:: Eurovision 24 :: Oslo 2010

ESC Today reports... The European Broadcasting Union have today announced the full breakdown of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest result. This has been delayed in order for two independent audits to confirm the result and cross check. For the first time, the exact votes of the international juries and televote have been declared. In 2009, the Eurovision Song Contest voting system was modified for the final to include the votes of an international jury from each country comprising of five musical experts. The jury vote and televote were added together to create the result for each participating country. The initial results show that the biggest changes with the introduction of the international jury were the results of France, the United Kingdom, Israel Albania, Denmark and Sweden. France would have finished in a lowly 17th place despite recruiting the internationally acclaimed artist, Patricia Kaas. The multi-million cd selling star however took fourth place from the interntional juri...

As Norway look forward to hosting the next Eurovision Song Contest, oikotimes.com look back at the last time they hosted the contest. The year was 1996 and the location Oslo. It was the last time Ireland won the contest. Read more -

After the UK got their best result since 2002 this year, it looks like their is No More Lloyd Webber for Eurovision. According to the British Media, Andrew Lloyd Webber is close to joining the BBC's main rival, ITV. Lord Webber has worked with the BBC for the last few years with his search for the latest theatre star for smash-hit West-end shows such as Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Oliver! and The Sound of Music. In 2008, the BBC offered Lloyd Webber another reality project to stop him defecting to ITV. Instead of the usual theatre based shows, the BBC in an audacious move put Lord Webber solely in charge of reversing the U.K's ailing Eurovision fortunes by making him write the song and chose the final 6 finalists, in which the British public would eventually chose the act to perform Webber's song. Despite one failed attempt by the head of ITV, Peter Fincham to lure Lloyd Webber, it seems like this time he has his man. The BBC are worried about impartiality and com...

The split jury and televoting results of the Final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest will be revealed this Friday, the 31st of July 2009. Eurovision.tv have announced that on Friday July 31st, the official split jury and televoting results of the final of this years Eurovision Song Contest final will be announced. This gives Eurovision fans the chance to analyse the full results and decide for themselves whether they are happy with the new voting system. -

Terry Wogan has given the thumbs-up to his 'Eurovision Song Contest' successor Graham Norton and described this year's show as flawless. Norton took over commentating duties for this year's show in May, when the UK came fifth in the music spectacular in Moscow, reversing the UK's recent poor record. Speaking to the Radio Times, Wogan said he was able to sit down and watch the programme for the first time in 35 years "and I thought it was wonderful. A spectacular show without a flaw in it". He stepped down from hosting the BBC coverage of the event after growing tired of countries bloc voting. He told the magazine: "Contrary to what is often believed I love Eurovision, or I couldn't have presented it for as long as I did. "This year they sorted the voting out, and I thought Graham Norton was excellent. People have said his approach was rather like mine, and all I can say is I take that as a compliment!" Source: RTE -

According to ESC Today , Mrs. Kateřina Fričová, program director of the Czech public television CT, has declared today that the central European nation will leave the Eurovision Song Contest after a three-year stay. The main reason to stop the country's participation that Mrs. Kateřina Fričová mentioned was the lack of interest from the Czech public after three failed attempts. The Czech republic debuted in the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest, being represented by Kabát and Malá dama. The year after, Tereza Kerndlová took the Belgrade stage with the song Have some fun, followed this year by Gypsy.cz and Aven romale. None of them reached the qualification from the semifinals. The Withdrawal has not been confirmed by the European Broadcasting Union. -

Oikotimes reports... The Norwegian broadcaster NRK who earned the right to host after a record breaking victory with Alexander Rybak's brilliant performance of his entry "Fairytale" has just revealed it's budget plans for next years' Eurovision Song Contest. The amount of 17 million euros which was speculated earlier on has now been confirmed by both the broadcaster and the Ministry for Culture. The budget itself is quite lower than the one used in Moscow which reached a maximum of 30 million euro. This means that the proposed budget for next years' Eurovision Song Contest is 13 million lower than than in 2009 yet it is an increase on the budget used in the Helsinki edition which reached a total of 9 million putting in a margin of 4 million in difference. NRK will be doing it's best to make a profit out of the sponsorship, ticket sales, advertising and televoting so that a loss will not be apparent. -

Esctime.com has announced that the Liechtenstein broadcaster 1FL have confirmed that they will be applying for EBU membership before the end of this month on the 31st July 2009. This leads to the suspicion that the may well be appearing the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo, should their application be approved. 1FLTV, the television station for Liechtenstein, began broadcasting on the 15th August 2008. It is the world's first ever television station based in Liechtenstein. It is stated clearly in the rules that any country wishing to enter the Eurovision Song Contest must have a national broadcaster that is an active member of the European Broadcasting Union. For Liechtenstein, a tiny Alpine microstate nestled between Austria & Switzerland, this has prevented them from entering in the past, until last year. News on Liechtenstein -

It seems Johnny Logan wants to keep far away from Ireland as possible as it has been reported that France will be represented in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 in Oslo with a song written by Mr Eurovision Johnny Logan, according to the German magazine Bunte. Johnny Logan, who won the Eurovision Song Contest three times in 1980, 1987 and as a writer in 1992, would have been asked by the French public broadcaster to write the French entry. Johnny Logan told in an interview with the German magazine Bunte that "I was asked if I wanted to write a song and I said yes." The australian born Irish singer won the Eurovision Song Contest twice with What's Another Year and Hold Me Now and as composer of the song Why Me? performed by Linda Martin. -

