Robertson's Reflection
It’s obviously great news to see Cyprus back in the contest. Financial issues have hampered many of the smaller nations in recent years and it is great to see some of them bounce back to a chance of entering.
It is a sad fact that Eurovision is expensive, but the EBU do make some efforts to ease the burden on smaller nations with lower participation fees. However even with this keeping up your hotel bills for the two weeks for the artists and all their support makes it tough. Not qualifying to the final, as many small nations have had difficulty with recently (Cyprus themselves are 2 qualifications in 8 appearances, and weren’t close with any of their misses either) means that the big Saturday TV audience alludes many of them.
Perhaps this is part of the legacy of San Marino’s (and, to lesser extend, Montenegro’s) qualification, that now every country set to be entering Eurovision 2015 has at least once taken part in the Saturday night - giving hope to every nation that they can make it.
However a greater thing as well comes from how Cyprus want to bounce back. This is not the internal selection one would expect, but a multi-week TV show with even auditions being broadcast. No doubt that Klitos Klitou has taken a part of the schedule ideas from his time assisting with Melodifestivalen, and the wish to create a Eurovision culture on Cyprus similar is surely part of the ambition here.
In one sense, this is easier to do with a small population base, and it is unique in being reasonably cheap TV to run for big primetime viewing. However quality is a huge risk factor, the huge selections in the mid-2000’s from notably Lithuania and Bulgaria are a thing of the past as terrible songs and performances (and the large middle round of meh) were a TV turn-off.
But it can also work fantastically. Sweden, contrary to Eurovision fan belief, is not the centre of fascination and excitement towards the selection of their song for Eurovision. Melodifestivalen is big news, but as a proportion of the population Iceland is the place to look. Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins attracts easily 90%+ viewing figures and captivates a nation. Voting figures for the 2009 are the last that were made publicly available, but the top four songs in the super final received just shy of 50,000 votes, approximately 1 vote from each sixth person in Iceland.
Iceland suffers from financial issues as well, and the moving of the final this year away from their brand new Harpa concert hall to the university lecture theatre shows that times are tough. Interval acts are non-existant, often perferring to interview previous entrants in a method more akin to Parkinson than Eurovision would ever dare. But then again, being a recognisable face in a show this big in a country so small makes you a somebody.
Despite this small-town feel and almost saturation of the concept, the culture as a highlight of TV and of popular music across Iceland has brought a variety of genres and high quality songs through to their national selection, and a 7 in 7 qualification rate can not be sniffed at. The CD of national final songs was lingering still on the shelves of the music shops in summer last July when I visited showing the contest has a longevity beyond the confines of Saturday night TV even when pre-school teachers win the show.
If Cyprus are looking for inspiration on how to run small country Eurovision in a sustainable, low-cost and successful way, take a pinch of Swedish style and sprinkle it on top of hot Icelandic passion for the contest.
Pictures by Elke Roels (EBU) and Ruv.is
