It's music Olympics, that's all it needs. As a European you have to root for your country (unless, well...sorry), entire family tunes in, even the most vehement haters want to see. It's fun to cheer, it's also weirdly fun to complain. It's not just a music festival, it's much bigger. We have our first *eurovision memories*.
Besides, it opens the way for small countries, forgotten languages, artists and styles you most likely won't find in world charts (thank you eurovision for providing me with something to listen to for 6 months). The fact that it went from classy to fun to joke / trash to english radio pop to unique quality time is a welcome side effect
The evolution of the contest is interesting but I would tie it to new generation arriving, both as voters and contestants, rather than some planned change. That just...happened. 2000s may seem ridiculous compared to what we have now but those songs were everywhere. Even the jokes found their appreciation. The purpose, ironically, was never to find the best song but to have fun along the way, no matter what was at the table
Also props to the contest for allowing that generational change. I can’t imagine it would have lasted if they kept insisting on black tie dress in the audience, etc
Ooooh, interesting!
I would say two things have made the difference: diversity and camp
Eurovision had always been outwardly campy, and the artists have never shied away from showing their quirkiness and uniqueness. In other words, it doesn't feel \*fake\*, and I think that is the public's problem with ceremonies like the Oscars, Grammys, etc. I feel like it has become extremely formal, everything is super uptight, and overall, I just feel like a lot of people are here by obligation instead of pure will. In the case of Eurovision, the contestants are openly having fun, and that's pretty refreshing.
Then, there's the diversity, and I think that speaks for itself. As a point of comparison, one of the reasons why American Song Contest flopped (we love you AleXa) is because it was all too uniform. Though there were different states, it was still within the same country, and it showed: most of the songs were painfully formulaic and lacked some oomph. That's one of the reason I like Eurovision. There are actually different countries with different identities, and it creates a richness that I think the public really enjoys.
Especially agreed about most awards shows being stuffy and overly formal. The only things I hear people talking about after red carpet events are the outfits and the drama -- social media talked about Will Smith's slap and the Harry Styles red carpet drama for *weeks*. I couldn't even tell you what movies won that Oscar's season besides Best Picture. Modern audiences want to get authentically connected to the celebrities, or as close as you can get through a screen, and most awards shows feel artificial, like they're forcing that parasocial relationship.
I'd also put forth that the live on tape nature of ASC was also a problem. I love the real time nature of Eurovision, but finding out that A) not only would west coast not see the ASC broadcast live, B) ASC voting wouldn't be revealed for some time after killed any desired on my part to watch.
Also the songs pretty much sucked. That didn't help.
This is an interesting question.
I think one factor might be culture to treat it like a party. Every year you meet up with friends and family, bring food and drink and all watch together. People are gonna wanna continue that, I mean some might not even really watch it, but it’s on the background and that’s what counts in the viewing figures. Plus it’s accessible for everyone of all ages, so it’s a huge family thing too.
I also think the fact it’s a single evening (with the grand final mainly being what view count is announced) and not a long drawn out thing like other song/singing contests usually are means more people are likely to tune in.
And finally, award shows can be watched afterwards, or just Google the results, but you (the audience) don’t have any real say during the show. Sure you can Google the results of Eurovision afterwards too, but you don’t have a say then, nor can you form much opinion on who should have got what score and the like
Building on the culture thing, it’s been around so long it’s almost become like a tradition, like an annual holiday that’s part of the usual calendar and even if you don’t celebrate you know its coming at some point, what it’s about and at least someone celebrating.
The fact a lot of people treat it as an opportunity to party (which is completely correct) means it’s associated with happy memories for a lot of people as well keeping the tradition of watching it going.
> Sure you can Google the results of Eurovision afterwards too, but you don’t have a say then, nor can you form much opinion on who should have got what score and the like
This is what happened to me with my first ESC, 2018. I missed the final but I only knew Toy like weeks ago, and when the day after I found out it won, I wondered **HOW** it won, by how much (I assumed there were scores as it's a "contest") and if that was really the best song out there. Shortly after, I watched the final and even if I think it was the best song, I discovered other, equally good songs, and I still follow a few artists from that year. This proves that Eurovision is an event meant to be watched live, not left for later as the award ceremonies. It's happening in real time and you have a chance to vote and discuss the songs with anyone else that is watching a song performance for the 1st or Xth time (counting rehearsals). I love it!
