Spain: Change of head of delegation after failure in Eurovision 2023!

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Spain’s public broadcaster, RTVE, has announced that Eva Mora will no longer be the head of delegation in the Eurovision Song Contest. The change comes after Spain finished 17th in Eurovision 2023, last in the TV audience vote.

The new head of delegation is Ana María Bordas, who was assistant head of delegation in Liverpool, but has served in various positions in connection with the Eurovision contest since 2017.

RTVE has also announced the team that will undertake to carry out Benidorm 2024. Thus, in addition to Ana María Bordas, César Vallejo and María Eizaguirre, executives of the Spanish public television, will be responsible for the conduct of its national final of Spain for 2024.

Three musicians were placed with them, as advisors. These are the following:

Pablo Cebrián – musician, composer and music producer
Rayden – singer, participated in Benidorm Fest 2022
Tony Sánchez-Ohlsson – Producer and composer

A committee will evaluate the songs submitted and select the 16 best songs to compete in Benidorm 2024. This committee will include the six persons mentioned above, but also José Pablo López, Director of General Content at RTVE, Virginia Díaz, Tony Aguilar and Miryam Benedict.

Source: RTVE

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all the updates regarding the Eurovision Song Contest 2024!

Finland: The rules of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2024 | National final to take place in February!

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A few hours ago, the Finnish public Broadcaster, Yle, announced Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2024 as their national selection for yet another year.

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu will be held live next February, and the winner will represent Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.

Yle announced the rules by which the competition will be conducted, just a few hours ago.

  1. Artists must submit a demo of their track from August 21 to 24, 2023. If their song is selected, they have until October 20, 2023, to submit the final version.
  2. Singers from a group can submit up to three songs, however only one will advance to the competition. Members of a band can participate in more than one song, while composers and lyricists can participate in several songs.
  3. Finally, at least one of the composers and one of the singers must have Finnish citizenship or permanent residence in Finland.

The previous edition of UMK was a huge success, with Käärijä being crowned the winner with the song “Cha Cha Cha” and bringing Finland Second place in the Final, the country’s best placing since its win in 2006:

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Finnish participation at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in Sweden!

Source: YLE

Sweden: Sandviken considers a possible bid for hosting Eurovision 2024!

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Jonas Klang, member of the Sandviken city council, submitted a written proposal to the council, in order to consider a possible hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in the city of Sandviken.

Mr. Klang added that despite the difficulties that may come, it is worth looking into the matter. He believes that it will be an important promotion in the surrounding area and in Sandviken, in particular.

Sandviken has 39,234 permanent residents (as of 2019) and is located in the Gävleborg region.

The possible venue for the contest would be Göransson Arena, which has previously hosted the second semi-final of Melodifestivalen 2010. The stadium has a capacity of 10,000 people.

Sweden is going to host the 68th Eurovision Song Contest after Loreen’s win with the song “Tattoo”:

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in Sweden!

United Kingdom: BBC eyeing Sophie Ellis-Bextor as their Eurovision 2024 representative?

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Just a bit more than a week after the Eurovision 2023 final, BBC is gearing up for Eurovision 2024 having begun the search for their next representative. After the strong criticism of the selection of 25-year-old Mae Muller as the UK’s representative at Eurovision 2023 and her 25th placement in the Grand Final, BBC seems to be moving towards choosing a more well-known and established performer for next year’s contest.

Information so far suggests that the BBC wants Sophie Ellis-Bextor to be the UK’s next representative at Eurovision 2024.

Who is Sophie Ellis-Bextor?

44-year-old Sophie Ellis-Bextor is an accomplished British singer with hits such as “Murder On The Dancefloor”. Sophie came back to the limelight during the pandemic with a series of Kitchen Disco videos that she shared with her Instagram followers, the success of which also earned her a Radio 2 show under the same name. She is also a mother of five children.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor, in fact, appears to be the only BBC-shortlisted name for Eurovision 2024 so far. As a source from the British music industry reported to “The Mail”:

So far she is the only person on the BBC shortlist for Eurovision 2024, to which there are no plans to add more.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor seems like the ideal choice for the competition – she is an excellent singer and performer, already largely known to both straight and gay audience, across Europe and worldwide. The criticism the BBC received this year for the selection of Mae Muller has been quite harsh.

We remind you that in order to put the bad results in the past and after James Newman ‘s last place with 0 points in 2021, the BBC last year and this year outsourced the selection of UK representatives to an external agent, TaP Music .

