Notes on (the Politics of) Eurovision

Sun, 25 May 2003 14:18:00 -0400
/society

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Eurovision Song contest is worth watching at least once every few years, as long as you follow three rules:

1. Skip all the songs and only tune in for the voting.

2. Pretend the singing never even took place.

3. Ensure someone with half-decent knowledge of European geography, history and politics is present.

Most of the songs are so bad that and the public’s bias so strong that the only way to explain much of the voting is in the context of political history. This is widely discussed inside of Europe but is probably missed by those looking in.

Time have an article from last year:

This “is the continuation of European wars by peaceful means,” says Jurgen Meier-Beer of Germany, who is on the committee overseeing the show.

Gilles Renault, music critic for Liberation. “It’s more of a joke than anything else.” Britain, at least, knows to laugh. In fact, people throw parties to enjoy what Terry Wogan calls “sublime awfulness.”

There is also a more comprehensive statistical analysis:

… voting patterns tended to break down into three blocs: a Western Bloc (England, Ireland, France, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg), a Northern Bloc (the Scandinavian countries plus Germany) and a Mediterranean Bloc (Turkey, Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece and Cyprus.) Each was far more likely to vote for countries within its bloc than for those outside it. And as a rule of thumb, the further away countries are, the less likely they are to give each other points.

If you get bored of watching it from this perspective you can also consider the possibility of bribery and which countries would care enough - about the potential positive PR - to do it.