what about Romania? :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwyuOU-OdQw

Tsk Tsk

Think again.

Oh, in the UK, the BBC get Saturday night "reality" TV series out of the selection of the singer, the song or whatever - and have done for a few years.

The public with nothing better to do whilst waiting for Doctor Who to be on then phone in and select something awful.

probably this is the kind of song ESC-haters associate with the contest. i don't like it a lot.

ESC has nothing to do with the european union. (Russia? Israel? Switzerland? Look at the map!)
And it isn't about peace and love, it's about entertainment and competition. Just like sports events.

Some of them aren't.... but the semis do a lot to prevent those from being in the final. The exception are, of course, the "Big 4" (who can send any crap they want) and acts that don't mainly rely on musical talents. (Which isn't a bad thing at all - it's a show, it's TV entertainment. They don't search for the most gifted singers there.)

Depends on the country. Germany always had pre-selections with televoting in the recent past. 2009 is the first year they chose to try a different selection process. Sweden, AFAIK, has several shows in a row to select their candidate. Anyway, it doesn't matter. ESC is not supposed to be a "mirror of what taste of music the people in that country have". That's what sales charts are for.

Indeed, it's totally unjustified to link ESC with this kind of cheap show...

Jokes apart though, I'm sure benny or someone can name 5 world hits that started as an Eurovision song, winning or not.

Beuaaaaahhhhhh, Eurovision ?
Oh my god !!! by chance i don't have TV anymore ...
Eurovision is like torture ...
Eurovision is a pure shame. Even when i was 10, i found myself embarrassed when my familly was waching it !
Eurovision and miss France contest should be canceled forver.

ESC has a tradition in Europe. It's always fun to watch and it's interesting to see what kind of music is popular in the other European countries. Unfortunately, lately there's not much of a difference between the countries. Kudos to the Finnish people for having brought a fresh wind to the ESC with heavy metal.

This is one of the two myths about ESC - that it is supposed to be the stage where future world hits are born. (The other myth being that winning the contest should say something about the quality of the song or the talent of the singer.)

What adds to this misconception is that it used to be true in the 1960s; but this was more because of the way media, especially televison and radio, were organised in Europe back then, not because ESC was different. Winning in those days, even being 2nd or 3rd, was a guarantee for a release across Europe and a good commercial success. The radio/TV stations who organised ESC were mostly monopolists in their countries or had only little competition... how could you not succeed with such a backing?

So while a lot of songs indeed were successful (see below), that doesn't say anything about the event as such. Quite on the contrary: Songs that are made for chart success usually don't work on the Eurovision stage and the other way round. It's a strange and unlikely coincidence if an act achieves both.

What ESC has to deliver is an entertaining evening. (And one has to say that at least 50% of the entertainment don't come from the acts themselves but from the voting afterwards.)

What it also delivers is the possibility to get to know artists from across Europe that you usually would never hear because their careers end at the borders of their countries - or at least don't grow much outside their respective regions. I really thank the contest for introducing me to Mor ve Ötesi, Dima Bilan, Roger Cicero, Les Fatals Picards, Sopho, Texas Lightning and, above all, Željko Joksimović and Athena.


Oh, and yes, some songs really escaped the Eurovision screen and sold as real records - or, in recent years, just switched channels over to MTV. I remember Poupée de cire poupée de son (1965), Puppet on a string (1967), Congratulations (1968), All kinds of everything (1970), Beg, steal or borrow (1972), Waterloo (1974), Save your kisses for me (1976), Halleluja (1979), What's another year? (1980), Making your mind up (1981), Ein bisschen Frieden (1982), Insieme: 1992 (1990), Love shine a light (1997), Fly on the wings of love (2000), Everyway that I can (2003), My Number One (2005), Hard Rock Hallelujah (2006),...