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Love it or loathe it, the Eurovision Song Contest cannot be ignored. Many who followed the first semifinal for this year’s edition saw Malta fail to make it to the the final round. Finger pointing is inevitable at this point, but I think that talk of neighbourly voting is misguided. Otherwise how is it that Belgium and Iceland find themselves in the final?

PBS must radically rethink the way it selects the songs it sends to Eurovision as well as how the selected performers are presented on the international stage. The long-standing way of doing things clearly doesn’t work and is indeed a waste of money. Worse still, it’s a wasted opportunity to promote some of the excellent musical talent emanating from the Maltese islands. To really get its value for money from the Eurovision Song Contest, Malta must spend more than €400,000 a year, not less.

The real problem right now is that there is no ROI (return on investment) analysis on the process. No strategic plan. No accountability. And no continuity or development on long-term experience gained from entering acts in the contest year after year. Then again, PBS has a remit to do public broadcasting and the Eurovision Song Contest is strictly a public broadcasting service, rather than a commercial concern. Done right, there is plenty of milage to be had from the Eurovision Song Contest, even for acts/countries that don’t win the contest.

The alternative is to spend a lot less and still take part just to be there. After all, there’s a great game element in the whole thing anyway. Regardless of placing, the Eurovision Song Contest is an incredibly interesting event for performance scholars like me to study.

Now that Malta no longer offers a distraction at this year’s contest, I can fully focus on the upcoming activities of the Eurovision Research Network. My next blog entry will most likely be a personal reflection on one of both events we’ve planned for the next two days.

The number of people who have contacted me asking about my Eurovision 2010 “predictions” in the last few days is staggering. There is no stand out act this year, even if Azerbaijan have spent more than Malta spends in 10 years on this contest to promote their 2010 entry. I am rather surprised that the Google worm is steady for Germany’s Lena, but let’s see what happens over the next couple of days.

So, without too much prejudice towards anyone’s taste in music, here are my pick for semi-final 1, in order of appearance:

Russia
Just because the Russians clearly aren’t taking Eurovision seriously this year, it doesn’t mean they can’t make it to the final.

Slovakia
The interesting staging, if nothing else, will make this a memorable entry on the night. Will that be enough to get Kristina Pelakova to the final?

Finland
What a country of extremes! It’s one of the most kitschy songs in this year’s contest but it’ also horribly infectious. Traditional Eurovision fans will love this. I’d also make a special note of the fact that they’re all dressed in white.

Bosnia & Herzegovina
I have it from someone who knows these things well that this is one to watch, for a particular group of Eurovision fans. However, he may be overlooking the fact that they’re also the same fans who don’t really like rock guitars.

Poland
Most Maltese people who bother voting on the Eurovision semi-final will probably like the staging of Legenda but they’ll possibly also take into account the fact that Malta’s own Thea Garrett seems to have found a soul mate in Marcin Mroziński. If they both make it to the final, she may very well be joining him on the cast of Les Miserables when it opens in Warsaw in September.

Belgium
One of the very few songs that don’t conform to the mainstream Eurovision genres and sub-genres. Will a good looking young man strumming an acoustic guitar and singing about, well, his guitar, appeal to the mostly middle aged female voting audience? Watch this one closely: it will either soar above the schlagers or sink majestically.

Malta
Malta has one of the most alluring entries in years. I’m saying Thea will take My Dream to the final. The backing singers are divine but perhaps our young singer is hampered by two of the handicaps that kept Jade Ewen from achieving a higher placing for the UK at last year’s final: (a) the song doesn’t grab you in the first 30 seconds, and (b) a young dynamic singer is made to perform like an aging diva.

Albania
If Juliana Pasha manages to make it to the final, it will prove that the new voting system has eliminated the possibility of bloc voting from excluding entries from countries without friendly neighbours.

