News - Thoughts from MPG Nordic and the JESC | Eurovision Song Contest News - 2010 Oslo, Norway 

This weekend sees the 4th Annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest being held in Bucharest, Romania. Last Saturday, a Scandinavian rebirth of the children's competition, Nordic Melodi Grand Prix competition took place. The competition was last seen in 2002, before participants Norway, Sweden and Denmark cancelled it in order to trial participation at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest on a three year trial. After the three years, the countries decided to return to a localised final. Only Sweden will be represented at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, after TV4 stepped in following national broadcaster, SVT's withdrawal. Today, esctoday.com is asking, could regional competitions be used to select the finalists for the Eurovision Song Contest?

esctoday.com is this week asking our readers: Would regional heats be a viable option for determining which countries enter the Eurovision Song Contest? We know that many countries currently participating are opposed to a second semi-final being added to the competition, yet the number of countries wanting to participate has been growing steadily and looks set to continue in 2007 and 2008. If the EBU is to create a situation where all countries wishing to participate can do so, without others being forced to miss out on the competition for a year, something will need to change.

Would the holding of regional finals across Europe, with the victorious country or perhaps the top two or three, qualifying for the Eurovision Song Contest help to eliminate regional / political voting With only a small number of the neighbouring countries participating in the grand fina? If all countries participating in the regional qualifiers were still able to vote in the final of the EUrovision Song Contest, they would be forced to spread their votes more evenly around the participating countries.

For this system to become a viable option, a fair method of assigning counties to a 'region' would need to be determined. In some cases, such as Scandinavia, former Yugoslav States, and former Soviet Union/CIS states, this appears easy. But where do countries such as the United Kingdom, Malta, Israel or Turkey fit. Also, if the Big Four automatically qualified for the final, where would Portugal and Andorra fit in? How would countries be assigned to regions?

HAVE YOUR SAY!
Do you think that regional finals would be a better alternative to two semifinals? How would the regions be divided and which regions would countries fit into? How do you think this would effect the results and outcome of the Eurovision Song Contest? esctoday.com invites our readers to have your say in the reactions section below!