Is there a BEST method of selecting an artist?
Hello all! I've got to be honest, I had done all the research on Tel Aviv to be able to finally sit down and write up my guide to the city. However, I realised that without the defined locations of EuroClub and the EuroVillage, the guide was somewhat useless to those of you who will be making the trip out to Israel. So scanning down the list of Eurovision news and picking out that it was all based around artist selection for 2019, I thought I would bring the conversation forum here. Is there a best way of selecting an artist? Some countries change it annually whilst others stick with a proven formula that works (some Scandanavian countries come to mind). Anyway, let's take a look at the different formats of selecting an artist and see what success they have brought.
Internal Selection
If you're a national broadcaster and you know that you're onto a winner, why ruin a good thing by throwing it to the public as part of the selection process? Not to mention, why waste all that money on a national final when you can use the budget at the finals themselves. The internal selection is a good system for a broadcaster with a strong candidate and song because they can keep the production within the broadcasters and create more of a surprise when it comes to the stage and is performed live in all its glory for the first time. Admittedly, the Irish haven't had a lot of luck with the system recently, but this year they did make the finals and their staging definitely contributed to that as it felt new and fresh by the time it reached Lisbon. I still believe that this is the format that will soon bring Bulgaria their first Eurovision victory. Of the top three, both Cyprus and Austria were internally selected and again, the freshness of the song when performed live for the first time definitely contributed to this. The system has however had a bad run recently in terms of producing winners. With the exception of Conchita Wurst in 2014, the last internally selected winner was the shock Azerbaijani victory of 2011 and before that, it was Ruslana's Wild Dances in 2004.
National Final
Admittedly, there are many different types of National Final for us to pick apart here and I will definitely not attempt to do them all, so instead I will split them up into the following categories: Multi-Semi National Finals, One Shot National Finals, One Singer National Finals, Select-the-Singer National Finals and Whatever the Germans Used to Do (yes I am literally giving this one a separate category).
Multi-Semi National Finals
So any National Final processes that have a Semi-Final round are going in this category. This goes from the double-semi Ukrainian process to the extraordinarily confusing Lithuanian process. It goes without saying that depending on how big they are, this is a good way to build excitement around the Eurovision project, particularly if you know you are going to get a big audience. Melodifestivalen is one of the most popular Swedish TV shows and is considered part of the national culture. It is therefore more likely to attract better artists, better songs and better resources for staging the performances. There is a reason that nothing tends to change between the National Final performance and the Eurovision Final performance for the Swedes. Other famed Eurovision selection processes including A Dal, Eesti Laul and Songvakeppnin are also multi-semi national finals. This format has had a lot of success recently with the winners of 2015, 2016 & 2017 all having come through multi-semi National Finals. This year however, the trend was bucked and the highest ranking entry to have come from this selection method was Sweden who placed (though unusually 4th from bottom with the televoters).
One Shot National Finals
So if you don't have the resources, the money, the time or the effort but you still want to get the public involved in what you're doing, there is always the one night national final special. Just because all the excitement boils down to one night, doesn't hinder the excitement or quality levels with Norway & Denmark regularly producing some exceptional shows. For the United Kingdom, the one shot National Final replaced the previous internal selection format from 2015 and so far, it has proved to be much loved and appreciated by the British Eurovision fandom. In terms of its success levels, again Denmark takes the plaudits having produced recent 2013 winner Emmelie De Forest from their Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. The format is also responsible for selecting Russian winner Dima Bilan in 2008 and Serbian winner Marija Serifovic in 2007. In more recent times, this year saw the Italians (if you consider Sanremo to be one-short which I do even though it's way more complicated than that) achieve 5th place and the Czechs achieve 6th place.
One Singer National Finals
If only a bigger British artist wanted to represent their country at Eurovision, the BBC would love to set up a one-singer, multiple songs national final. It would be relatively cheap, it would mean allowing the artist to have more time and autonomy around their entry and it would mean more time to create that closer relationship between artist and broadcaster that would normally happen during an internal selection process. You can see why it's attractive and you can see why Finland threw all their plans for UMK in the bin when the opportunity for Saara Aalto to represent them came up! It didn't bring them too much success but it certainly brought a lot of fun to the contest and significantly built the artist's profile around the continent. Though admittedly rare, this is the format that brought Greece their first success in 2005 (which explains their love of the system even as recently as last year).