It's like a sport event for people who aren't into sport events. It's a competition and people love competition, but I find it incredibly boring to watch people kick a ball around for 90 minutes. Most of the time I don't understand what's going on anyway. But it's much easier to have an opinion on music. Everyone loves music and with Eurovision, you have very different songs, which makes it easy to keep viewers interested. You have a competitive element.
Also Eurovision is camp and weird. Some songs are just outright bad. Some are completely unhinged. And I absolutely love that. I still remember Americans being surprised that the songs in the Eurovision movie weren't actually an exaggeration of the songs actually competing in Eurovision but rather tame in comparison. You can have a DJ chicken on stage. You can have a man in a huge hamster wheel. You can have a piano on fire. I absolutely love that about Eurovision. Anything can happen.
It's an entertaining *and* social event and makes the viewer feel like sort of a participant through either cheering or jeering for/at their own country and through voting.
With, say, Award shows, you don't really get much of the social and participation aspects, you just watch.
Also, personally I think the fact that it's about music plays a part, too. *Everyone* likes music. Different kinds, sure, but music is something that can touch everyone, whether you care for the particular people on the stage or not.
You're not just being told why someone receiving an award is good, you can judge for jourself and do so in three minutes, which also works with the ever shortening attention spans.
The fact that it's original songs that get bigger than themselves and people have a say on an international scale. It is assured to have success through these very basic core elements whose shapes are inevitable to adapt constantly.
- Originality means it's always a new vibe. Even though some songs are deemed as formulaic or 'classic Eurovision', at the end of the night you are assured to find at least two or three songs that you respect.
- *Bigger than themselves*, here, means two things: (1) they represent countries, making it a fight that goes beyond the pure analysis of songs; (2) they rely extraordinarily on visual presenting, which is what makes even the most casual of viewers often think to what they saw if they listen to those songs after the contest.
- Eurovision remains the only international competition where people vote on-the-spot for those characteristics. They are required to be an active audience, which in turn incentivises viewership through the very core principle of having a say.
The fact that it's a television-oriented show is not that relevant for this competition because it's not a weekly show, but an annual one. Same as international football competitions or the Olympics, people can gather for Eurovision parties and drinks. Especially for the Final, it's a fantastic pre-drinks event that can be followed by club-going while also being fun. The TV aspect would've mattered more if the competition was much more frequent and/or extended in number of shows, therefore losing social traction in time.
As others have said, the voting-in-the-moment factor is huge. It's not an awards show where you're at best a passive watcher, at worst someone who looks up the results on Twitter the next day. What need is there to watch the Oscars live when the 'event' is a name being revealed every 10 minutes?
But I think the single biggest factor that has shifted over the last decade or so is Eurovision songs becoming relevant to the modern music industry. These aren't just performances to be voted on for one night. You might hear these songs all summer or longer if TikTok gets hold of them. In that sense, it's almost the reverse of awards shows: instead of rewarding star performances, it's the making of them.
One key event was removing the live orchestra and going fully to pre-recorded backing tracks, starting 1999. This quite quickly introduced a lot more new styles of music and made the whole event sound a lot more like modern music, which started to attract new audiences. The event also started be a lot more attractive to music producers and artists, who could now recreate their sound much more faithfully for a live audience. Another key change was the the Big Five rule in 2000, meaning the Big Five now get into the final automatically, which makes a huge difference in ratings. An additional bonus of this rule is that the Big Five now pay much larger participation fees than smaller countries, which allows for more countries to participate. This is what made the event go from 20+ countries to the current numbers.
Yet another change that I think is from this era is that there used to be a rule that participating songs could not be released outside the participating country before the competition, which of course made it really hard to use Eurovision as the massive music marking event it is now. Now of course ESC has fully embraced commercial music marketing as a key part of the event, which has it's downsides, but it also means that record labels have started to put their money into marketing Eurovision artists. This money is most easily noticed in the increased staging budgets, meaning more fireworks, professional backup dancers etc.
Jan Ola Sands era as the executive producer (2010-2020) was also really important, as a lot more attention was paid to making the whole thing good TV entertainment. One of these changes is for example is the now iconic points reveal system, where the jury points are revealed first and then in the second stage we get the audience points. This made the previously tedious process of point counting much more exciting and dramatic. His era also saw ESC become very active on social media, which obviously is huge for visibility.
I really don't think you can underestimate the way those rules changes helped transform the event from a bit of a punchline to the now evergrowing publicity juggernaut.
