Eurovision 2009 - Moscow

Event

After Dima's victory in Belgrade Eurovision will this year be held in Moscow, Russia. Given world events since the last contest this is not without some controversy but after initially pulling out even Georgia has agreed to attend. Then Georgia wrote a song that the European Broadcasting Union decided was political (whereas Peace Will Come was without politics?? Madness) and so Georgia pulled out again.

The voting system has, yet again, been tweaked to try to get rid of accusations of politcal bias. Wiki says it best:

In response to some broadcasters' continued complaints about politically charged, neighbourly and diaspora voting, the EBU evaluated the voting procedure used in the contest, with the possibility of a change in the voting system for 2009. Contest organisers sent a questionnaire regarding the voting system to participating broadcasters, and a reference group incorporated the responses into their suggestions for next year's format.[11] Telewizja Polska (TVP), the Polish broadcaster, suggested that an international jury similar to the one used in the 2008 Eurovision Dance Contest be introduced in the Eurovision Song Contest to lessen the impact of neighbourly voting and place more emphasis on the artistic value of the song. A jury would lead to less political and diaspora voting as the jury members, mandated to be music industry experts, would also have a say in addition to "random members of the public".

It has since been confirmed that for the contest final, each country's votes will be decided by a combination of 50% televoting results and 50% national jury. The method of selecting the semi-final qualifiers will remain the same, however, with nine countries in each semi-final which qualified based on the televoting results, and a tenth coming from the juries. Details on the jury method will be released after another Reference Group meeting in December. National juries were originally phased out of the contest beginning in 1997, with televoting becoming mandatory for nearly all participants since 2003.

Edgar Böhm, director of entertainment for Austria's public broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), has stated that the 2008 format with two semi-finals "still incorporates a mix of countries who will be politically favoured in the voting process," and "that, unless a clear guideline as to how the semifinals are organised is made by the EBU, Austria will not be taking part in Moscow 2009." Despite the inclusion of jury voting in the final, Austria will not return to the contest in 2009, but will broadcast the final on ORF as it did in 2008.

The official site

Eurovision 2009 on Wikipedia

Totty



Sakis Rouvas is back! After representing Greece in 2004 and hosting the contest in 2006 our favourite sexy Greek returns to represent his country once again! Here he is back in 2004...



Complete Songs and Contestants

Albania: "Më merr në ëndërr" - Kejsi Tola
Andorra: "La teva decisió" - Susanne Georgi
Armenia: "Nor Par" - Inga & Anush
Azerbaijan "Always" - AySel
Belarus: "Eyes That Never Lie" - Petr Elfimov
Belgium: "Copycat" - Copycat
Bosnia and Herzegovina: "Bistra voda" - Regina
Bulgaria: "Illusion" - Krassimir Avramov
Croatia: "Liepa Tena" - Igor Cukrov feat. Andrea
Cyprus: "Firefly" - Christina Metaxa
Czech Republic: "Aven Romale" - Gipsy.cz
Denmark: "Believe Again" - Niels Brinck
Estonia: "Rändajad" - Urban Symphony
Finland: "Lose Control" - Waldo's People
France: "Et s'il fallait le faire" - Patricia Kaas
FYR Macedonia: "Neshto shto ke ostane" - Next Time
Germany: "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" - Alex Swings Oscar Sings
Greece: "This Is Our Night" - Sakis Rouvas
Hungary: "Magányos csónak" - Kátya Tompos
Iceland: "Is It True?" - Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir
Ireland: "Et Cetera" - Sinead Mulvey & Black Daisy
Israel: "There Must Be Another Way" - Noa and Mira Awad
Latvia: "Probka" - Intars Busulis
Lithuania: "Love" - Sasha Son
Malta: "What If We" - Chiara
Moldova: "Hora din Moldova" - Nelly Ciobanu
Montenegro: "Just Get Out of My Life" - Andrea Demirović
The Netherlands: "Shine" - De Toppers
Norway: "Fairytale" - Alexander Rybak
Poland: "I Don't Wanna Leave" - Lidia Kopania
Portugal: "Todas as ruas do amor" - Flor-de-Lis
Romania: "The Balkan Girls" - Elena Gheorghe
Russia: "Mamo" - Anastasiya Prykhodko
Serbia: "Cipela" - Marko Kon and Milaan
Slovenia: "Love Symphony" - Quartissimo feat. Martina Majerle
Spain: "La noche es para mí" - Soraya Arnelas
Switzerland: "The Highest Heights" - Lovebugs
Sweden: "La voix" - Malena Ernman
Turkey: "Düm Tek Tek" - Hadise
Ukraine: "Be My Valentine! (Anti-Crisis Girl)" - Svetlana Loboda
United Kingdom: "My Time" - Jade Ewen