, who finished third. The EBU has stated that they cannot comment on the story yet as they have no proof of the accusations so far. However, they are investigating and will report about the outcome in the next two days. Armenia took part in the Eurov

According to Oikotimes , The final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Australia was watched by 482.000 people, making it the 25th most watched programme of the night. This comparision is to 427.000 people that watched the Eurovision final last year. This is a good result for SBS, the Australian broadcaster, especially since the show is not aired live. Interest for Eurovision in Australia is beginning to increase with many newspaper and television stations reporting about Norway’s win. SBS sent its own commentators this year after many years. Until now it has been broadcasting the BBC coverage. SBS has hinted that it will air the contest live next year which would mean it would air at 5.00AM. -

Austrian broadcaster ORF may not be returning to Eurovision anytime soon, as last night's viewing figures were down by some 10% on last year's final. It should be remembered, however, that this year they only showed the voting instead of the full contest. Last year they recorded at 31% audience share, whilst this year only 22% of the Austrian television audience tuned in. ORF quit Eurovision in 2007 citing political voting, and Eurovision no longer being a song contest. However, with generally positive reactions to last night's results, perhaps they will be re-considering. Source: Oikotimes -

13 years ago, the Eurovision Song Contest was held in the Oslo Spektrum Arena, but it looks like now that the 2010 contest may be going to a different arena. It is expected that the 2010 edition will be held in the Telenor Arena in Oslo. The new arena in Oslo, Telenor is about to open this year, it costed 550 million Kronar and it can hold up 23,000 auditors. -

FINAL RESULT 1. Norway 387 2. Iceland 218 3. Azerbaijan 207 4. Turkey 177 5. UK 173 6. Estonia 129 7. Greece 120 8. France 107 9. Bosnia-Herzegovina 106 10. Armenia 92 11. Russia 91 12. Ukraine 76 13. Denmark 74 14. Moldova 69 15. Portugal 57 16. Israel 53 17. Albania 48 18. Croatia 45 19. Romania 40 20. Germany 35 21. Sweden 33 22. Malta 31 23. Lithuania 23 24. Spain 23 25. Finland 22 Semi Final 1 http://www.eurovision.tv/event/scoreboar d?event=1480 Semi Final 2 http://www.eurovision.tv/event/scoreboar d?event=1481 Final http://www.eurovision.tv/event/scoreboar d?event=1482

ESCTODAY.COM reports that the list of the 10 countries voted by the Spanish jury last night has been revealed today. After RTVE delayed the broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest semi final, the back-up juries vote was required because the television broadcast missed the international voting window. The jury's vote was then published earlier today by the president of the Spanish professional jury, Mauro Canut, on the RTVE website. Although the blog on the official broadcaster's website earlier published the scores awarded, that was quickly removed. The list of countries that received points from Spain is however now widely available on the Internet. This is the list of the 10 countries voted by the Spanish back-up jury last night (in alphabetical order): Azerbaijan Denmark Estonia Greece Hungary Lithuania Moldova Norway Serbia Ukraine One question. why Serbia? -

I am a little depressed today after my country, Ireland, failed to qualify for the final. I was confident they would as it was a pretty catchy song, but the voters didn't agree although of course, people are talking "Bloc voting" all the time now, but I feel the best 10 got through last night. Anyway I have to say the 2 semi finals this year were quite enjoyable. The presenters were however a complete joke. It was clear they were not picked for their brains or presenting abilities! Their french made no sense aswell. They are for sure the worst presenters in living memory. Thank god they are not there on Saturday for the final. Also I also want to say that camera views for the contest are quite messy. Why can't they just do the basic things!! I have to say I was quite happy with the 20 songs that got through to the Final. Notice that silly entries like Serbia and Czech Republic did not go through, makes a welcome change. Its great to see ballads winning the hearts of

1 Lithuania 2 Israel 3 France 4 Sweden 5 Croatia 6 Portugal 7 Iceland 8 Greece 9 Armenia 10 Russia 11 Azerbaijan 12 Bosnia-Herzegovina 13 Moldova 14 Malta 15 Estonia 16 Denmark 17 Germany 18 Turkey 19 Albania 20 Norway 21 Ukraine 22 Romania 23 United Kingdom 24 Finland 25 Spain -

Irelands 2009 hopeful Sinead Mulvey is planning to shock millions of fans with her outfit for the contest next week. Sinead and the band flew out from Dublin on Monday with a whopping five cases of clothes for the show. But when asked about what costume she will wear for the semi-final next week, she was keeping tight-lipped about the details saying “I can’t tell you because it is a surprise, really, it is WOW!. All of our outfits, everyone is going to be shocked. Its going to be like ‘Oh My God’ - you will never expect it.” She continued “Trying to pack my cases was a nightmare! I’ve about 5 cases and are going over to Moscow for 2 weeks. I want to have 2 outfits a day to get the image going and look out best.” Sinead and the band wore pink coloured costumes when they won the Irish National Final in February. They wore black and white costumes last week when they sang on the Late Late Show on RTE One. She is confident that their act will be able to compete with the ‘over the top’ perf

It has been reported that TVE, the Spanish broadcaster have decided to broadcast live the first semifinal of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, despite having moved Spain’s voting rights to the second semi-final on Thursday. Spanish Eurovision fans will have the chance of enjoying both semifinals live. The first semifinal will be aired on RTVE’s Eurovision website . Joaquin Guzman, the official commentator TVE Eurovision 2009, will be the commentator of the two semifinals to be broadcast. Also, TVE2 will offer a re-run of the show once the Debate on the State of the Nation concludes. -