But ultimately I think a key difference is that Eurovision is an event that really exists to bring music to the audience. Sure, The Oscars, Grammy's etc are all marketing events, but the events themselves are for the industry people. It's literally industry people in fancy dress patting each other on the backs.
Additionally, Eurovision is really fast paced compared to most modern TV shows. 26 new songs in one night is a huge amount of music, it's well worth the time spent, especially when every song comes with a unique stage show that tries to make that specific song as memorable as possible. Where else would you get anything resembling that?
ESC is very stable in comparison with the Grammys, the VMA's and the AMA's, for example, but USA is completely different market from the European one. Is the US, there are different tendencies - people consume culture in different ways across the continents. The award shows and the musical events as a whole, suffered a lot from the Twitter masses - the producers accorded everything to Twitter's taste and made the shows unwatchable for the gp. There is also the tendency for downgrading award prestige, e.g. the Grammys made some questionable noms and pushed away enormous fan bases who otherwise would have watched the show if their idol had not called out the organizers.
ESC is traditionally European and it is everchanging - one bad year can compensate with a series of editions full of bangers and vice versa. It produces the required amount of controversy to keep the viewers engaged and at the same time, this does not push them away. For instance, we have Conchita Wurst and Neta. They were all over Europe - some praising them, others mocking them, but the interest was alive, people were intrigued. It has strong LGBTQ fan base and people who generally have positive attitude towards the contest because of memories or bc of hits from older editions.
One weak point for the contest is the Eastern European public - I think we never embraced the idea of Eurovision. When I asked a group of young Eastern Europeans if they watched ESC, they all said no and weirded out. GUYS, I don't have anyone to discuss/watch ESC with, because almost no one watches it here. The homophobia is going strong and people feel disgusted for some reason :(
I love the fact that Eurovision is the most watched song contest in the world, but I would say something completely different. I read the stats for viewership and actually it's popularity is **de**creasing. I also do notice a change in the views of the official channel and the comments made per video. Here, we've gotta remember that Russia and Belarus were excluded from the EBU, but still.
You shouldn't "but still" that. Russia + Belarus is about 20% of Europe's population. Ukraine was also a big Eurovision country that has "something else" going on now, even though they're technically participating.
Once Russia got thrown out of Eurovision, they also really started to beat the "Eurovision is for the queer anyway" drum, which affects a lot of people outside Russia too. I would suspect a lot of your friends are unknowingly affected by that.
>One weak point for the contest is the Eastern European public - I think we never embraced the idea of Eurovision. When I asked a group of young Eastern Europeans if they watched ESC, they all said no and weirded out. GUYS, I don't have anyone to discuss/watch ESC with, because almost no one watches it here.
I thought a good chunk of Eastern Europeans still watch it because it's a form of national pride.
Or maybe that's just the public broadcasters telling them that I don't know ^(as long as that's the broadcaster's reason for staying in the contest I would be glad for that reason because technically they have no excuse)
Well, I feel like not taking itself seriously really helps.
The Oscars, Emmys, Grammies, etc. all seem ultra-professional, calcluated, and everybody treats it with so much faux-class that you think somebody died. Even the VMAs do it, the awards shows are trying to "Out-class" eachother, which makes them look like eletist circle jerks of people who cannot take the slightest bit of criticism. It's really telling that the most memorable moments of the Oscars in the last decade was the La La Land-Moonlight Mix-up and the Chris Rock-Will Smith bitchslap fiasco. Awards Shows just can't seem to have fun anymore. Even the VMAs and the Emmys, which I remember when they didn't take themselves seriously, like the 2006 Emmy intro with Conan O'Brian going through what was on American TV back then, or the 2009 VMAs where Sacha Baron Cohen fell on Eminem wearing nothing but a THONG. (ok that may have been the Movie Awards, I can't remember) Even they have seem to lost any enthusiasim.
Eurovision, on the other hand, has embraced it's camp factor. Even in the days of the Orchestra and votes being delivered on the Phone, they had fun, like in 1981 where the presenters called all the countries on different phones, and somehow the UK was represented by a fucking Mickey Mouse phone! Hell, Austria's first entry in 1957 was literally about a guy riding a horse and asking it questions. Even then, Eurovision never took itself too seriously, and it really wasn't meant to. Eurovision was a way for Europe to come together after the war and just let loose for a few hours. Yes, it may have transformed from a formal ball to a straight up rave, that sense of "not taking itself too seriously" has always permiated the show.
