WASHINGTON, May 27, 2012 – You may have never heard of the Eurovision Song Contest, but across the Atlantic it is the longest-running and most-watched non-sporting events on TV, with anywhere between 100 million and 600 million viewers. It has run since 1956, nearly fifty years before Fox put American Idol on the air.

Begun as entertainment after the devastation of World War II, it was a feat of live television of 1956 that endures to this day.

Here is how it works: Each country in the Europe Broadcasting Union submits a song and that song is sung by the performer and broadcast live all over the world.  The winner is voted on the live show by each country giving points to the other countries in the contest.  Nations can’t vote on their own songs. Each country also broadcasts the contest in a unique way, as they each have their own host; a television broadcaster from that country (usually from the country’s national public broadcasting organization) and the transmission is sent live from the auditorium where the contest is being held. Then at the end of the show, the song with the most points is declared the winner.

What’s in it for the artist?  Only the prestige of having won. But for former winners such as ABBA of ‘Waterloo’ fame and Celine Dion, that prestige is enough. Also the songwriter will often receive a trophy and the winning country is invited to host the event the next year.

The 2012 Eurovision contest took place on May 26, 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan and Sweden’s Loreen won with the song Euphoria. Already the song is being downloaded heavily on iTunes and will soon climb the charts. Euphoria won the Swedish Melodifestivalen earlier this year. Melodifestivalen is another, smaller song contest where Swedish songwriters and singers compete for the honor of representing Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Loreen won with a total of 372 points, which put her ahead of the second place winner, Russia’s Buranovskiye Babushki, a group of six elderly ladies; and third place Zeljko Joksimovic from Serbia. This wins means that Sweden will have hosting duties next year.

Have you listened to the song? What do you think? Will you be downloading it?

Baltimore based, Amy Phillips is a columnist, blogger, public speaker, twitter addict and all around nerd. 

Follow Amy on Twitter @amydpp.

Amy Phillips is an independent writer for the Communities. Read more from Amy at her Accidental Musings blog.

 

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