Friday, December 28, 2012

What A Great Year It Was

2012 certainly has been a wonderful year for Eurovision fans. We've learned new things about the contest, we're now better able to ask other questions, but what stands out?

Loreen
Without a doubt the star of 2012 in the eyes of so many fans. I must admit I was not impressed by Euphoria at first but it does take me a couple of listens to get my head around a good song. At Eurovision she has definitely wrote a chapter in the history of Eurovision, not just for being a great song or gaining the second highest number of points ever received, but more importantly she won the contest for the fans. For this we should be grateful.

What national final formats actually work?
There is a huge difference of opinion about the best way to run a national final. While most fans will talk about running Melodifestivalen styled finals that may be too big and expensive to run in smaller countries, there has been many changes to national final formats this year. Yet, in spite of this there has been little convergence in formats which makes it very difficult to argue that one type works. 

Are the changes to the contest for the better?
Certainly it has been well flagged by the EBU that Eurovision will change substantially over the coming years, as Sweden the contest this would appear to be a relativity easy thing to achieve this year. We saw the beginnings of this change in Oslo in 2010, but it to difficult to say what the ultimate results of this change is. There have been differing opinions about the changes to the contest. Personally on the macro level I agree with the change and I don't see it as threatening the future of the contest. However I don't agree with everything that has changed but as with nearly all changes to the contest we cannot say how they will affect it until we see it in practice.

 Will we see another Junior Eurovision Song Contest?
This is probably one of the more regrettable questions that I write here. There are a lot of threats to JESC at the moment however I think it would be a real shame to lose it. Rather than being just a smaller version of the contest run in December, it has developed its own distinctive flavour and is differ to many of the other shows, I hope that the EBU will continue to develop ideas about how to allow it to continue and hopefully grow in size. 

So those are the main stand out points and themes of this Eurovision year. 

I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

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