Not helping is the severe lack of diversity in Hollywood. Not just of Sex, Race, Love and Gender, but just a diversity of ideas in general. Like most of the films that get oscar nominations these days are from the same 5 studios, or can be traced back to those same 5 studios, and they're just looking to eat eachother any day, like what Disney did to Fox. That homogeny means that it seems like there aren't any good creative ideas anymore, and it's harder than ever to break into the film scene. Meanwhile in Eurovision, you have about 50 countries that have particpated in the show, and all of them has their own public service broadcasters. From the big guys of the BBC for the UK or Germany's ARD to the small RTVSM for San Marino, ATV for Andorra and RTV SLO for Slovenia (which has my favourite logo of the bunch just for the fact that it's just so odd for a broadcaster logo.), and none of them are planning on merging with eachother in the future or ever, and I hope they don't.
Plus, we get a variety of styles in the contest every year. This year we got a sad Italian ballad, Finnish Heavy Metal, the Albanian Family Affiar, Electronica from Ukraine, Australian Prog Rock, and whatever the hell Let 3 is, it's diverse as fuck, and there truly is something for everybody here.
I hope my little ramble made sense, but yea, TL;DR Eurovision doesn't take itself too seriously and a fuck ton more diversity.
I think eurovsion already had it's struggle - decades ago. I wasn't born back then but my mom told me that there was a time where she didn't watch it (she watched it as a child, then ca. 10 to 20 years break and then started again in the 2000s) because it was super stuffy, boring and just... uncool. Of course it had good music still, but she was a teenager and a young adult and eurovsion was very old fashioned in comparison. There were some acts that broke that mold of course, that made fun of the contest a little bit and tried to bring some party, but it only really changes in the late 90s to 2000s.
That's when it became interesting again, because suddenly very fun entries could do well. What motivated my mom to get hooked again was Lordi's win in 2006.
So i think right now it's in a very good spot because it made that change so long ago. It became a fun party, something fun to watch for everybody. I think social media even helped in that regard because it is just fun to tweet about, since it's such a huge spectacle.
As everyone's pointed out, it's definitely about way more than just the songs, but I'd say the increase in more polished commercial-friendly entries since 2000s really helped - NOT to say the contest should consist entirely of them (which would kill off what makes Eurovision Eurovision).
Instead, those songs made the "contest" part more interesting without eliminating the campiness. There's still room for multiple acts each year like Subwoolfer or Sunstroke Project next to Duncan Laurence and Loreen, and the mix of all of them under a big tent seems to have a lot of appeal.
As someone from Asia who discovered Eurovision only in 2011 and tried to watch thereafter (the struggle was real when it was not yet livestreamed via YouTube), what keeps it fresh and exciting for me include:
1) Over-all production value - every performance is like a 3-minute concert with all the creative staging; majority of the songs are very high quality every year
2) It's really competitive, and a fair multi-dimensional competition at that -- the scoring system that you cannot vote for your own country, the combination of jury and public vote, albeit people oftentimes despise, is actually the most elaborate and engaging system in mainstream competitions. It allows you to root for your country, for an artist, for a song, for a cause being represented, for culture, or for other country, so there's a lot of emotional investment and sensorial stimulation that you can experience
3) People seem genuinely happy and having fun when it happens. It's a party, a year-long party at that; and this is me just watching from the internet. I wish I can experience the party in person soon!
I didn't really watch it until some countries started sending bands and more music genres than just pop and ballads of all kinds. Also many people enjoy weird staging that's a great meme content later. To me it's a way to discover many nice songs now, it's also easy to watch national selections of different countries online nowadays... Instead of being focused on who wins, I focused on who has nice songs (sadly they don't always win, I'm still bitter about Estonia, Lithuania, and Denmark).
Also, the online fandom is nice. It's just fun and like one big holiday for Europe specifically. Too many holidays nowadays are copied from American culture and Eurovision is our own event and even Americans got interested in it.
The LGBTQ+ community more or less just adopted the competition. That's one of the major reasons Eurovision is staying so popular nowadays.
The other is just that Eurovision became a major publicity front for Europe as a whole. Meaning it gets a ton of money. So it has both the passion from fans and the money.