Last year’s outstanding second place finish by Sam Ryder in 2022 was not repeated this year and the UK again found themselves at the bottom of the standings.

The disbelief surrounding the good result that Mae Muller could bring started as early as the pre-parties, where her weak vocals were harshly commented on, and continued unabated during the technical rehearsals.

Her old posts on Twitter , politically colored against the Conservative government in Great Britain and Boris Johnson, also caused a stir .

UK: Mae Muller criticized over political tweets

After the harsh criticism and the poor result, the BBC wants to turn to a more tried and tested recipe, to a more widely accepted artist and certainly more experienced and with his own audience. The race to represent the UK at Eurovision 2024 is just beginning!

Stay tuned to EurovisionFun for all the news surrounding the Eurovision Song Contest!

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Loreen: Our favourite moments with the two-times-Eurovision-winner! | Watch the video!

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Not only once! Not just twice! Not even three times! It was four times that Eurovisionfun got the chance to meet Loreen in-person, interview her, discuss and most of all have much fun!

You can imagine, Loreen was very busy, gave lots of interviews to many big media around Europe and the rest of the world. Many large (an also some smaller ones) Eurovision fansites approached the Swedish delegation and Loreen’s team to request a short interview with her. But Loreen chose and trusted Eurovisionfun, giving four interviews to our reporters. You can have a look on all four comprehensive interviews by following the links below:

There are many moments that still remain unseen, but you can see many of our backstage moments and bloopers from all the times we’ve met Loreen in the video below:

Special thanks to SVT, Universal Sweden, the Swedish Delegation and Loreen’s team for allowing us to spend so much time with the queen of Eurovision and first woman ever to win Eurovision Song Contest for two times and to Loreen herself for being such a wonderful human being and making our moments with her so much fun!

“Until we meet again, cause this is not the end..” We will definitely meet again… This is not the end!

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Stay tuned at EurovisionFun for all news about Eurovision 2024, which will be hosted in Sweden next May!

Sweden: Calls on Jönköping to bid to host Eurovision 2024!

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Local groups and authorities are calling on Jönköping to bid to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.

Jönköping could be in the running to host Eurovision 2024 if local groups can convince the city to submit a bid. The call for the southern Swedish city to bid for the Eurovision 2024 Song Contest is being promoted by Småland Tourism, which believes the contest could provide an incredible boost to the city and the wider region.

Jönköping has 150,000 inhabitants and is the most populated city in Småland. Jönköping has strong ties to Eurovision, as it is the birthplace of Agnetha Fältskog, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 as a member of ABBA.

The venue that Jönköping will claim is the Husqvarna Garden, a purpose-built arena that opened in 2000. The arena however does not meet the capacity requirements for the competition, having a capacity of 7,000 people, it is the tenth largest indoor arena in Sweden.

Sweden with Loreen won the first place in this year’s competition with the song “Tattoo” bringing the competition back to Sweden after 2016.

https://youtu.be/Vul5zgC5Yvg

Do you think Jönköping could take over the hosting of the competition?

Source: eurovoix.com

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Slovakia: RTVS confirms the reason for the country’s absence from Eurovision!

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Slovakia’s National Broadcaster, RTVS, has confirmed the reason behind the country’s repeated absence from Eurovision Song Contest.

RTVS is the responsible broadcaster for the country’s participation in the contest, based on the latest information, the channel has confirmed the main reason for its absence from the contest, which is financial.

The head of the public relations department of RTVS, Filip Púchovský, reported that:

“Eurovision is a singing competition of public broadcasters. In the past, RTVS was the official broadcaster of the event and at the same time the organizer of the national competition round. RTVS carefully approaches the creation of the broadcasting structure of its television and radio circuits and in the past period decided not to include this international competition in its broadcasting based on the evaluation of several input factors, primarily the funds spent and viewership… The participation of Slovak artists is also associated with high financial costs, for which RTVS does not have the resources.”

Slovak musician and radio producer Juraj Čurný commented that:

“As television is underfunded, if RTVS were to return to Eurovision the participant would likely need to fund themselves as opposed to relying on the broadcaster… If Slovakia ever return to Eurovision, it would provide an “interesting opportunity to promote Slovakia within the European context”.

The above happened to the last representative of the country in 2012, when Max Jason Mai represented the country in the competition, in Baku, with Don’t Close Your Eyes”. You can watch the participation down bellow:

Slovakia has participated in the competition in total seven times, with the first time participated being in 1993. However, the country has not yet confirmed whether or not it will participate in the contest in 2024.

