Frankly I think we missed something good in Milwaukee in 1982 if these news credits are anything to go by. Whatever was happening – even if it was nothing – I’d be tuning in:
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Archive for ‘Broadcasting’
Crystal Maze is coming back
Whoop for the return of Crystal Maze. Treat with caution when you learn it’s headed to ITV. Eye with suspicion at the idea of replacing the contestants with so-called ‘celebs’. Decide not to tune in when they replace Richard O’Brien with Amanda Holden.
An opportunity missed.
Perhaps I’ll subscribe to Challenge.
Irony
From The Guardian:
The demands of complying with the Freedom of Information Act have cost the BBC more than £3m since the act was introduced in 2005, according to figures obtained through an FOI request by the Guardian.
Source: Guardian
The Bargain BBC
The BBC is an easy target because it makes a lot of its money from licence fees. Somehow that makes a lot of people think they know best how to run it. They don’t, of course, but the fact that the revelation of its bosses’ expenses has happened today – just after Parliament has been hauled over the coals for MPs shameful squandering of public funds – means they’re ready and willing to drag it over the same political coals.
Here’s a headline:
£350,000. Tsk tsk tsk. That’s 2,456 licence fees gone on expenses.
Why isn’t it more?
It sounds like a lot, but that £350K was run up by ten board members. An average of £35,000 each.
Over five years. So an average of £7,000 per person per year.
To run the BBC – a job that involved international travel, late nights, wooing suppliers, customers and talent, researching, entertaining and providing five national television networks, ten national radio networks, the World Service (radio and TV), 40 local radio stations and countless web sites.
They should really be congratulated for keeping things under such tight control.
Eurovision Song Contest 2009
Well, I have a bit of humble pie to eat. The UK came fifth. I still don’t think the song deserved it, but I have to admit that she did sing it very well, and in our own scoring we put it joint seventh with Denmark.
We all knew that Norway was going to win it – we said that when we first heard the song four months ago, before he’d even won his place in the semis and the country was still dithering over whether or not to pick him. On the night, though, we actually put the Ukraine slightly ahead of him, but Europe had them miles apart, with Norway storming home with five times the number of points the Ukraine garnered. Shame.
I’m so glad Iceland came second. It was a great song brilliantly sung and I wouldn’t have been sad to see it win.
| Country | Our points |
Our placing |
Actual points |
Position |
| Ukraine | 114 | 1 | 76 | 12 |
| Norway | 110 | 2 | 387 | 1 |
| Estonia | 97 | 3 | 129 | 6 |
| Iceland | 94 | 4 | 218 | 2 |
| Sweden | 91 | 5 | 33 | 21 |
| Finland | 88 | 6 | 22 | 25 |
| Denmark | 87 | 7= | 74 | 13 |
| UK | 87 | 7= | 173 | 5 |
| France | 77 | 9 | 107 | 8 |
| Armenia | 75 | 10 | 92 | 10 |
| Turkey | 72 | 11 | 177 | 4 |
| Moldova | 69 | 12 | 69 | 14 |
| Greece | 63 | 13 | 120 | 7 |
| Romania | 58 | 14 | 40 | 19 |
| Lithuania | 57 | 15= | 23 | 23 |
| Spain | 57 | 15= | 23 | 24 |
| Albania | 56 | 17 | 48 | 17 |
| Israel | 52 | 18 | 53 | 16 |
| Bosnia | 50 | 19 | 106 | 9 |
| Malta | 49 | 20 | 31 | 22 |
| Azerbeijahn | 48 | 21 | 207 | 3 |
| Germany | 47 | 22 | 35 | 20 |
| Croatia | 45 | 23 | 45 | 18 |
| Russia | 40 | 24 | 91 | 11 |
| Portugal | 38 | 25 | 57 | 15 |
Of the above points, ours are out of a possible total of 130 for each act, and the actual points are out of a possible total of 504.
We spent it at Mark’s, as we do every year – 13 of us crammed into one room to score and sing along. His poor neighbours. It’s only a terrace. After that, the night slipped into watching old TV, embarrassing Bill with old clips of him presenting That’s Life in his green velour suit, and putting on the 2006 preview DVDs, which are always good for a sing-along.
The only slight downer was the exhaust falling off the car on the way back, still a long way from home. We had no choice but to carry on, with it dragging on the floor, scattering little orange sparks like a shuttle on re-entry all the way back, with every car that passed slowing down to point out what we already knew.
Quite hoarse on Sunday morning.
Eurostat
An impressive stat from the Independent about this year’s Eurovision, following on from this round up of what the papers are saying:
Local media reports say $42 million is being spent on the 54th year of the competition… Moscow is using 30 per cent of the world’s entire stock of LED screens on its lavish stage, said a spokeswoman for the Swiss-based European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an association of broadcasters from 56 countries which runs the contest.
Eurovision round-up: what the papers say
If you’ve ever wondered why the UK puts in such awful songs for Eurovision, the answer could be purely financial: it costs a lot of money to stage the show, which we’d have to stump up if we won. Russia, for example, apparently spent £30m on the stage alone this year (and in fairness it was money well spent).