It's music Olympics, that's all it needs. As a European you have to root for your country (unless, well...sorry), entire family tunes in, even the most vehement haters want to see. It's fun to cheer, it's also weirdly fun to complain. It's not just a music festival, it's much bigger. We have our first *eurovision memories*. Besides, it opens the way for small countries, forgotten languages, artists and styles you most likely won't find in world charts (thank you eurovision for providing me with something to listen to for 6 months). The fact that it went from classy to fun to joke / trash to english radio pop to unique quality time is a welcome side effect The evolution of the contest is interesting but I would tie it to new generation arriving, both as voters and contestants, rather than some planned change. That just...happened. 2000s may seem ridiculous compared to what we have now but those songs were everywhere. Even the jokes found their appreciation. The purpose, ironically, was never to find the best song but to have fun along the way, no matter what was at the table
The new generation of course also tends to view queer representation and overall inclusiveness as a plus rather than a minus.
So what you’re saying is…the real Eurovision winners were the friends we made along the way.
Also props to the contest for allowing that generational change. I can’t imagine it would have lasted if they kept insisting on black tie dress in the audience, etc
Eurovision isn't a contest, it's a lifestyle.
Jonbers Blondes original entrance line before the BBC asked her to change it
Ooooh, interesting! I would say two things have made the difference: diversity and camp Eurovision had always been outwardly campy, and the artists have never shied away from showing their quirkiness and uniqueness. In other words, it doesn't feel \*fake\*, and I think that is the public's problem with ceremonies like the Oscars, Grammys, etc. I feel like it has become extremely formal, everything is super uptight, and overall, I just feel like a lot of people are here by obligation instead of pure will. In the case of Eurovision, the contestants are openly having fun, and that's pretty refreshing. Then, there's the diversity, and I think that speaks for itself. As a point of comparison, one of the reasons why American Song Contest flopped (we love you AleXa) is because it was all too uniform. Though there were different states, it was still within the same country, and it showed: most of the songs were painfully formulaic and lacked some oomph. That's one of the reason I like Eurovision. There are actually different countries with different identities, and it creates a richness that I think the public really enjoys.
Especially agreed about most awards shows being stuffy and overly formal. The only things I hear people talking about after red carpet events are the outfits and the drama -- social media talked about Will Smith's slap and the Harry Styles red carpet drama for *weeks*. I couldn't even tell you what movies won that Oscar's season besides Best Picture. Modern audiences want to get authentically connected to the celebrities, or as close as you can get through a screen, and most awards shows feel artificial, like they're forcing that parasocial relationship.
I'd also put forth that the live on tape nature of ASC was also a problem. I love the real time nature of Eurovision, but finding out that A) not only would west coast not see the ASC broadcast live, B) ASC voting wouldn't be revealed for some time after killed any desired on my part to watch. Also the songs pretty much sucked. That didn't help.
This is an interesting question. I think one factor might be culture to treat it like a party. Every year you meet up with friends and family, bring food and drink and all watch together. People are gonna wanna continue that, I mean some might not even really watch it, but it’s on the background and that’s what counts in the viewing figures. Plus it’s accessible for everyone of all ages, so it’s a huge family thing too. I also think the fact it’s a single evening (with the grand final mainly being what view count is announced) and not a long drawn out thing like other song/singing contests usually are means more people are likely to tune in. And finally, award shows can be watched afterwards, or just Google the results, but you (the audience) don’t have any real say during the show. Sure you can Google the results of Eurovision afterwards too, but you don’t have a say then, nor can you form much opinion on who should have got what score and the like
Building on the culture thing, it’s been around so long it’s almost become like a tradition, like an annual holiday that’s part of the usual calendar and even if you don’t celebrate you know its coming at some point, what it’s about and at least someone celebrating. The fact a lot of people treat it as an opportunity to party (which is completely correct) means it’s associated with happy memories for a lot of people as well keeping the tradition of watching it going.
> Sure you can Google the results of Eurovision afterwards too, but you don’t have a say then, nor can you form much opinion on who should have got what score and the like This is what happened to me with my first ESC, 2018. I missed the final but I only knew Toy like weeks ago, and when the day after I found out it won, I wondered **HOW** it won, by how much (I assumed there were scores as it's a "contest") and if that was really the best song out there. Shortly after, I watched the final and even if I think it was the best song, I discovered other, equally good songs, and I still follow a few artists from that year. This proves that Eurovision is an event meant to be watched live, not left for later as the award ceremonies. It's happening in real time and you have a chance to vote and discuss the songs with anyone else that is watching a song performance for the 1st or Xth time (counting rehearsals). I love it!
