Welcome to another ESC Insight Newsletter that gives you the latest news and views on the Eurovision Song Contest in all its forms. The latest newsletter is available to view here.
With news this week on the latest Eurovision workshop in Berlin for delegations, the first artists of the year and some songs for Junior Eurovision the action is starting to bubble once again in Eurovision world. With the main news being that the Big 5 are now a part of the Eurovision Semi Finals more, Robertson’s Reflection this week considers what else could, or should, be done to improve the Semi Final experience for all:
However I’m just going to focus on the Semi Finals themselves. The competition might be more exciting and less predictable than the Saturday night voting by country breakdown, but that doesn’t mean there is as much suspense as there really ought to be. Take for example the delivery of who qualifiers, reading out the countries who made it in a random producer-decided order. This can give some excitement yes, but does it give the most excitement. How Melodifestivalen does this provides great drama, the camera focusing down on the final two artists left in contention, and we briefly see the despair of the losing team before the winner runs off with glee to the stage.
This narrative might be a little OTT for a Tuesday night spectacle, but I certainly would not have anything against playing with the heartstrings like this more. How about, with one place left to qualify to Saturday night, you assemble a camera of each remaining delegation taking up a part of the screen. You can eliminate each of them one by one by turning their lights out until only two are left. You let it linger just a few moments and then leave just one in the light which goes absolutely crazy and the crowd noise hits the roof. That would be dramatic and would beat any silly golden envelope anyway.
You can as always read the full newsletter to see the full story for Ben Robertson and find all the stories in the Eurovision world over the last two weeks. Make sure as well that you subscribe to the newsletter by signing up on this link.