Eurovision Song Contest TV Show

I think this might be unlikely, but any Eurovision fans on the forums here? I am probably North America's biggest Eurovision fantatic and I get super into the contest year after year. The songs that compete in Eurovision each year usually factor quite heavily into my playlists. I love chatting everything Eurovision and the songs competing each year, so I thought I would post this in case anyone else wants to discuss.

For those not familiar, Eurovision Song Contest is an annual televised song competition where members of the European Broadcasting Union send one artist/song to the host country to compete for the Eurovision title. The song itself, the staging of the performance, politics, and more usually play a role in which song wins. Two semi-finals are run to select the top 20 songs to participate in the Grand Final, which join six other songs - those of the Big Five (United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy and Germany) and the hosting country. Usually the winning country from the previous year hosts the next competition, with the competition often taking place in May.

Everyone from ABBA, to Celine Dion, to Loreen have won the competition in the past. The quality of songs can vary widely - from the campy to the serious, pop to metal, and everything in between. While in the past decade, there's been an increased movement to sending English-language songs to the competition, there are a significant number of countries that frequently send songs in their native language. If I counted correctly, 13 of the 43 competing songs this year are entirely in the country's native language.

Some of the bookie favourites to win Eurovision 2018 in Lisbon this year, in case you want to check them out:

 

Bumping this up, in the off chance someone actually cares haha. Less than two weeks until this year's competition begins!

 

One year later bump, since this year's competition is next week. Anyone here been keeping up on rehearsals this week? Looks like it will be an epic year!

 

And like I did last year, some of this year's favourites with the bookies (and fans).

 

I always hear about this and it seems like something i’d be totally into but it’s impenetrable for me. I appreciate you posting the links lol

 

Haha my pleasure. I am beyond a healthy level of obsession, so always happy to help others get into Eurovision or learn more about it :P

 

For anyone interested, Eurovision formally started yesterday with the jury show for the first semi-final, but the televised first semi-final is tonight (21:00 CEST / GMT +2 - for North Americans, 12PM noon Pacific or 3PM Eastern). Sounds like the YouTube commentary-free live stream is going to be geoblocked in Canada and the U.S. again, but many broadcasters in Europe do not geoblock their streams.

The Icelandic broadcaster is doing a broadcast with simultaneous English and Icelandic sign language commentary - RÚV Sjónvarp

 

I wonder if Maneskin’s success will make a big difference in terms of interest this year? Could see people being more interested as long as it keeps championing interesting fun artists over countless ballads.