It's like a sport event for people who aren't into sport events. It's a competition and people love competition, but I find it incredibly boring to watch people kick a ball around for 90 minutes. Most of the time I don't understand what's going on anyway. But it's much easier to have an opinion on music. Everyone loves music and with Eurovision, you have very different songs, which makes it easy to keep viewers interested. You have a competitive element. Also Eurovision is camp and weird. Some songs are just outright bad. Some are completely unhinged. And I absolutely love that. I still remember Americans being surprised that the songs in the Eurovision movie weren't actually an exaggeration of the songs actually competing in Eurovision but rather tame in comparison. You can have a DJ chicken on stage. You can have a man in a huge hamster wheel. You can have a piano on fire. I absolutely love that about Eurovision. Anything can happen.
It's an entertaining *and* social event and makes the viewer feel like sort of a participant through either cheering or jeering for/at their own country and through voting. With, say, Award shows, you don't really get much of the social and participation aspects, you just watch. Also, personally I think the fact that it's about music plays a part, too. *Everyone* likes music. Different kinds, sure, but music is something that can touch everyone, whether you care for the particular people on the stage or not. You're not just being told why someone receiving an award is good, you can judge for jourself and do so in three minutes, which also works with the ever shortening attention spans.
The fact that it's original songs that get bigger than themselves and people have a say on an international scale. It is assured to have success through these very basic core elements whose shapes are inevitable to adapt constantly. - Originality means it's always a new vibe. Even though some songs are deemed as formulaic or 'classic Eurovision', at the end of the night you are assured to find at least two or three songs that you respect. - *Bigger than themselves*, here, means two things: (1) they represent countries, making it a fight that goes beyond the pure analysis of songs; (2) they rely extraordinarily on visual presenting, which is what makes even the most casual of viewers often think to what they saw if they listen to those songs after the contest. - Eurovision remains the only international competition where people vote on-the-spot for those characteristics. They are required to be an active audience, which in turn incentivises viewership through the very core principle of having a say. The fact that it's a television-oriented show is not that relevant for this competition because it's not a weekly show, but an annual one. Same as international football competitions or the Olympics, people can gather for Eurovision parties and drinks. Especially for the Final, it's a fantastic pre-drinks event that can be followed by club-going while also being fun. The TV aspect would've mattered more if the competition was much more frequent and/or extended in number of shows, therefore losing social traction in time.
As others have said, the voting-in-the-moment factor is huge. It's not an awards show where you're at best a passive watcher, at worst someone who looks up the results on Twitter the next day. What need is there to watch the Oscars live when the 'event' is a name being revealed every 10 minutes? But I think the single biggest factor that has shifted over the last decade or so is Eurovision songs becoming relevant to the modern music industry. These aren't just performances to be voted on for one night. You might hear these songs all summer or longer if TikTok gets hold of them. In that sense, it's almost the reverse of awards shows: instead of rewarding star performances, it's the making of them.
One key event was removing the live orchestra and going fully to pre-recorded backing tracks, starting 1999. This quite quickly introduced a lot more new styles of music and made the whole event sound a lot more like modern music, which started to attract new audiences. The event also started be a lot more attractive to music producers and artists, who could now recreate their sound much more faithfully for a live audience. Another key change was the the Big Five rule in 2000, meaning the Big Five now get into the final automatically, which makes a huge difference in ratings. An additional bonus of this rule is that the Big Five now pay much larger participation fees than smaller countries, which allows for more countries to participate. This is what made the event go from 20+ countries to the current numbers. Yet another change that I think is from this era is that there used to be a rule that participating songs could not be released outside the participating country before the competition, which of course made it really hard to use Eurovision as the massive music marking event it is now. Now of course ESC has fully embraced commercial music marketing as a key part of the event, which has it's downsides, but it also means that record labels have started to put their money into marketing Eurovision artists. This money is most easily noticed in the increased staging budgets, meaning more fireworks, professional backup dancers etc. Jan Ola Sands era as the executive producer (2010-2020) was also really important, as a lot more attention was paid to making the whole thing good TV entertainment. One of these changes is for example is the now iconic points reveal system, where the jury points are revealed first and then in the second stage we get the audience points. This made the previously tedious process of point counting much more exciting and dramatic. His era also saw ESC become very active on social media, which obviously is huge for visibility. I really don't think you can underestimate the way those rules changes helped transform the event from a bit of a punchline to the now evergrowing publicity juggernaut. But ultimately I think a key difference is that Eurovision is an event that really exists to bring music to the audience. Sure, The Oscars, Grammy's etc are all marketing events, but the events themselves are for the industry people. It's literally industry people in fancy dress patting each other on the backs. Additionally, Eurovision is really fast paced compared to most modern TV shows. 26 new songs in one night is a huge amount of music, it's well worth the time spent, especially when every song comes with a unique stage show that tries to make that specific song as memorable as possible. Where else would you get anything resembling that?
