Credits
Written by
Published
Source(s)
News
© eurovision.tv
EBU invests in the future
Eurovision goes global!
The future of the competition looks bright as is, with its popularity growing steadily year by year. This has obviously taken a lot of hard work and foresight but EBU is not prepared to leave the fate of its "Jewel in the crown" as Mr Erichsen calls the contest, to chance. He explains the need for constant evaluation of the Eurovision Song Contest format; "You have to protect the core values of the contest (...) But meanwhile, you have to revamp, to attract new and younger audiences."
One thing is certain, that a great investment is required to maintain the high standard and expand, something that EBU is ready for. "We have developed an investment plan with 12 to 14 new activities, to be introduced in the next couple of years," Mr Erichsen says. Most of these activities will be behind-the-scenes but others will be certainly noticed by the general audience and the hard core of the fan body.
One of the most exciting projects is the contest's expansion to other world markets. "Imagine an American, Asian, Middle-East or African version of the song contest," Bjørn Erichsen says. EBU intends to license the format of the Eurovision Song Contest across the world. The possibility of a World Song Contest does not seem so remote any more. "In the most optimistic mood, in two years, being more realistic, in three to four years," said Bjørn Erichsen.
For 2007 a number of new features are scheduled. Starting with the Eurovision Countdown, a magazine-like television programme in three episodes. It aims at informing viewers on the latest contest related news, keep them updated on the preparations and offer historic background material. An other exciting - and highly attractive incentive for the participating artists- is the Winner's tour. This year's winning entry will be able to enjoy a Winner's tour, a sort of pan European lap of honour. Preparations are already under way with all participating acts confirming availability should they win.
It is a common secret that die-hard fans all over Europe love to collect and rewatch past Eurovision Song Contests over and over again. In a couple of year's time they will have the chance to do this online as EBU is working on a way to collect and put them up for the world to watch. "We want to be present on a number of platforms, and that is why we reserved budget to make that happen," Bjørn Erichsen says. "It's an old dream to put all historic Eurovision Song Contests on the web, but it is a complicated issue and there are a lot of copyright issues to deal with. We have set aside money to clear those copyrights, but it will take a year or two to complete this procedure," he concludes
What are the worst fears of the eurovision.tv director? What is it that makes him sweat in relation to the contest and what measures are taken to make sure nothing major goes wrong? Bjørn Erichsen's number one fear is terrorism. "We are always deeply involved with security measures, closely cooperating with the host city authories who take security very, very serious. We don't see that as audience, and we shouldn't (...) but behind the scenes, there is strong security machine to take care of it," he explains. His second worst fear is failure of the televoting system : We declare a winner and the next morning, we find out that the winner is not the winner. To avoid that, we have triple backup systems, auditors before and afterwards, and we do everything possible to get that right," he says. In the unlikely event of a televoting problem there are always the backup juries standing by in all 42 participating countries.
You can watch the full interview here. (under EXTRA)
Related polls
Go directly to the reactions
Reactions
When reacting to a news item, please stick to the topic. Inappropriate messages (swearing, racism, hate, etc.), messages in other languages than English and spam (which includes URL advertising) will be deleted and you risk your account being removed. Reacting on newsitems is only possible when logged in as a member. Still don't have member account?
Click here to react Click here to become a member (free!)
The Eurovision Song Contest formula is not workable on other continents. Within the diversity of indigenous cultures on the European continent there is a cohesiveness born of a fundamental set of principles that permeates all the European nations. Asia for example is too fragmented by geography and historical baggage to ever have even a shadow of commonality. The Asian Broadcasting Union (ABU) tried its version of Eurovision in 1985 and 1986 but with little success. The Eurovision Song Contest will stay in Europe.
The idea of a Asian,American,African and Middle Eastern Song Contest sounds great to me.And none of the countries that are currently participating in ESC will be asked to leave,all the 42 countries have an equal right to be in the contest,so we are no gonna give Turkey to Middle East,Turkey is european,Turkey is ours 
no way,a world contest.keep it european(well almost with israel and turkey).sell the format,but please no more new countries,please.it would take a week to get a result.
As for old ESC finals available to watch online, I just don't get why people are so excited about it. It's a very complicated thing to organise, and we don't know if it will ever materialise. But why bother? After all, ESC fans can get almost all finals on dvd from their national OGAE club or through private dealers.
some of you people are not reading the comments made by the eurovision.tv director carefully enough. He said that there could be regional ESC style contests, and perhaps a World ESC contest. And I doubt the likes of the USA would win hands down, after all, the UK isn't doing too well, and in 2003 we got Nil points, the same year as we invaded Iraq, so I doubt the USA would do well. Besides, I think the idea of a South American contest, African contest, Middle Eastern Contest, etc etc etc is a fantastic idea. And then to have a final World ESC contest with the best of the best is great. It could be held once every four years, just like the Olympics and Football World Cup.
Making previous ESCs available online is another great idea and I'm sure everyone agrees with the need for security, so what is everyone complaining about??
One last thing, before people complain about the likes of Turkey being asked to participate in a Middle Eastern contest and not a European, let's wait and see the detail. Too much scaremongering does no good and only stirs up fears. That's what starts disagreements and wars, so let's keep our prejudices to ourselves. Besides, Eurovision is all about togetherness, inclusivity, love and respect. I doubt the intentions of a lot of so-called fans, judging by their comments.