Select-The-Singer National Finals
When the dust settles on every Eurovision and the broadcasters re-evaluate what happened, many look at what the winners did that was so fresh and different and simply take a bit of that formula for themselves. Despite this being a strange national final format, it is very en-mode following this year's Israeli victory. To be fair, this is a perfect system if you have access to a number of fantastic songwriters and song producers and you want to give the artist a song that fits them perfectly. It also nicely combines the public element that makes most national finals so popular with the surprise element of not seeing the song performed in all its production glory until the finals (a little bit like with internal selections). I am personally not entirely convinced that this system is going to last and that the Maltese will not have as much success as Israel when they try to give a song to the winner of X Factor Malta, but I am happy to be proven wrong. To my understanding, this year was the first time that a winner was picked using this format so credit where credit is due to the Israelis for doing something different and getting rewarded for it!
Whatever the Germans Used to Do
And then there's the National Final format that the Germans used to love but which makes very little sense to anybody (which is perhaps why they stopped using it). In order to explain how it works, I will walk you through my only experience of watching this circus unfold in 2017. They started with five singers who were asked to perform a cover. After all five of the performances had taken place, the public voted and the top three singers went through to the second round. Seems simple enough, right? It was then revealed that German Broadcaster ARD had chosen two candidate songs that they had commissioned for the contest. Every one of the five artists had recorded a version of both songs and they had been made available to audiences across Europe to view and even vote on (even though the votes had no influence on the final result). Anyway, the three performers then performed their version of the first candidate song with one singer being eliminated. It then came down to the two final performers performing the second candidate song and then a straight public vote between the four performances on offer (two performers, two candidate songs). In the case of 2015, it was so clear from the start of the show how enamored everybody was with Levina. She did not win this final, she absolutely thrashed everybody else. This is a format that makes absolutely zero sense to me and clearly didn't produce the results for the Germans that year as they limped to a 25th place finish. That said, it was a similar format that the same country used in 2010 when they sent a certain young woman with a certain song called 'Satellite'!
So what have we learned? Is there an actual best method of selecting an artist? Well, historically most winners have been chosen by one-shot national finals. However, as a British Eurovision fan, I can definitively say that simply having the format hasn't meant a massive uptick in our results and we're definitely nowhere near the top 10 on current form. I think if this year's Eurovision Song Contest reminded us of anything, it is that ultimately, people will vote for something that feels fresh, new and different and perhaps Israel's unique selection format was a contributing factor to their victory. To answer my initial question, I don't think there is a best method, but I do think that countries can use their selection methods to fit the resources at their disposal and maybe it will lead to them pulling off a surprise!
What do you think? Is there a particular method that you think works best? Leave a comment below with your thoughts! Thank you for reading this, please don't forget to subscribe to the blog using the link at the top. We are nearing the proper start of the 2019 Eurovision Season and I can already feeling it bubbling up. Are you ready to begin the countdown to Tel Aviv? Bring in on!
Internal Selection
If you're a national broadcaster and you know that you're onto a winner, why ruin a good thing by throwing it to the public as part of the selection process? Not to mention, why waste all that money on a national final when you can use the budget at the finals themselves. The internal selection is a good system for a broadcaster with a strong candidate and song because they can keep the production within the broadcasters and create more of a surprise when it comes to the stage and is performed live in all its glory for the first time. Admittedly, the Irish haven't had a lot of luck with the system recently, but this year they did make the finals and their staging definitely contributed to that as it felt new and fresh by the time it reached Lisbon. I still believe that this is the format that will soon bring Bulgaria their first Eurovision victory. Of the top three, both Cyprus and Austria were internally selected and again, the freshness of the song when performed live for the first time definitely contributed to this. The system has however had a bad run recently in terms of producing winners. With the exception of Conchita Wurst in 2014, the last internally selected winner was the shock Azerbaijani victory of 2011 and before that, it was Ruslana's Wild Dances in 2004.
National Final
Admittedly, there are many different types of National Final for us to pick apart here and I will definitely not attempt to do them all, so instead I will split them up into the following categories: Multi-Semi National Finals, One Shot National Finals, One Singer National Finals, Select-the-Singer National Finals and Whatever the Germans Used to Do (yes I am literally giving this one a separate category).
Multi-Semi National Finals
So any National Final processes that have a Semi-Final round are going in this category. This goes from the double-semi Ukrainian process to the extraordinarily confusing Lithuanian process. It goes without saying that depending on how big they are, this is a good way to build excitement around the Eurovision project, particularly if you know you are going to get a big audience. Melodifestivalen is one of the most popular Swedish TV shows and is considered part of the national culture. It is therefore more likely to attract better artists, better songs and better resources for staging the performances. There is a reason that nothing tends to change between the National Final performance and the Eurovision Final performance for the Swedes. Other famed Eurovision selection processes including A Dal, Eesti Laul and Songvakeppnin are also multi-semi national finals. This format has had a lot of success recently with the winners of 2015, 2016 & 2017 all having come through multi-semi National Finals. This year however, the trend was bucked and the highest ranking entry to have come from this selection method was Sweden who placed (though unusually 4th from bottom with the televoters).
