Welcome to our August edition of the ESC Insight newsletter. Here we are giving you the latest news and views from across the Eurovision circuit even in these off-season months.
Check out the Newsletter through this link and read on about the selection deadlines and calendar dates for your diary, as well as the National Finals coming this week in the world of Junior Eurovision. Our in-depth feature from Newsletter Editor Ben Robertson this week is all about Switzerland. Once again forming their three-country selection process for the new year, Ben gives the format from the Alpine nation a critical eye.
“Perhaps I am too hasty to suggest a need to change after one bad result, but Switzerland’s qualification figures with this combined format are poor. Only two in five entries made it to the Saturday night, and Anna Rossinelli was frankly the lucky jury darling that made her inoffensive na-na-na-na-na’s fodder for middling scores across the continent come Tuesday May 10th. Switzerland’s insistence to keep with their original formula strikes of a lack of ambition, and fails to address many of the problems their selection process has.
Firstly, the online format SRF use just doesn’t generate the levels of excitement it should. The voting system is faffy at best. In the one month uploading window, fans can favourite songs that put them higher up the viewing list online, but real votes don’t count until a later window. It’s like a F1 race where you can get in pole position, but it doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s daft. It’s a cynical ploy by SRF to keep supporters coming back to their website for weeks on end and generates a dull and tiresome voting window. Much more engaging would be releasing all the songs simultaneously and generating one big media output than lots of tiny bursts.”
To read the rest of Ben’s views and the rest of the ESC Insight newsletter, then make sure to click through on the link here. If you like what you read then subscribe to the newsletter so every post gets sent straight to your inbox as soon as it is ready.
The Swiss broadcasters really need to shake things up a bit, you’re right that their national selection has become really stagnant. It’s a shame because as one of the first nations to choose they have the potential to really get NF season off with a bang, but they seem content to tread water. I can’t help but think that the long and arduous process must be quite off-putting to some of the country’s bigger names too.
With such a distinguished Eurovision history and a unique mix of cultures to draw from, it’s a crime that their entries tend to be so bland and faceless.