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Awards
Germany wins Eurovision, UK comes last
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 1 June 2010
So, as you probably know by now, if you’re in any way interested in these things, which you might be, Germany’s Lena won the 55th Eurovision Song Contest this weekend with her song ‘Satellite’, beating 24 other contenders in what is still one of Europe’s most watched TV shows. On being proclaimed winner, Lena told reporters: “This is so absolutely awesome. I feel that this is not real. I’m kind of freaking out. This feels incredibly good”. Expect to never hear of Lena ever again.
Talking of which, consider this our first and last ever mention of Josh Dubovie, Britain’s big hope in the annual song competition (well I say last ever mention, there is an outside chance he’ll be the next Sugababe). Despite having the killer combination of the shittest song ever written and a tuneless, forgettable numpty singing it, somehow the United Kingdom came last on Saturday night. Who would have thought it possible?
Not that it really matters, given us Brits still treat the Eurovision project with a combination of bemused post-ironic love and slightly arrogant contempt, but you do have to wonder how one of the most prolific, inventive and commercially successful pop song-writing countries consistently enters utter shite into this pan-European pop contest; it’s been at least eight years since Britain entered anything nearing a decent pop song. And while Pete Waterman’s last place effort for Eurovision 2010 was particularly poor, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s fifth place rated 2009 song was decidedly mediocre too.
Of course, given there are now semi-finals in Eurovision, Britain would never make it through to the final stage of the contest if the BBC’s co-funding of the whole venture didn’t mean we’re guaranteed a spot in the Saturday night final. Most other countries’ national broadcasters don’t have the budgets to ensure such a guarantee.
In fact, some couldn’t even afford to compete this year. According to organisers, Hungary, Andorra, Montenegro and the Czech Republic all pulled out of Eurovision this year because the economic climate meant they couldn’t pull together enough cash to enter. Though when the Czech Republic announced they were not taking part in 2010 last summer, they said it was because of poor viewing figures in the country for the Eurovision show, and not due to budget constraints.