One Shot National Finals
So if you don't have the resources, the money, the time or the effort but you still want to get the public involved in what you're doing, there is always the one night national final special. Just because all the excitement boils down to one night, doesn't hinder the excitement or quality levels with Norway & Denmark regularly producing some exceptional shows. For the United Kingdom, the one shot National Final replaced the previous internal selection format from 2015 and so far, it has proved to be much loved and appreciated by the British Eurovision fandom. In terms of its success levels, again Denmark takes the plaudits having produced recent 2013 winner Emmelie De Forest from their Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. The format is also responsible for selecting Russian winner Dima Bilan in 2008 and Serbian winner Marija Serifovic in 2007. In more recent times, this year saw the Italians (if you consider Sanremo to be one-short which I do even though it's way more complicated than that) achieve 5th place and the Czechs achieve 6th place.
One Singer National Finals
If only a bigger British artist wanted to represent their country at Eurovision, the BBC would love to set up a one-singer, multiple songs national final. It would be relatively cheap, it would mean allowing the artist to have more time and autonomy around their entry and it would mean more time to create that closer relationship between artist and broadcaster that would normally happen during an internal selection process. You can see why it's attractive and you can see why Finland threw all their plans for UMK in the bin when the opportunity for Saara Aalto to represent them came up! It didn't bring them too much success but it certainly brought a lot of fun to the contest and significantly built the artist's profile around the continent. Though admittedly rare, this is the format that brought Greece their first success in 2005 (which explains their love of the system even as recently as last year).
Select-The-Singer National Finals
When the dust settles on every Eurovision and the broadcasters re-evaluate what happened, many look at what the winners did that was so fresh and different and simply take a bit of that formula for themselves. Despite this being a strange national final format, it is very en-mode following this year's Israeli victory. To be fair, this is a perfect system if you have access to a number of fantastic songwriters and song producers and you want to give the artist a song that fits them perfectly. It also nicely combines the public element that makes most national finals so popular with the surprise element of not seeing the song performed in all its production glory until the finals (a little bit like with internal selections). I am personally not entirely convinced that this system is going to last and that the Maltese will not have as much success as Israel when they try to give a song to the winner of X Factor Malta, but I am happy to be proven wrong. To my understanding, this year was the first time that a winner was picked using this format so credit where credit is due to the Israelis for doing something different and getting rewarded for it!
Whatever the Germans Used to Do
And then there's the National Final format that the Germans used to love but which makes very little sense to anybody (which is perhaps why they stopped using it). In order to explain how it works, I will walk you through my only experience of watching this circus unfold in 2017. They started with five singers who were asked to perform a cover. After all five of the performances had taken place, the public voted and the top three singers went through to the second round. Seems simple enough, right? It was then revealed that German Broadcaster ARD had chosen two candidate songs that they had commissioned for the contest. Every one of the five artists had recorded a version of both songs and they had been made available to audiences across Europe to view and even vote on (even though the votes had no influence on the final result). Anyway, the three performers then performed their version of the first candidate song with one singer being eliminated. It then came down to the two final performers performing the second candidate song and then a straight public vote between the four performances on offer (two performers, two candidate songs). In the case of 2015, it was so clear from the start of the show how enamored everybody was with Levina. She did not win this final, she absolutely thrashed everybody else. This is a format that makes absolutely zero sense to me and clearly didn't produce the results for the Germans that year as they limped to a 25th place finish. That said, it was a similar format that the same country used in 2010 when they sent a certain young woman with a certain song called 'Satellite'!
So what have we learned? Is there an actual best method of selecting an artist? Well, historically most winners have been chosen by one-shot national finals. However, as a British Eurovision fan, I can definitively say that simply having the format hasn't meant a massive uptick in our results and we're definitely nowhere near the top 10 on current form. I think if this year's Eurovision Song Contest reminded us of anything, it is that ultimately, people will vote for something that feels fresh, new and different and perhaps Israel's unique selection format was a contributing factor to their victory. To answer my initial question, I don't think there is a best method, but I do think that countries can use their selection methods to fit the resources at their disposal and maybe it will lead to them pulling off a surprise!
What do you think? Is there a particular method that you think works best? Leave a comment below with your thoughts! Thank you for reading this, please don't forget to subscribe to the blog using the link at the top. We are nearing the proper start of the 2019 Eurovision Season and I can already feeling it bubbling up. Are you ready to begin the countdown to Tel Aviv? Bring in on!
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