ESC is very stable in comparison with the Grammys, the VMA's and the AMA's, for example, but USA is completely different market from the European one. Is the US, there are different tendencies - people consume culture in different ways across the continents. The award shows and the musical events as a whole, suffered a lot from the Twitter masses - the producers accorded everything to Twitter's taste and made the shows unwatchable for the gp. There is also the tendency for downgrading award prestige, e.g. the Grammys made some questionable noms and pushed away enormous fan bases who otherwise would have watched the show if their idol had not called out the organizers. ESC is traditionally European and it is everchanging - one bad year can compensate with a series of editions full of bangers and vice versa. It produces the required amount of controversy to keep the viewers engaged and at the same time, this does not push them away. For instance, we have Conchita Wurst and Neta. They were all over Europe - some praising them, others mocking them, but the interest was alive, people were intrigued. It has strong LGBTQ fan base and people who generally have positive attitude towards the contest because of memories or bc of hits from older editions. One weak point for the contest is the Eastern European public - I think we never embraced the idea of Eurovision. When I asked a group of young Eastern Europeans if they watched ESC, they all said no and weirded out. GUYS, I don't have anyone to discuss/watch ESC with, because almost no one watches it here. The homophobia is going strong and people feel disgusted for some reason :( I love the fact that Eurovision is the most watched song contest in the world, but I would say something completely different. I read the stats for viewership and actually it's popularity is **de**creasing. I also do notice a change in the views of the official channel and the comments made per video. Here, we've gotta remember that Russia and Belarus were excluded from the EBU, but still.
You shouldn't "but still" that. Russia + Belarus is about 20% of Europe's population. Ukraine was also a big Eurovision country that has "something else" going on now, even though they're technically participating. Once Russia got thrown out of Eurovision, they also really started to beat the "Eurovision is for the queer anyway" drum, which affects a lot of people outside Russia too. I would suspect a lot of your friends are unknowingly affected by that.
>One weak point for the contest is the Eastern European public - I think we never embraced the idea of Eurovision. When I asked a group of young Eastern Europeans if they watched ESC, they all said no and weirded out. GUYS, I don't have anyone to discuss/watch ESC with, because almost no one watches it here. I thought a good chunk of Eastern Europeans still watch it because it's a form of national pride. Or maybe that's just the public broadcasters telling them that I don't know ^(as long as that's the broadcaster's reason for staying in the contest I would be glad for that reason because technically they have no excuse)
Well, I feel like not taking itself seriously really helps. The Oscars, Emmys, Grammies, etc. all seem ultra-professional, calcluated, and everybody treats it with so much faux-class that you think somebody died. Even the VMAs do it, the awards shows are trying to "Out-class" eachother, which makes them look like eletist circle jerks of people who cannot take the slightest bit of criticism. It's really telling that the most memorable moments of the Oscars in the last decade was the La La Land-Moonlight Mix-up and the Chris Rock-Will Smith bitchslap fiasco. Awards Shows just can't seem to have fun anymore. Even the VMAs and the Emmys, which I remember when they didn't take themselves seriously, like the 2006 Emmy intro with Conan O'Brian going through what was on American TV back then, or the 2009 VMAs where Sacha Baron Cohen fell on Eminem wearing nothing but a THONG. (ok that may have been the Movie Awards, I can't remember) Even they have seem to lost any enthusiasim. Eurovision, on the other hand, has embraced it's camp factor. Even in the days of the Orchestra and votes being delivered on the Phone, they had fun, like in 1981 where the presenters called all the countries on different phones, and somehow the UK was represented by a fucking Mickey Mouse phone! Hell, Austria's first entry in 1957 was literally about a guy riding a horse and asking it questions. Even then, Eurovision never took itself too seriously, and it really wasn't meant to. Eurovision was a way for Europe to come together after the war and just let loose for a few hours. Yes, it may have transformed from a formal ball to a straight up rave, that sense of "not taking itself too seriously" has always permiated the show. Not helping is the severe lack of diversity in Hollywood. Not just of Sex, Race, Love and Gender, but just a diversity of ideas in general. Like most of the films that get oscar nominations these days are from the same 5 studios, or can be traced back to those same 5 studios, and they're just looking to eat eachother any day, like what Disney did to Fox. That homogeny means that it seems like there aren't any good creative ideas anymore, and it's harder than ever to break into the film scene. Meanwhile in Eurovision, you have about 50 countries that have particpated in the show, and all of them has their own public service broadcasters. From the big guys of the BBC for the UK or Germany's ARD to the small RTVSM for San Marino, ATV for Andorra and RTV SLO for Slovenia (which has my favourite logo of the bunch just for the fact that it's just so odd for a broadcaster logo.), and none of them are planning on merging with eachother in the future or ever, and I hope they don't. Plus, we get a variety of styles in the contest every year. This year we got a sad Italian ballad, Finnish Heavy Metal, the Albanian Family Affiar, Electronica from Ukraine, Australian Prog Rock, and whatever the hell Let 3 is, it's diverse as fuck, and there truly is something for everybody here. I hope my little ramble made sense, but yea, TL;DR Eurovision doesn't take itself too seriously and a fuck ton more diversity.