Greece
Combing kitsch, ethnic stereotypes, and a catchy chant will ensure that Opa takes the Greeks to the final to provide what many will consider the most entertaining of this year’s entries. I’d also make a special note of the fact that they’re all dressed in white.

Iceland
In spite of giving us all that volcanic ash this spring, Iceland shines at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest with a singer that will not only take the northern-most island nation in the contest to the final but can most likely also secure it a top 10 placing (or better) in the final voting round.

Keep in mind that the top two acts tipped to win the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest are not taking part in the first semifinal along with Malta and the rest of the songs presented on Tuesday.

Depending on the kind of feedback I get from you, gentle readers, I’ll do this again for Thursday’s semifinal too, or simply skip to Saturday’s final.

DISCLAIMER: The “predictions” made in this blog post are for your amusement only. I’m pretty sure that these will not be the 10 countries whose songs will actually qualify for Saturday’s final.

CLAIMER: I’ll be greatly amused to see how many of my 10 picks are also the ones that will be seen/heard again on Saturday.

As you’d expect, I’ll be blogging about the Eurovision Song Contest in the coming days. Not sure what I’m going to focus on this year because there are a couple of different things I’m interested in this time. The Eurovision Research Network has its inaugural events and I’m heavily involved, as you can imagine. Then there’s the almost €400,000 that Malta is spending on this year’s entry.

The main reason I’m in Oslo this year is for the inaugural events of the Eurovision Research Network (ERN). This is a new organization I co-founded with two other UK-based media performance scholars interested in taking a closer look at the Eurovision Song Contest. ERN already has 40 members from 20 countries. The first event is a panel discussion at the Litteraturhuset in downtown Oslo on Eurovision and the “New” Europe on Thursday. On Friday we’ll be having our inaugural symposium at the University of Oslo, around the theme Setting an Agenda for Eurovision Studies. If nothing else, I can now confidently say that Eurovision is something that is attracting a solid body of scholarship and professional research around it, which contrasts nicely with the impression of frivolity many people associate with the Eurovision Song Contest.

Riding the bus to a wonderful party (I try to avoid using superlatives whenever I can, but this party was really a highlight among all the many Eurovision events I’ve attended over the years) thrown by the Georgian delegation at the amazing Oslo Opera House I had a very interesting conversation with an EBU staffer about the amount of money some countries spend on their Eurovision entry. Azerbaijan has clearly gone overboard this year, spending millions of euros on promotional ideas. They are very intent on winning the contest this time. Apparently, Malta still thinks that winning Eurovision is about having a great 3 minutes on stage during the contest broadcast. Still, from my conversation on the way to the Georgian party (how much did that cost?) I gathered that most countries are equally oblivious of actual ROI (return on investment) when it comes to Eurovision spending.

An ROI analysis, possibly including a comparative study, is the third on my areas of research interest around Eurovision. The first starts being articulated with the inaugural ERN symposium on Friday. Once that’s established, my next topic of research will be a performance studies approach to understanding Malta’s love-hate relationship with Eurovision, through an analysis of the songs Malta has entered in the contest since 1971, and how they compare to the songs that won and/or endured over the years.

While I was at the fabulous Oslo Opera House for the Georgian party, little Thea Garrett was singing a duet with Marcin Mroziński (this year’s singer from Polish) from The Phantom of the Opera at another venue where a smaller party by the Polish delegation was organized. I’m sure she enjoyed every minute of it but I wonder how many votes from Poland that will win her. I haven’t really buckled down to give the Maltese entry the attention it deserves yet. I’ll probably do that later today when I get ready for my first report for SBS radio in Australia. I’ll blog about that tomorrow, once attention on Malta’s 2010 entry starts approaching fever pitch in preparation for Tuesday’s do or die semifinal show. Die-hard Eurovision fans at the Telenor Arena in Oslo don’t think Malta will qualify to the final…but apparently the Google worm tells a different story. We’ll obviously know what’s what by Tuesday night.