This week we have Eurovision news from loads of countries. Four new songs are selected, artists have been revealed and the National Final season is in full flow. Read each and every drop of the latest Newsletter for all of the reviews by clicking here.
Our weekly column Robertson’s Reflection now looks at the changes the new voting system for this year will have on the audience experience. With televotes coming all in one big lump, will we get excitement through the entire sequence, or will the voting become a damp squid?
The only trepidation I have in this excitement prediction is that if we all know they are only jury votes, a lot of the buzz drops off. I would argue the excitement of Sweden taking the lead last year would have been far less in the Wiener Stadthalle if the paying public realised these were just the first leg of the battle. This might not be a problem, I don’t know, but I find the atmosphere of voting in Friends Arena for Melodifestivalen a little static until the end point. Last year the highlight came as Nigella Lawson put Sweden in the lead, and then Lithuania gave Russia a zero straight after. That was the game, set and match moment. Now we always know that highlight will come at the end of voting no matter what.
Keep reading the Newsletter each week for each droplet of Eurovision excitement, and keep reading this story here.