So 2011 will probably be the last EUROVISION song contest 
heres the new video for the ark´s "the worrying kind"
url=http://www.musicbrigade.com/video/2635498/main.aspx]http://www.musicbrigade.com/video/2635498/main.aspx/url]
The idea of a "World Song Contest" is certainly not new. Harald Tusberg, the Head of Light Entertainment at the NRK (Norway) launched the idea around 20 years ago. I remember we wrote about it in OGAE News. At the time there were several continental festivals: an Asian Song Contest, a Pacific Song Contest etc. The idea was to bring the top 3 from each Contest together to compete in a World Song Contest. But it never materialised.
i regret a lot that we see things like verka or lodi and tthat is why i say: bring back the juries or at least a 50-50 voting/jury system..then verkas or lordis would stand a good chance of coming last...kenan is good by the wsy, i like shake it up shekerim!
_(80_x_60).jpg)
@ chi chi
Every song gets better with the use of an orchestra. In orchestras you can also have electronic effects. Why use an electronic version of a trumpet, violine or whatever when you can have the real thing
O well...
url=http://www.escportugal.pt.vu/]http://www.escportugal.pt.vu//url]
Listen here the english version of portuguese entry!
Go Sabrina...
I got really excited at the prospect of being able to watch all past contests on-line!
If we want to keep the contest at all, I don't think we should be so afraid of change. We tend to forget that us die hard ESC fans are maybe 5% of the audience, and ESC has to have a broad appeal to be worthwhile. As for addressing neighbourhood and diaspora voting you can't do that and at the same time keep the televoting system. And I honestly believe that it's just some of the passionate ESC fans that don't want to televote.
Besides, you can't win on diaspora/neighbourhood voting alone. A country might end up 12th instead of 17th. So? Is it really so important how the entries are doing? IMO it's just entertainment with a competitive element to add some excitement to the fun!
@marc
for today's esc, orhestra is quite dated i think.. there are many electro tunes and how can an orchestra play them?!? whether u like it or not but times are changing and esc must adopt itself to changes...
and, as long as this televoting continues, there'll be lots of verkas believe me 
anyway, i LOVE verka!
go kenan go verka!
Songs like Danza should never have been in ESC, that kind of ruining we got from the lack of an orchestra and televoting
ESC was for pop songs and ballads, give us back that ESC
I'm not interested in freak shows, rock, alternative music scenes etc 
i like the idea they are trying to protect the 'jewel in the crown' however, worldvision? PLEASE NO LISTEN TO THE FANS! it will lose its appeal Eurovision wont sound so good as worldvision! PLEASE NO!!
the orchestra?!?! NOOO... imagine an orhestra playing to danzing lol
I'm not sure all these news are good... Give us back the ORCHESTRA!!!! Give us back the LANGUAGES!!!! The AIM the ESC was created for!!!!
i would just like to see some northern african-arabic countries though: lebanon, morroco, tunesia...that would be fun and they belong somehow to the european cultural heritage, or ast least they are connected to it through history..
Today you can vote for the best ballad in ESC 200 in:
url=http://www.eurocronicas.blogspot.com]http://www.eurocronicas.blogspot.com/url]
Albania, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia or Serbia?
Thanks for visit my website.
There is going to be an Africavision in 2008! I got the info from ogae restof world club!!
i dont care if they can see it but i dont want them to be a part of it.......... i miss having just european countires!
if we let everyone it will be to weridddd
djibouti, honduras, papua new ginea, togo, zulu tribe... yeah, imaginations are endless... l
ist their a reason its called EUROvision?
It would be interesting to have a song contest for every continent, (maybe two for Asia) and then have the winners compete in a super-final.
In a world song contest, the winner would be probably every year the USA or other big countries. So I prefer to stay at the level we are now. But I would like to see maybe one or two "guests" from other parts of the world in the ESC, so that maybe one year Japan and Australia participate as guests, the next year Canada or Brazil...
Removing the orchestra was a necessary move. It fit in well some years ago, but imagine an orchestra trying to play rap, hiphop, funk and more modern music. It would just look extremely strange in today's ESC.
Another thought in addition to my last post... the more contests there are, the less people will be influenced by other countries music. Western music will get even more bland, Eastern music will even more complicated - there may not be as much sharing of ideas because artists will say, "Nah, it's no good to use those drums like that - the Eastern Europe is all in the Middle East Song Contest now. We need to use just regular drum to get the Scandinavian votes" - hehehe.
I can see that a bit in the World Oriental Music Festival. Bosnia always sends something freakishly traditional, far more Bosnian (and usually FAR MORE Muslim) than anything we've ever sent to ESC. We might have crashed and burned with things like Feminnem and "Call Me", but at least we tried other countries' styles.
Like check this. This is our highest-placed entry to the World Oriental Music Festival, I think we came second but I don't remember. At the time, it was the most expensive music video ever produced in Bosnia and it's still a beautiful song. If we were in the MIddle East Song Contest, this is the kind of thing I bet we'd send...
[b]http://youtube.com/watch?v=jpVtiu4kdJg[/b]
The list of 45 reactions is divided into 2 pages. Choose a page:
1 | 2
React yourself
This news article is older than one week. Reacting to articles is only possible in the first week after publication.
