Samb
Active member
...Financial crisis or EBU spin?
First off, apologies if this has been posted before and I simply can't find the appropriate thread. But this week newspapers including the Guardian have been running this particular story of withdrawals from the contest (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/ ... -recession) - as we know, Czech Republic, Andorra and Montenegro have all suspended their exploits into the contest, and Hungary did not enter this year. Eurovision executive superviser Svante Stockselius had this to say:
Anyone who reads Eurovision blogs and fansites will come across responses to this, a lot of them questioning if this was really the motive behind withdrawal. Indeed, Iceland and Geece have been severely hit by difficulties, yet have produced songs that potentially could win. Eurovision fansite nul-points.net commented thus:
However, there is also other reasons involve perhaps. Is it merely that these countries have failed to qualify, or are we seeing another repeat of Italy and Austria? The Czechs are the stongest example here. Whereas many countries are still gripped at least once a year by Eurovision interest, this appears to have always passed them by. Is this because there is no reasonable expectation of qualifying? But wait - Belgium has never wathered from its love of the contest despite poor runnings since 2004. Italy came in strong in with a very accomplished song, yet withdrew indefinitely from the next year!
So what do you make of all this? Ae we going to see a potential trend of withdrawing countries in the next few years, due to the current running of the contest? Is economics really the issue here?
First off, apologies if this has been posted before and I simply can't find the appropriate thread. But this week newspapers including the Guardian have been running this particular story of withdrawals from the contest (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/ ... -recession) - as we know, Czech Republic, Andorra and Montenegro have all suspended their exploits into the contest, and Hungary did not enter this year. Eurovision executive superviser Svante Stockselius had this to say:
Svante said:
Anyone who reads Eurovision blogs and fansites will come across responses to this, a lot of them questioning if this was really the motive behind withdrawal. Indeed, Iceland and Geece have been severely hit by difficulties, yet have produced songs that potentially could win. Eurovision fansite nul-points.net commented thus:
Nul Points said:
However, there is also other reasons involve perhaps. Is it merely that these countries have failed to qualify, or are we seeing another repeat of Italy and Austria? The Czechs are the stongest example here. Whereas many countries are still gripped at least once a year by Eurovision interest, this appears to have always passed them by. Is this because there is no reasonable expectation of qualifying? But wait - Belgium has never wathered from its love of the contest despite poor runnings since 2004. Italy came in strong in with a very accomplished song, yet withdrew indefinitely from the next year!
So what do you make of all this? Ae we going to see a potential trend of withdrawing countries in the next few years, due to the current running of the contest? Is economics really the issue here?
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