Is it time to abolish the big 5?

[LalehForWD]

Not sure I agree with this either. It pretty much tells participating countries that want to qualify each year but not necessarily win - which is a lot of them - "You only have to try every second year." That really doesn't seem like it'd help with the quality of songs at the contest. Plus, it's a system that'd make it difficult to break from past trends. Just say you've got a country that traditionally struggles to qualify - Macedonia, the Czech Republic, San Marino, etc. - and one year they send a good song, one that'd usually get them a qualification in one of the lower spots. However, another country that sent a hit in the previous year ends up sending a massive turd, which then takes the qualification spot from the otherwise-successful country using its free points and some regional votes. Not exactly ideal.

I understand that the current Big 5 system works something like this already by lowering the number of qualification spots in a less direct way, but changing the system in this way spreads the unfair advantage to influence even more countries, makes it difficult to reverse trends, and would more clearly highlight any unfairness, leading to additional anger (as with the current system you at least can't blame any one auto-qualifier for the failure of a semi-final entry, whereas with these changes you could). Just my two cents.

It depends very much how the bonus points would be decided. Say 2 extra 12 points for the previous winner, one or two extra 10 points for the runner up etc. Just to honour the previous achievement, not necessarily cement a permanent ranking. Countries repeatedly struggling to qualify like Bulgaria, the Czechs and Slovaks wouldn't be hindered by that, on the contrary the number of open final slots available for them would increase by 5.

 

[gstt]

People keep saying if members of the big 5 fail to qualify in the semis, which btw is pretty certain considering their current quality standard, no one will be interested in watching the final and there will be considerable financial losses. Will there really? I assume you refer to commercial channels in the FIFA example Eurosport etc, but in most countries Eurovision is broadcast by public service. Technically it doesn't matter how many viewers there are and Eurovision is said to be very cost-effective compared to other TV shows. It's therefore not likely any broadcaster would want to change to something else. Wouldn't they rather try to advertise the shows more and take action to improve the situation? Such as sending better acts for example?

I can only speak for France but France TV, although public, works partly on advertisement and cares about ratings, that are not that high and shouldn't be that cost effective compared to UK and Germany.

No guarantee of final would mean less incentive for decent acts to compete resulting in maybe even lower quality. Would it be better overall? I don't know but certainly more likely to lose variety and have all English songs in the final.

A final without France would have lower ratings and likely be relegated to the anonymous France 4 channel.

 

[Mickey]

Nooo, you're changing your argument as you go along. European teams may have the best football in general, but not necessarily in the World Cup itself.

England hasn't won the World Cup since 1966, and almost always completely fails every edition.

France hasn't won Eurovision since 1977, and almost always completely fails every edition.

...
Not at all, I have no doubt that the World Cup is more popular in England than it is in Nigeria.

I suspect you don't follow football much. It's definitely very popular in Nigeria and all over Africa.

If you're going to measure the quality of footballing nations purely on whether they win the world cup, then only European or South American countries are any good at all. If you expand out to the quarters, then at the last World Cup, you get four European teams, three South American and one lone outsider from Costa Rica. In pure terms of footballing quality, Europe and South America fully merit a larger proportion of the places on the big stage. That's not to say there aren't other considerations to be made. There is the commercial, the practical and the political. One big reason that there are more African teams at the World Cup than there used to be is because Sepp Blatter wanted African associations to vote for him as president.

I'd love for the big 5 to be abolished. I watch countries wait for their name to be read out at the end of each semi and wish we had that moment. There's not a lot of fun to be had finishing in lower mid table year after year. While it is very difficult to win Eurovision, semi final qualifiers at least get that one moment of victory. We just get drab disappointment. If we were in the semis, Blue, Bonnie and Molly would all have had something to celebrate. They beat enough qualifiers in their final to be confident of getting their name read out.

I appreciate the financial concerns, but there's no way the UK would withdraw. When British people discuss anything related to Europe, there's always an ironic Eurovision reference mixed in. The show still gets massive ratings and if BBC didn't want it, ITV would snap it up in a flash.

Similarly Germany still loves ESC, while Spain is fairly enthusiastic and does well every other year. Italy would never fail to qualify, so the semis would hold no fear for them. France is the only one likely to withdraw.

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

France would perhaps be the only one to withdraw quickly, but I wouldn't want to run the risk of British interest declining. We've been in the final every year since the 1950's, I don't know how you can think that interest levels would be unaffected if we suddenly weren't there.

And what would Eurovision be without France? When Italy wasn't there, it was always like "where's Italy?!"

 

[Sultana]

Well, there are two sides of it
1) Big 5 often dont have interest in participation as they have pre-reserved final place and as the result their songs are kinda meh. They dont have to fight for final ticket as rest european countries do.
2) If we abolish big 5 we can forget about such countries as Spain Germany who often provides great music, just because of their semi final flops.

 

[RomanFromRussia]

There's no flop in ESC that isn't able to be explained. Maybe if we abolish the Big 5 they will prepare their entries for ESC with more responsibility. Teams of such countries as Russia, Sweden, Azerbaijan spent a lot of money, attract a big amount of professionals to make a great show. Russia in 2014 saved the song that was low in fans chart. A great picture of Netherlands in 2014 bring them the Netherlands best ever points in ESC history.

 

[Mickey]

France would perhaps be the only one to withdraw quickly, but I wouldn't want to run the risk of British interest declining. We've been in the final every year since the 1950's, I don't know how you can think that interest levels would be unaffected if we suddenly weren't there.

And what would Eurovision be without France? When Italy wasn't there, it was always like "where's Italy?!"

Ratings for the final probably would go down in the years that we don't make it through (which I doubt would be as often as you think), but ratings for the semis would rocket. I imagine there'd be a strong argument to put the semi we take part in on a bigger channel and the interest in whether we get through would be huge.

When we qualify it would provide a feelgood moment that the UK Eurovision experience has been severely lacking. It would also put a big dent in the argument that everyone hates us. That could only be good news for our Eurovision future.

I don't want France to withdraw, but nor do I want a country that clearly doesn't care given a free ride for their repeated mediocrity.

 

[Rusch]

I'm German and I say stop this big 5 nonsense. Ok, France might withdraw, but they will sooner or later come back with new and fresh song. And the popularity will rise after they reach a final. Germany will not withdraw for sure and we are knew the last years, that we had no chance of winning. It is even clear for 2016 that we will not win, because not a single song is that good. I wouldn't care, if we miss the final.

 

[midnightsun]

Agreed! :-)