Re: AUSTRALIA 2018 - Jessica Mauboy
I wanted an NF even. Is it just my goldfish memory or was one rumoured/announced?
There were a number of comments from our HoD mid-late this year saying "we'd like to do an NF for 2018", but nothing was properly announced. I think it's something they're looking at, but it seems to be taking longer than expected to set up the right foundations for whatever reason.
Assuming 2018 isn't our last year in the contest, an NF might still be on the cards for 2019 – the rumours have been getting a little stronger with each passing year. From memory, 2015 was sort of "yeah, a NF would be cool, but we don't have the time"; 2016 was "feel free to send your entries in whoever you are, and we could possibly do an NF with them, but no guarantees"; 2017 was "we're looking into the systems to set up an NF now that we've had a couple of years of experience"; and recently, for 2018, we got the aforementioned "hoping to do an NF for the year" sort of comments. So it does feel like they're working on something behind the scenes, but... slowly.
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure I'd trust the Australian voting public with an NF; if it drew the wrong crowd, we could just end up with a joke act or the most stereotypically Eurovision-sounding song on offer. Even moreso than the UK, I think, a common perception of the contest here is that "it's that funny European thing with sequins and costume reveals and politics, and it's hilarious that we're in it, so we should send our biggest joke and have fun laughing about it all". Now, I feel that perception has improved in recent years with our strong results and some more serious winning entries – and SBS would probably try to avoid becoming a laughingstock – but the whole concept of an NF has me iffy, as cool as it could be.
I wouldn't necessarily complain if we were to hold one, and I'd rush to vote in it if we did, but before we try to set up an NF with three or six or ten or whatever varied songs, we should probably first try to find some variety for the
one internal song we find every year. Something rock, folk, orchestral, dance, country, whatever it may be – sending something
different internally this year would give me a least a little more hope that we could fill an NF with something more than just ten takes on contemporary pop and maybe a joke entry.
I'm not sure Jessica Mauboy will be the one to break that trend, which has me worried; I've got the feeling SBS is thinking "hey, we've got a formula that's given us three consecutive top-10s, so why change it?". I was hoping the televote flop this year would change their strategy, but apparently not. Perhaps we need an NQ to get us out of just playing the safe game.
Anyway, TL;DR: There were numerous NF rumours and plans, but nothing in the way of promises or announcements yet. Perhaps next year.
has an over-hyped rumour that ends up being false.
