AUSTRIA – The Austrian television station ORF today announced its programming for next week, following the cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020.
Three shows called “Der Kleine Song Contest” (“The Little Song Contest”) will air on ORF 1, the main channel, on the following dates: April 14th, 16th and 18th. The shows will begin at 20:15 CET and will be presented by Andi Knoll.
The idea behind this new show is to pay homage to the songs and give the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 a winner.
The 41 countries that were supposed to perform in Rotterdam will be voted on by both the Austrian public and an expert jury, made up of 10 former representatives of the nation, and at the end of the three evenings, the winning nation will be determined.
Each song will be introduced by a specially created postcard, which will present the artists, the individual countries and their important moments at Eurovision.
14 countries will be shown on Tuesday 14 and Thursday 16, while the remaining 13 will be shown on Saturday 18.
At the end of each show, a winner will be announced according to the jury. The public with televoting will decide which of the three favourites of the jury will ultimately be the overall winner.
THE JURIES
- Waterloo (Austria 1976)
- Simone (Austria 1990)
- Petra Frey (Austria 1994)
- Manuel Ortega (Austria 2002)
- Alf Poier (Austria 2003)
- Eric Papilaya (Austria 2007)
- Nadine Beiler (Austria 2011)
- Conchita Wurst (2014 winner)
- ZOE (Austria 2016)
- Cesár Sampson (Austria 2018)
Andi Knoll, Mr. Eurovision, presented the show to the Austrians as follows:
After the EBU decided that 2020 artists can compete in 2021 next year but only with new songs, it would have been a shame if this year’s songs had all ended up in the basket of music history. So here we are with another reason why the Ecancelledd not be canceled. It’s a unique mix of live and video versions. It will be very varied and finally (you) can vote for Austria!