Stay tuned on EurovisionFun for all the lastest news regarding Eurovision!

Source: aktuality.sk

 

Eurovision 2024: Stockholm planning to host the Contest!

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Preparations have already started ahead of the Eurovision 2024 Contest,with the city of Stockholm stating that they have already set in train the preparations to host the 2024 contest since March,when Loreen won Melodifestivalen with her eventual Eurovision winning entry “Tattoo”.

This marks the seventh time that Sweden is set to host the Eurovision Song Contest,with the first one dating back in 1975.

The Swedish capital is one of the strongest candidates of hosting the Eurovision 2024 Contest and has already hosted the contest in 1975,2000 and 2016.

Speaking to The Euro Trip, Tobbe Ek, journalist for Sweden’s biggest daily newspaper Aftonbladet, said: “Stockholm is extremely eager to host it.

“The City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm started having meetings in March when they realised Sweden might actually win this year.

When Stockholm hosted in 2016, the Avicii Arena – then known as the Globe Arena – was the chosen venue and could be a possible hosting venue for 2024 as well.

Other possible venues in the capital include the Tele2 Arena, the home ground of top-flight football clubs Djurgårdens and Hammarby, and the Friends Arena which plays host to the Melfest final every year.

Other Swedish cities that are lined up for bidding for the Eurovision 2024 contest include Malmö,which hosted the contest in 1992 and 2013,Örnsköldsvik and Gothenburg,which hosted the Eurovision 1985 contest.

Gothenburg boosts with a huge arena,the Scandinavium,whose building structure however is too obsolete to host a modern contest,due to the fact that it was built over half a century ago.Therefore,a new venue would have to be built within a year in order to host the Eurovision 2024 contest,something which seems very unlikely to happen.

Sweden earned its 7th victory in this year’s contest with Loreen and her song “Tattoo”,a song that made her the first woman to ever win the song contest twice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE2Fj0W4jP4

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source:eurotrippodscast

 

 

 

Sweden: Internal issues might keep Petra Mede away from hosting Eurovision 2024!

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Loreen’s win in the 67th Eurovision Song Contest marks the beginning of the host city bidding phase for Eurovision 2024 as well as finding the presenters of next year’s contest.

Fans’ preference regarding the hosts of next year’s Eurovision seems to be Petra Mede, that has also hosted the 2013 and 2016 editions, the latter together with Måns Zelmerlöw. In fact, this duo has been voted the most popular Eurovision hosts of the 2010s.

Although, internal issues might keep Petra Mede away from hosting Eurovision 2024. The reason is that Mede is no longer employed by SVT, but by SVT’s main competitor, TV4.

A journalist for Aftonbladet mentioned that:

Internal politics within SVT would make it a little bit tough to have somebody working for the main competitor come over for just a one time gig. 

If they can get her and Måns (Zelmerlöw) doing it together again, that might make it a little bit easier for SVT to swallow.

That might sway the internal politics. Understanding that if they do this, this is what the fans really, really wish and hope for.

Mede herself had not ruled out a Eurovision return back in 2021.

On the other hand, there seem to be some health problems with Petra Mede.

The same Aftonbladet journalist, Tobbe Ek, has mentioned:

She has so much trouble with her back. This year she has had to pull out of hosting the Swedish version of Strictly Come Dancing because of her back problems. I think taking on Eurovision again might not be feasible for her.

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Source: eurotrippodcast.com

Sweden: Örnsköldsvik interested in hosting next year’s contest!

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Last Saturday, Sweden won for the 7th time, equalling the victories of Ireland in the contest! Loreen with the song “Tattoo” brought the contest back home and even if only a couple of days have passed, cities around Sweden have started expressing their interest to host next year’s contest!

Following Malmö, Örnsköldsvik, a city in Northern Sweden with a population of about 30.000 poeple, joins the “hunger games” of the host city for 2024. Örnsköldsvik had bid to host the contest back in 2016, when Måns Zemerlöw won, but ahead of the contest Örnsköldsvik was reportedly unable to host the contest due to insufficient capacity!

Örnsköldsvik had hosted this year’s Melodifestivalen Semifinalen at Hägglunds Arena, where the arena looked a bit tiny compared to other shows of the tour and also there have been reports of rip-off prices to rather limited and not decent enough selection of hotel rooms, during the weekend of the contest.

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