Eurovision

Part I: Celebrity! Glamour! Competition! (71)

Like some other things we’d not really paid a lot of attention to (or even heard of) before we began to research moving to Europe, Eurovision is a BFD. And the more we dig into it, the bigger it gets. (This is another way of saying you’re reading the first installment of a series on Eurovision, similar to the one we did about football around the World Cup.)

It’s on the radar now because on Saturday, Portugal chooses the entry that will represent the nation in the 2023 competition, which takes place May 9-13. Scott has been obsessing about following this with some interest.

Let’s set some context.

It’s big

Officially called the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), the competition - which has been broadcast annually since its inception in 1956 (exception, 2020: thanks, Covid) - is “the longest-running annual international televised music competition and one of the world's longest-running television programmes.”¹ Fifty-two countries have participated in this musical bonanza at least once over its 66 years and a guest artist spot on the finals is akin to headlining halftime at the Super Bowl. Madonna, Cirque du Soleil and Riverdance (their first performance, actually) are among the so honored.

With hundreds of millions of viewers annually, the ESC ranks as one of the most-viewed non-sporting events in the world and a favorable showing can launch a career for an artist or band (Riverdance made out alright). You’ve probably heard of the first and fourth place finishers from the 1974 contest, for example, as ABBA (from Sweden) and Olivia Newton-John (representing the UK for reasons outlined below) experienced decades of success after entering Eurovision as relative unknowns. Julio Iglesias finished fourth for Spain in 1970 and later sold more than 100 million records. A 21-year-old Celine Dion took home first place for Switzerland in 1988; she’s done some stuff since as well.

How entries are chosen

ESC rules give each country the freedom to choose their entries. Many nations now opt for some sort of public competition, milking turning the selection process into a multi-day televised extravaganza in its own right. Known as the “national finals” approach, these broadcasts solicit votes from the general public (a format adopted by American Idol ) - often combining these with recommendations from an expert jury - and are teased and hyped online for weeks in advance. (In the early years, voting was conducted by postcard.) Portugal has had semi-finals each of the last two Saturdays and will air the final live this weekend.² Some countries will use the format popularized by The Voice to choose their entry.

The national finals approach makes a lot of sense. The competition is equivalent to the Olympics or the World Cup - it’s a chance to represent a country in an international competition that will be seen by hundreds of millions of people. Opportunities don’t come along like this very often for anyone involved - musicians or average citizens. People tune in, get invested in the songs and vote (we don’t get to vote on our Olympians), advertisers get to hawk their wares, broadcasters make money, musicians are seen and heard by an entire nation. Everyone’s happy.

Notice we said an opportunity to represent a country, not your country. While Olympians and World Cup athletes must meet citizenship requirements to compete for a given nation, no such restrictions appear to be in place for Eurovision. There aren’t any pesky rules about amateurism, either. Theoretically, then, any competing country can beg, borrow, and/or hire anyone they choose to represent them. Over the years, some nations have opted for an “internal selection” process which means that a designated individual or committee takes one of these paths:

1. choosing an artist and seeking public input on a song,

2. choosing a song and soliciting votes on the artist to perform it, or

3. deciding everything themselves.

The first is how Australian Olivia Newton-John ended up representing the United Kingdom in the 1974 competition.³ Long Live Love finished fourth (somehow) - seriously, you need to watch this:

(This tribute posted after her death last August reveals that Newton-John later admitted to preferring both a different song and a different outfit to the ones chosen for her by the British public. It’s hard to argue with her on either count.)

Winning

The winner of the ESC is the entry with the most points. Points are awarded by country. Each country awards 12 points for their favorite entry, 10 for their second-favorite, and 8 through 1 points for their 3rd through 10th favorites. In the final round of voting, each country contributes two sets of points to the total: one set is determined by public vote, the other by a jury of five experts. So the entry with the most votes from phone numbers with Portugal’s country code (+351) gets 12 points, the next gets 10, etc. And the Portuguese jury also awards 12, 10, and 8 through 1 points. These points may or may not go to the same entries.

There’s an interesting piece to the voting process: people from all over the world can watch and anyone with a phone can vote. But neither the general public nor the jury is able to vote for the entry from their country.

To win, then, a song needs first to appeal to viewers in its home country to be elected to represent the nation in the final rounds. Next, it needs to appeal to a sufficient percentage of the rest of the voting population to win enough points from other countries to be victorious. Entries that are too nationalistic or too quirky might make it to the big stage but not finish very well.

Voters in each country may or may not choose to care about any of these factors. Imagine voting in a primary election for president. Would you cast your ballot differently if you knew you and your fellow party members weren’t eligible to vote for the primary winner in the general?

The rules have also fostered a politicization of the process. Voting blocs can form, either intentionally or otherwise, as people gravitate towards other countries they like or feel comfortable with - and gravitate away from ones they see as rivals. Bloc voting in the ESC has been the subject of numerous academic studies over the years. Political relationships and cultural links (e.g. similar musical tastes, a high degree of intelligibility between languages) are the most cited reasons for these blocs and rules changes have been implemented to try to minimize their effects.

It’s big, yes. And weird.

There’s a sub-culture of weird at Eurovision.

Watching a 25-year-old Olivia Newton-John bouncing up and down in a ruffled baby blue, full-length chiffon dress with three-foot wings may qualify as weird for you; it certainly did for us. But it’s hard to believe that the 27,387 Brits who chose this performance to represent their nation (via, presumably, some combination of rotary phone and/or postcard) were trying to be weird. It’s more anachronistic as we look at it from 2023 than weird.

It seems pretty clear, however, that Norway’s 2022 entry was aiming for weird, full steam ahead. And did it ever deliver. Someone give that wolf a banana!

Did you notice the guy on the left button his coat back up and tighten his tie at the end? Nice touch.

With 368,106 votes in the national final, this song rose to the top of a group of 21 to earn Norway a tenth place finish last year.

The weird these days at Eurovision can be funny and/or disturbing.

For some reason, Scandinavia seems a focal point for the weird. (Maybe it’s the really dark winters?) Further evidence for this claim comes in the form of the 2023 entry from Finland. Gotta love the tongue action.

There’s nothing to add to this (other than you absolutely should click here and scroll down a little to read the lyrics). The song speaks (sings?) for itself. It will be most interesting to see how it does this May.⁴

Eurovision, then, is a bit like the Olympics and the World Cup in that people and groups representing a nation compete against those from other nations. It’s quite different from a sporting event in that everyday citizens choose the outcome, which - unlike a 100-meter dash - is entirely subjective.

That subjectivity and opportunity for a public voice raises an interesting question, which will be the subject of the next entry in this series.

That’s all for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Scott & Amy

1. So sayeth the Wikipedia.

2. If you’re in Portugal, it’s on RTP Saturday at 21h. Check it out!

3. Interestingly, nobody, Celine Dion included, seems to be able to offer a reason why Dion - a Canadian - got a phone call asking her to represent Switzerland.

4. Early buzz from hard-core Eurovision followers is quite positive, though the entry from Norway (not weird this year) is likely the front-runner.