Georgian broadcaster GPB has confirmed today to esctime.com that the Caucasian country is intending to return to the Eurovision competition next year in Oslo. Georgia was excluded in 2009 because their song was in breach of the contest rules, according to the EBU. This year's Georgian entry, We don't wanna put in, was found ineligible to participate because of its political message. This was the last episode of a story that began one year ago, when Georgia decided to quit because of political reasons. Then, after winning the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, GPB decided to apply for the 2009 Eurovision, but the entry they submitted was rejected by the EBU. Norway will then see the Georgian flag fly in May 2010. Source: ESC Today -

The 2010 Eurovision Song Contest will take place at the Telenor Arena, now known as Fornbu Arena in Oslo. NRK, the host broadcaster of the 55th Eurovision Song Contest, announced that the arena, located in the greater metropolitan of Oslo, will be used for the final on May 29th 2010 along with the semi finals on 25th and 27th May. The Arena is more commonly known as the Telenor Arena. The Fornebu Arena is located in Bærum which is placed in the south of Oslo. The two Semifinals and the Grand Final, along with all rehearsals and press conferences will take place exactly there. It was selected ahead of the Spektrum, home of the Melodi Grand Prix final and previous Eurovision Song Contest host arena in 1996. The Spektrum has a smaller capacity and lacks the size to cope with the media circus that accompanies the competition. The Telenor/Fornebu Arena is the largest indoor arena in northern Europe and opened in February 2009 and can host 15,000 spectators for football matches, and 23,000 f...

INDEPENDENT.IE REPORTS CASH-strapped RTE, faced with a €68m funding deficit, spent €182,000 on our disastrous 2009 Eurovision entry. The massive sum was splurged on selecting and sending an entourage to Russia during May for the 54th annual song contest. Despite being touted as a decent bet for glory, Sinead Mulvey and Black Daisy failed to even make it to the final. The €182,630 bill covered the cost of selecting the band, entry fees, hotel bills, flights, entertainment and visas. The hotel bill for the 15 member delegation amounted to €24,710, flights €6,761, food and entertainment €9,540, visas €1,400 and airport transfers €978. The information was provided to the Irish Independent under a Freedom of Information request. The bill was more than last year's tab for dispatching Dustin the Turkey, to Serbia, which cost €170,000. This year, the cost of staging a national competition on RTE's own 'Late Late Show' cost €83,879, while the Eurovision participation fee was mor...

Last month, Norway won the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in which NRK has become the host broadcaster for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. Key positions have been filled by the host broadcaster in the running of the event next year. Jon Ola Sand (48), has been recently appointed as NRK's Executive Producer for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. Hasse Lindmo (36) will be the Television Producer, while Stian Malme (39) the current NRK Head of Delgation for the Eurovision Song Contest is to become the Venue Manager. Evy Hauffen (56) was appointed Line Producer, she was involved in the Eurovision Song Contest 1996 in Oslo as Production Manager. On Wednesday and Thursday last, the newly appointed production team met with organisers of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to be briefed about the task that's ahead. Discussions on various topics such as the technical aspects of the contest, the content of the three live shows, infrastructure, marketing, branding, new media, press facil...

The Eurovision Semi Final 2 on Thursday 14th May featuring Ireland's entry Et Cetera performed by Sinead Mulvey & Black Daisy, was the most watched programme on RTE Two that week with over 438,000 viewers watching Ireland failing to qualify for the final. This is down from 691,000 who watched Dustin the Turkey with his entry last year in Belgrade. The Semi Final 1 on Tuesday 12th May was watched by 208,000. The figures released by RTE , show that the Eurovision Final on Saturday was watched by 438,000, a low fugure compared to other years, due to Ireland not competing that night, but up from 377,000 watching last year . -

The following Link below is a roundup showing the evolution of the Eurovision Song Contest logo from 1956 (when the first contest was held) until now. Some logo's (especially in the early days) are nothing more than simple text. Later on, the logo became more complex, while some find their beauty in simplicity. I love the old days when things where simple!! look at the early 60's, nothing but text in different fonts. See Logos. -

This is how the UK jury voted in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009: UK JURY VOTE 12 Points - Germany 10 Points - Iceland 8 Points - Norway 7 Points - Malta 6 Points - Turkey 5 Points - Ukraine 4 Points - France 3 Points - Bosnia & Herzegovina 2 Points - Armenia 1 Point - Azerbaijan And now here's how the UK public cast their votes by telephone: UK PUBLIC TELEVOTE 12 Points - Turkey 10 Points - Greece 8 Points - Lithuania 7 Points - Norway 6 Points - Malta 5 Points - Iceland 4 Points - Azerbaijan 3 Points - Denmark 2 Points - Germany 1 Point - Portugal COMBINED JURY AND TELEVOTE 18 Points - Turkey 15 Points - Norway* 15 Points - Iceland 14 Points - Germany 13 Points - Malta 10 Points - Greece 8 Points - Lithuania 5 Points - Azerbaijan* 5 Points - Ukraine 4 Points - France 3 Points - Denmark 3 Points - Bosnia & Herzegovina 2 Points - Armenia 1 Point - Portugal *Where there were two countries on the same score, the act with the higher public phone vote is judged to...

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 -