Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Rolf Liebermann, Clifford Brown, Frank Naef, Christian Clausen, Christine Marchal-Ortiz, Svante Stockselius, Jon Ola Sand and .... ? After Rotterdam 2020 we will have a new Executive Supervisor, who to part of fandom is the evil and devil in person and to the rest of us the face of the voting and results. With the millenials and today's fandom Jon Ola and Svante have been blamed in person for most everything imaginable, but the truth is that Svante (2004-2010) and Jon Ola (2011-2020) have managed to give the contest a breath of life and made it more popular than ever. And today's fanboys have no idea who the ones before where, if not for the legendary "Mr Naef, Mr Naef..."  episode in Rome 1991. Svante introduced the semi-finals that saved us from the insane rules of staying home the year after if you did bad (perfect way of ruining anyone's interest at home if you had to sit away every other year, like Finland) or random semi regional pre-selections, and intro...

Switzerland is finally getting rid of that insane selection with various internet portals and language slots and all that has made their selection a bit if a mad one the past years. And help them score two last places in the semifinal in a row. Beat that! Anyways, with the help of a new guy in charge, Reto Peritz the new and at least on paper highly improved selection process goes like this: Between September 26 and October 24 there will be only one portal to submit songs. No more same songs in various language and broadcaster based selection portals, and no more a certain number of slots in the final for various languages. And guess what? We can't see and hear the wannabes but ony the 20 member strong jury made of musicians etc that will pick up 20 songs and artists for the live chech up to be held on December 4, 2016.  At least one member of the team (artist, composer, author) must be a Swiss or have a residence there.  The nationa final will take place in tv-stud...

It seems the big names aren't interested, or at least the major labels, sadly, but still France television has received 280 entries for the Eurovision song contest. Once the Eurovision superpower France has lost it completely the recent years when only megastar Patricia Kaas managed to get them back to top-10 in 2009. Last four years they have collected only miserable 41 points finishing 22nd, 23rd, 26th and 25th. So, this year new people in charge and new approach. First of all this open call for song even if the choice will be internal, they will broadcast both the semifinals, and the song may even be in English or at least partly in English, something rather unheard for the French.  France 2 Entertainment dirctor Nathalie André and the new Head of Delegation Edoardo Grassi (pictured) are looking for something more suitable for this era, fun and uptempo it seems. And they are not taking it with Lisa Angell who was considered outdated and boring by many and I agree with them....

The air has really changed in Italy. Not only is the media picking up big time that Emma is representing them in Eurovision 2014 and today the official news were given in the RAI2's TV-News Tg2 confirming also La mia cittá as the entry. The news report was headlined "Emma wants to win in Europe" and started with Emma singing Gigliola Cinquetti's winning song Non ho l'età 50 years ago in Copenhagen and she continued: "I'm very happy that I have been chosen internally by RAI without passing Sanremo as it usually has been. It gives me more strenght and I hope to represent my country Italy the best possible way!" The the reporter and Emma tell her musical story in short biography since she was nine years old and perfromed in public for the first time. Here (in Italian of course). This blogger would like to publicly thank RAI's Head of delegation Nicola Caligiore and his team for a great step by step work done in Eurovision and Italy the past f...

Over the past years we have been talking about the Swedish influence in the Eurovision but another one has been floating around maybe a bit unnoticed, Italy! We have had songs sung in Italian, songs produced in Italy, sung by artists like Paolo Meneguzzi who is associated as Italian despite having a Swiss passport, or Roberto Meloni... not to mention all the song in Italian in various national finals! All this when Italy itself was absent. And this 2013 is no exception with Italian touch. The Croatian song was recorded in Italy by Italians, the Lithuanian artist lives in Italy,  the Romanian one has done his vocals studies in Italy, the Belgian singer has clear Italian roots (once again), as has the Slovenian one. The Spanish lead singer's claim to international fame is she was singing in Sanremo a couple of years ago... On top of that both Italy and San Marino will sing their songs in Italian this year (finally!) and both are in top-10 in most every poll. And we can't f...

The delegations are meeting in Malmö and news are coming little by little so I will add them here. First of all the previsional dates for the next contest, Eurovision 2014, wherever that will take place ware May 13, 15 and 17 so it's the same week as now. Rehearsal schedule has been published and indeed it does look very different from previous years.  From Monday May 6 until Thursday May 9 all the semifinalists will rehearse behind closed doors so to speak, between 10am and 5pm. From Friday 10 the open dress rehearsals start. First on friday the whole first semifinal between midday and 10.30pm. On Saturday it's time for the second semifinalist from midday to 11pm. On Saturday between 10am and 5pm the BIG5+1 rehearses. On Monday and Tuesday it's all about the first semifinalist in late afternoon/evening. On Wednesday between 11am and 4pm the BIG5+1 rehearse again, followed by two run throughs of the second semifinal. Thursday its last dress and the live broadca...

Blogilkar had the pleasure to interview the Italian Head of delegation Nicola Caligiore. How did he live those two last editions in Baku and Dusseldorf? Will Italy be back in 2013? Will there be an Eurovision night in Sanremo? What are his favorite Eurovision songs? What does he think of Italian fans behavior? Here is the interview in English version. The Italian original one is here . Last year, Italy was back with, let's say general euphoria and welcomed with open arms by all in Dusseldorf. How were you received this year? We were greeted very well, for me now all the event management and other heads of delegations are like one big family. Last year, Italy was not among the favorites and finished second. This year, the Zilli was among the main contenders for victory and finished ninth. Why? I can not tell exactly, it is a competition ... you can win, you can lose ... it's part of the game, moreover, to be ninth out of forty-two is not a bad result. Have ...

Blogilkar had the pleasure to interview the Italian Head of delegation Nicola Caligiore. How did he live those two last editions in Baku and Dusseldorf? Will Italy be back in 2013? Will there be an Eurovision night in Sanremo? What are his favorite Eurovision songs? What does he think of Italian fans behavior? Here is the interview in Italian, the English version will follow shortly. L'anno scorso l'Italia é tornata con diciamo euforia generale, accolta a braccia aperte da tutti a Dusseldorf. Come vi hanno accolto quest'anno? Siamo stati accolti benissimo, per me oramai tutto il management dell'evento e gli altri capi delegazione sono come una grande famiglia. Nel 2011 l'Italia non era tra i favoriti ed é finita seconda. Quest'anno invece la Zilli era tra i superfavoriti e finita nona. Come mai? Non so dirti con esattezza, è un concorso… si può vincere, si può perdere… fa parte delle regole del gioco, d’altronde arrivare noni su quaranta...

Nicola Caligiore, the Italian HoD for Eurovision 2011 and 2012 has felt necessary to react on the complains and whining of the Italian fans on Facebook. I was about to write, or rather complain about the Italian fans myself yesterday but didn't quite know how to formulate my post. And then all of sudden I saw the post by Caligiore himself. But before we go to the post he wrote, I must say I don't understand the Italian fans. I thought I had learned to know how Italians work but this has gone way beyond. Now that Italy is back - after they had been complaining and whining for 13 years why Italy is not taking part - nothing is good enough. I don't even start about the criticism last year for choosing Raphael Gualazzi - before the results of course - but now they complain about Nina, her change of song, her too many words in English in the Eurovision version. Or even her English pronunciation which is rather ridiculous when knowing how an average Ital...