Eurovision bags the BBC a lot of viewers, so by not winning it, it’s a double win: it gets the audience without having to cough up for the staging. Don’t believe me? Check out the Telegraph for the lowdown on how the BBC hoped to come Rock Bottom in Eurovision Song Contest
[BBC minutes from meetings in 1977] stated: “[BBC governor] Mr Howard said that when it seemed that the UK would win the contest (and have to pay for it again in 1978) BBC faces at Wembley had grown longer and longer.
“But they had cheered up when L’Oiseau Et L’Enfant won the prize. Lord Greenhill thought the set up had been ugly; Professor Thompson regretted that Angela Rippon had lost her poise at one moment and Doctor Hughes’ only comment was that the whole occasion had been one of ‘grasping vulgarity that he could not bear to watch’.”
Source: The Telegraph
If you’re off to a Eurovision party, then food should be a big part of the mix. We all used to be allocated a country from the contest and bring along food from that nation, serving it when its performer was on the stage. A Eurovision Food Contest points us towards another group of bloggers doing the same thing:
“…millions of people will be watching, some may even be throwing parties. One group of food bloggers in particular have come up with a whole new way of dragging some excitement out of the foetid corpse that is the Eurovision Song Contest and, at the same time, conduct an interesting experiment about the multiculturalism of our capital city.
Excellent food writer Andrew Webb has created Eating Eurovision bringing together 25 bloggers whose task it is to eat the traditional cuisine of all 25 nations in the final of the competition, within the M25, within 25 hours of the competition itself…”
Source: The Guardian
The Times has profiled French entrant Patricia Kaas, whose song is very French and very good but not, I don’t believe, a winner. What a shame, then, that the paper’s writer claims that:
If Kaas cannot do well, there’s no hope for the Eurovision contest.
Source: The Times
That rather presupposes that only her kind of music – serious ballads – has any merit, which is patently untrue.
Meanwhile, a word from our entrant: I expect to be in the top five.
“Everybody has been really positive and they are happy and relieved we are finally taking it seriously. I have been really enjoying the build up. I expect to be in the top five and I want to be number one.”
Source: The Guardian
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! She’s so funny.
Actually, the Guardian has done loads of stuff on this year’s Eurovision, and has a dedicated Eurovision section, although the tone can be quite negative in parts, which is a shame. The chart showing Britain’s scores over the years laid against its actions in Europe and world is interesting, but ultimately flawed. It says of Andy Abrams’ deservedly poor showing last year:
Diaspora voting, Balkan collusion, racism and soviet bloc voting were just some of the many excuses offered for Andy Abraham’s disastrous last place finish. They may all have been true.
Source: The Guardian
Reason 5 why the UK won’t win Eurovision 2009
The last of five reasons why the UK won’t win this year’s Eurovision Song Contest (aside from the dismalness of our own entry) is Hungary’s Dance With Me.
Now admittedly a lot of its appeal is in the great video, in which the same guy – Zoli Adok – dances throughout, but it’s still a catchy tune that gets in your head and stays there. And that’s no bad thing.
As with all five challengers I’ve highlighted, he might not make it to the final on Saturday night, as he has to qualify on Thursday semi-final, but I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed. You can see why in this video:
The first semi is tonight, through which I’ll be flying flags for Sweden and Montenegro (with a little pennant run up for Iceland, too). On Thursday I’ll be cheering on Hungary, Norway (my favourite to win), Estonia and the Ukraine (my favourite song in the contest).
The UK can only vote in the first semi and, of course, in Saturday’s final.
Check out numbers one, two, three and four in our list of five reasons why the UK won’t be winning Eurovision this year.
Reason 4 why the UK won’t win Eurovision 2009
This time it’s Estonia. A real break from the traditional Eurovision sound, this one. It’s a real grower.
That could be a problem as the phone voters only get to hear a song once before they must make their choice, so its saving grace could be the fact that 50% of the points for each country will be awarded by national juries this year. The jury members will probably all have heard these songs plenty of times already and half made up their minds on where their points are going.
Urban Symphony is sung by Randajad, who looks like a longer-haired Lily Allen.
Play it more than once to fully ‘get’ it.
Check out numbers one, two and three in our list of five reasons why the UK won’t be winning Eurovision this year.
Reason 3 why the UK won’t win Eurovision 2009
Last year’s absolute guaranteed winner was Ani Lorak with Shady Lady. Until she lost, of course, to a far inferior song from Russia. Ani was from the Ukraine, and that country’s entry this year had a certain Lorak-ish style to it.
A guaranteed UK-beater, I’d say, the main body of Be My Valentine by Svetlana Loboda is quite different to the opener, so stick with it until after you see the big pink cake roll across the stage, at which point it all kicks off.
The real reason for watching this, though, is the video, which is a visual masterpiece. Sadly they won’t be able to replicate it entirely on the stage, but of all the videos submitted this year, the Ukraine’s is without doubt the most ambitious.
Check out numbers one and two in our list of five reasons why the UK won’t be winning Eurovision this year.
