The Eurovision contest

Hello guys,

Today I just want to talk to you about one of my secret passion: the Eurovision. I never watch television except on this special occasion!

The Eurovision song contest (Eurovision Song Contest in English) is every year organized by the European Broadcasting Union, the U.E.R. It is this organization who heads everything, and works with the broadcaster of the host country to be able to spread him on all the network. This year, there are 43 participants, thus at a minimal level 43 countries spreading the Eurovision.

It is something enormous! But also, the United States, as well as others, spread dedicatedly the Eurovision.

The history of the Eurovision contest

Thus I told you, 43 participants, 43 countries, 43 songs, 43 cultures. It is something!

The competition was created in 1956 by Marcel Bezençon, the director of the time of the network Eurovision, with a first edition which included six countries!

However there are only 28 countries belonging to the European Union, so how is that possible? It is all the strength of the Eurovision there: to participate in the Eurovision, the country which wants to participate has to be a member asset of the UER, and not of the European Union. Thus, other countries of the Eurasian but also African continent can participate is there. And, for those who have already a little followed the Eurovision, I know that you go to tell me that I did not certainly have a look for quite a long time on a planisphere because Australia participates since 2015!

How does each country to choose their candidate?

Thus, every year, this big family of the Eurovision finds itself to live an intense week, two semi-finals and one finale. All the participating countries have to choose songs representatives. And for that, there are various methods. As you were certainly able to see him, this year, France chose to organize a competition to select our representative. But every country selects his representative as it thinks best. So, we can notice various cases! It is also possible that a country sets up a jury which has for role to select the representative.

How the Eurovision takes place?

Then, I told you, two semi-finals and one finale. To tell you to everything, all the countries do not participate in the semi-finals: the Big Five (Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France) and the winner of the previous edition go directly to the finale. The Big Five do not have to cross the stage of the qualifications in semi-finals because it is them who contribute most financially to the U.E.R, a matter of big money.

Every year, the winner of the previous edition is a little the star of the year, and for this new edition 2018, it's on him, and the Eurovision takes place in his country.

Thus 37 countries are distributed by drawing lots for the semi-finals. This year, 19 countries participated in the 1st semi-final then 18 for the second. Within each of the semi-finals, the participating countries vote between them by having the formal ban to vote for its own country, it is THE golden rule of the Eurovision. Everything is made at the technical level so that we cannot break it.

The votes

We know a new era in the system of the vote of the Eurovision since 2016. What it is necessary to understand for the votes within the Eurovision is that there are those of the reviewers, the TVs-votes, and those of the juries of every country.

Globally, before 2016, every country combined the votes of its TV viewers and its juries and announced it during the famous distribution of points (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12 points). Now, both types of votes are separated. So, there is at first an announcement of the votes of every country, the votes of juries thus, then the votes of all the viewers announced by the country host. It adds a lot of suspense!

Unfortunately, the first part of the Eurovision was yesterday... But you have until Saturday to catch up!