GERMANY 🇩🇪
The Head of Entertainment at ARD, has confirmed that the German broadcaster will be rethinking its approach to the Eurovision Song Contest. Mr Schreiber’s comments come after S!sters placed 24th in the Grand Final of Eurovision 2019, and failed to receive any points from the public televote.
UNITED KINGDOM 🇬🇧
The British submission for this year’s contest, written by Laurell Barker, Anna-Klara Folin, John Lundvik and Jonas Thander and performed by Michael Rice, bears similarities to a 2017 track by the British band 10 Reasons entitled “Giving It All”, according to one of the song’s principal songwriters. In a tweet posted on 26th April, Paul Garrett – one of the members of 10 Reasons and song-writer alongside bandmates Craig Smith and Johno Owens, and Ste McNally of multi-platinum selling group BBMak – publicised his feelings on the similarities between his song and “Bigger Than Us”. By the way the UK is not the only case as many songs including the Dutch one had ethical problems.
So looks like we’ve entered the Eurovision this year 🤣🤣 or maybe we’ve just been ripped off ??
Below is our song from a few years ago called giving it all. What do you think ?… https://t.co/834KydJJkd
— Paul Garrett (@Paul10rtl) April 26, 2019
The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest has said the UK should “step up” its entry, after finishing bottom. The Netherlands’ Duncan Laurence won this year’s contest with his song Arcade. He said the UK has “a lot of amazing artists” and wants to see a British entry who makes him want to buy their album. The UK’s Michael Rice got just three points from the public vote, and a total of 16 points.
THE NETHERLANDS 🇳🇱
Arnhem has stated that if it were to bid for the competition, that the GelreDome would be one of the potential venues. The GelreDome was completed in 1998 and can hold up to 41,000 people. The football stadium previously hosted Euro 2000 matches as well as UEFA 21 2007 matches. A day after The Netherlands won the Eurovision Song Contest, several cities have already made their desire to host Eurovision 2020 public. At the moment of writing this, no less than six options seem to be on the table already.
AZERBAIJAN 🇦🇿
Azerbaijan has sent a formal complaint to the European Broadcasting Union, regarding the borders of Azerbaijan that were shown during the voting at Eurovision 2019. iTV states that the map of Azerbaijan shown during the broadcast, did not reflect what Azerbaijan sees as its borders. The statement reads:
Yesterday, at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019, Azerbaijan’s land connecting Karabakh and Nakhchivan did not appear on the map. The Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company has officially appealed to the organizers of the event and the leadership of the European Broadcasting Union with a formal appeal. At present, the other side is awaiting the announcement by the other party.
SWEDEN 🇸🇪
So Lina Hedlund ranked the songs in the semi-finals. Now it seems that the Alcazar singer turned the point – and ranked the winner last. Sweden’s Lina Hedlund accidentally rescued the Austrian artist Pænda from the jumbo site semifinals – by mistake. What it seems. When EBU released the jury groups’ individual scores early this morning, the Swedish artist’s embarrassing mistakes became clear. She simply seems to have misunderstood how the rankings would go. The idea is that all five jury members should rank all songs in addition to their own country.In Sweden’s semi-finals they will rank from one to 17 and in the final from one to 25. One will be the song you like best. The second one you think is second best about and so on. Then the jury’s overall ranking is compiled and converted into the classic Eurovision style.
MADONNA 🇺🇸
EBU still hasn’t upload yet the performance of Madonna on YouTube due to the political statement made by her dancers using the Israeli and Palestinian flags during her performance obviously a clear political statement by the singer.
