Welcome back to your round-up of this week’s Eurovision news.
The slow process of countries confirming their Eurovision participation continues, alongside much speculation as to who may end up being sent to the contest. This week saw Malta’s broadcaster Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) reveal that whilst Malta’s version of popular talent show the X Factor would be returning to viewers screens for a third edition, it would not be used to select their Eurovision entry this time. Chairman of the Valletta Cultural Agency, Jason Micallef announced this in Maltese on Facebook where he revealed some sort of National Selection show will be organised instead to pick their representative.
“Bix-xieraq li nfahhar id-decizjoni ghaqlija tat-tmexxija l-gdida tal-PBS, li b’effett immedjat, ir-rapprezentazzjoni ta’ Malta fl-edizzjoni li jmiss tal-Eurovision, se tkun permezz ta’ festival mtellgha apposta, u mhux min jirbah X Factor Malta. Konvint li din l-ahbar se tintlaqa b’sodisfazzjon kbir mill-kantanti, awturi, u komrpozituri Maltin kollha.”
Jason Milcallef (Chairman of the Valletta Cultural Agency)
Alongside Malta announcing big changes to their Eurovision strategy it has also been revealed that Turkey are once again having discussions about returning to the Eurovision Song Contest. Turkey withdrew from the contest in 2013 after citing a displeasure towards the contest’s rules (such as those on automatic qualifiers), although in later years Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) would argue they would not return due to the accepting pro-LGBTQ+ rights stance of the contest.
“As a public broadcaster we cannot broadcast live at 9pm, when children are watching, an Austrian with a beard and a skirt, who claims not to have a gender and says ‘I am a man and a woman at the same time,’”
Ibrahim Eren (Head of TRT since 2017 and member of EBU Executive Board 2019 – January 2021)
We know that many of you would be excited to see a Turkish return to Eurovision, I would too but this all remains up in the air until discussions conclude. I hope we can see a more accepting TRT make a return to the show as soon as possible.
In more light-hearted news Eurovision Again returned this week and this time it was the 1969 contest that was chosen! The contest is of course infamous for its four winners after a somewhat embarrassed Clifford Brown (then the Executive Supervisor of the contest) had to admit the EBU had no rules in place to break potential ties. These days however it is a much beloved novelty of the contest and the EBU even joked about picking an official single winner back in 2012 for April Fool’s Day! It is a great to see a classic contest back online in an official capacity but it is a pity it is only for a limited time. Whilst many unofficial uploads of the contest exist on YouTube that I thoroughly doubt the EBU or the contest’s rights owners have any intention of taking down be sure to check out the Eurovision YouTube page if you want to see the best quality surviving upload.
At ESC Essence we strongly encourage Spanish broadcaster Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española (RTVE) and any agency who may have been involved and hold rights to the contest to consider making this upload permanent as a significant moment in European TV and culture or provide means for fans to purchase it.
That’s about all for this week I’d say. Hopefully we keep getting various confirmations for participants in the various Eurovision events over the coming week but it will likely be a while before we have full lists. Remember you can always share these articles and thank you for joining me once again to go over Eurovision this week. Speak to you all soon!