Romania suffers Eurovision premature ejection Romania has been prematurely ejected from this year's Eurovision Song Contest after state broadcaster Televiziunea Română (TVR) failed to cough fees owed to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The shock expulsion came after the EBU gave the Romanian government - which it views as "legally obliged to underwrite TVR's debt …
It's a shame so few people understand the differences between Eurovision, the EBU, the EU and the Eurovision Song Contest. On the other hand, it's bizarre how much hatred a singing competition gets. It's not like it goes on for months or people are forced to watch it.
The sad thing is, I think the Germans and the BBC put up a huge chunk of the money, with other broadcasters paying much less, and the hosts footing the rest of the bill. I guess it guarantees that we don't have to go through qualifiying, but just think how much of a service to music it would be if the BBC were to spend that money on something (anything!) else. Although taking out a hit on Justin Bieber would surely be the best use of license fee payers' cash.
I'm guessing that the, more effective, option of assassinating Simon Cowell would be frowned upon by Ofcom, due to the damage it would do to ITV's Saturday evening ratings.
You are mistaking the contest (which is pocket change) with overall access to EBU material. EBU material != contest.
Romania has failed to pay for their EBU dues and content they got (and used) from the EBU.
As far as putting Simon and the Eurovision contest crew and participants on the same boat without water, food and oars and letting them sail into the sunset - I am with you. That would be a splendid use of UK viewers money. Can we have the producers of Big Brother on the same boat too? They can produce the resulting real time feed from the boat as their final farewell programme. It will be fitting (especially when they start eating each other).
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Eurovision is hardly the worst thing on TV.
It is probably 20 hours of TV a year tops which is considerably less than that given over to individual sports, let alone collectively. And then there are numerous 'soaps' which are on every night, repeated endlessly, then packaged into omnibus editions in case one hasn't had enough.
Strictly, Bake Off, The Voice, Britain's Got talent, X Factor, I'm a Celebrity, Big Brother, TOWIE, Geordie Shores... I have to put up with never ending shite I don't like so it seems only fair that others should return the same courtesy.
Besides; whatever else people would be watching if Eurovision wasn't on would probably be equally crap.
They should have been suspended 8 years ago, when they first got into debt.
By their lights they have behaved logically - idiot Eurovision allows them to run up a big bill, year after year for 8 years. It is not reasonable to expect payment of that much money, wait until it is no longer your problem
You might ask the same about Israel, which has been taking part for some years now. Alas, the song contest organisers have stated that they have global ambitions, and Australia is just the first easy step in expansion. At some point they'll presumably establish the obligatory massive headquarters and unaccountable Executive in Switzerland to run the World Song Contest and distribute the lucrative advertising, sponsorship and rights revenues...
The Eurovision Song Contest isn't anything to do with the EU or Europe (see: Israel, Turkey, Morocco, Russia etc) but instead is a song contest organised by the EBU of which you need to be a member of some sort to send an entry to (notably, it's the broadcasting organisation which sends the entry rather than the country as such - in the UKs case, the BBC).
So, you could just as easily see countries such as Algeria, Cuba, Canada, and the USA sending over entries in the future, as all of those have broadcasters based in them who have membership or associate membership of the EBU.
...we do tend to treat Eurovision as a bit of a joke, but it's worth remembering that much of europe treats it quite seriously, especially the ex-USSR and satellite states where they have a long history of all sorts of local, regional and national talent competitions of all types.
I'm not sure if the rest of Eurovision sees the same politically motivated voting that we do or if they are just conveniently blind to it.
Wherever I go on holiday, there is atmospheric, ethnic, music which is locally popular but not 'pop', sung in local language, and no US-Engrish fakery, with local musical conventions and rythms, typically by girls who are well worth viewing (maybe men too, if that's your thing). That's what EuroVision used to be, when it was interesting, and was about 'songs' not commercial potential. Now it's a waste of space. Wogan's gone too. Cancel.
Wogan stayed way too long. If he hated the competition so much, he should have stepped aside and let someone commentate on it who could come at it with the British humour view of the competition from a place of fondness at least rather than the bitterness which Wogan gave to his commentary.
How can you run a business and allow customers to ignore their bill for 9 years? I bin customers much sooner. One month late: polite reminder, 2 months late: overdue notice, 3 months late: disconnection notice with 10 day deadline and (expensive) credit plan option. That usually results in immediate payment, an apology and a plea to keep their services running. If they ignore the disconnection notice then after disconnection (at 14 days) restoring service comes with a reconnection fee.
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