Oh no – it’s a year-round extravaganza!
So while in Australia we might flick on SBS for a dose of Euro-cheese once a year (or perhaps three times if you’re truly dedicated/obsessed and tune in to the semi-finals as well), across Europe they’re living and breathing Eurovision for months on end.
This is because most countries have detailed and often exhaustive processes in place to select their singers for the Eurovision stage – indeed, many of these seemingly-endless quests are coming to an end as we speak.
For example, Azerbaijan’s selection process, Böyük Səhnə, featured six rounds of auditions, a “supercasting” consisting of five live TV shows, three televised heats and then, mercifully, a final. And this was just to choose the singer – they haven’t even announced the song yet! Yep, they’re pretty serious about Eurovision out in Baku.
And as we know, Scandinavian countries also take their Eurovision entries extremely seriously – hence why they so often win. Sweden's selection program, Melodifestivalen, has become a European institution. It features six live TV shows, each featuring a line-up of the country’s biggest pop acts, and the field is gradually whittled down through a series of finals until the ultimate winner is decided. It’s like a massive version of The X Factor, except solely focused on Eurovision.
No wonder the Swedes have come out on top so many times, most recently with Loreen in 2012. Her song was so popular thanks to its extensive pre-competition promotion that it was topping the charts across Europe before Eurovision even went to air.
Similarly, the other Nordic powerhouses also have lengthy, popular selection processes, with host nation Denmark and recent winner Norway wrapping up their respective Melodi Grand Prix competitions in the coming days.
Of course, there are other ways of choosing an entrant without a drawn-out song-and-dance. San Marino are simply sending Valentina Monetta along for the third year in a row - yes, she of the execrable Facebook song a couple of years ago (admitted, this may be because she is the only singer in San Marino, but still).
Austria was one of the first countries to reveal their entrant for 2014, with the state broadcaster announcing in September 2013 that they’d selected drag artist Conchita Wurst to represent them in Copenhagen. However this internal selection caused a bit of an uproar, with disgruntled fans taking to Facebook to protest the lack of a public vote – however sadly much of this outrage was basically homophobic attacks against Conchita’s alter-ego Tom Neuwirth rather than any kind of legitimate Eurovision selection grievance.
This week, the UK revealed their choice: Molly Smitten-Downes, a 26-year-old unsigned artist who was selected by the producers after they browsed through the up-and-comers on BBC Introducing (basically the BBC’s version of Triple J’s Unearthed):
On this blog, Guy Freeman, the BBC’s Eurovision Executive Producer explains that they wanted to take a different approach this year, and instead of just digging up some washed-up old pop act (like Bonnie Tyler last year and Engelbert Humperdinck in 2012), they decided to find someone who might actually, you know, win.
So what do you think? London 2015?