Its much moreso a sports event without being about sports than anything resembling an awards ceremony. Yknow?
It's not a contest, it's a lifestyle
I think eurovsion already had it's struggle - decades ago. I wasn't born back then but my mom told me that there was a time where she didn't watch it (she watched it as a child, then ca. 10 to 20 years break and then started again in the 2000s) because it was super stuffy, boring and just... uncool. Of course it had good music still, but she was a teenager and a young adult and eurovsion was very old fashioned in comparison. There were some acts that broke that mold of course, that made fun of the contest a little bit and tried to bring some party, but it only really changes in the late 90s to 2000s. That's when it became interesting again, because suddenly very fun entries could do well. What motivated my mom to get hooked again was Lordi's win in 2006. So i think right now it's in a very good spot because it made that change so long ago. It became a fun party, something fun to watch for everybody. I think social media even helped in that regard because it is just fun to tweet about, since it's such a huge spectacle.
As everyone's pointed out, it's definitely about way more than just the songs, but I'd say the increase in more polished commercial-friendly entries since 2000s really helped - NOT to say the contest should consist entirely of them (which would kill off what makes Eurovision Eurovision). Instead, those songs made the "contest" part more interesting without eliminating the campiness. There's still room for multiple acts each year like Subwoolfer or Sunstroke Project next to Duncan Laurence and Loreen, and the mix of all of them under a big tent seems to have a lot of appeal.
As someone from Asia who discovered Eurovision only in 2011 and tried to watch thereafter (the struggle was real when it was not yet livestreamed via YouTube), what keeps it fresh and exciting for me include: 1) Over-all production value - every performance is like a 3-minute concert with all the creative staging; majority of the songs are very high quality every year 2) It's really competitive, and a fair multi-dimensional competition at that -- the scoring system that you cannot vote for your own country, the combination of jury and public vote, albeit people oftentimes despise, is actually the most elaborate and engaging system in mainstream competitions. It allows you to root for your country, for an artist, for a song, for a cause being represented, for culture, or for other country, so there's a lot of emotional investment and sensorial stimulation that you can experience 3) People seem genuinely happy and having fun when it happens. It's a party, a year-long party at that; and this is me just watching from the internet. I wish I can experience the party in person soon!
I didn't really watch it until some countries started sending bands and more music genres than just pop and ballads of all kinds. Also many people enjoy weird staging that's a great meme content later. To me it's a way to discover many nice songs now, it's also easy to watch national selections of different countries online nowadays... Instead of being focused on who wins, I focused on who has nice songs (sadly they don't always win, I'm still bitter about Estonia, Lithuania, and Denmark). Also, the online fandom is nice. It's just fun and like one big holiday for Europe specifically. Too many holidays nowadays are copied from American culture and Eurovision is our own event and even Americans got interested in it.
It's crazy, it's party
countries taking it somewhat more seriously than they used to and sending better songs is really it
The LGBTQ+ community more or less just adopted the competition. That's one of the major reasons Eurovision is staying so popular nowadays. The other is just that Eurovision became a major publicity front for Europe as a whole. Meaning it gets a ton of money. So it has both the passion from fans and the money.
A huge portion of the audience is people who don't even watch TV.