The Liverpool of the Beatles, a city where the history of pop music has intervened, has been hosting the rehearsals of the candidates for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 as the venue for the European Song Contest for days. And that in a year that was atypical in several respects. The competition launches a voting system that gives more importance to the public. And this time it has two host countries after the Russian invasion of Ukraine prevented the eastern country from welcoming the festival as the last edition’s winner. The UK is responsible for doing so in his stead, with continuous nods and reminders of a nation whose wartime conflict seems forgotten though still topical.
There are 37 countries opting for the crystal microphone. RTVE will broadcast live the two semi-finals of Eurovision 2023, which will serve as the first screening. The first, on Tuesday 9th May, will be broadcast on La 2 and the second, on Thursday 11th May, where Spain will vote, will be broadcast on La 1. The final on Saturday 13 can be seen on La 1 9.00. All galas will take place at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool and will be commentated by Julia Varela and Tony Aguilar. Blanca Paloma, winner of the Benidorm Fest last February with the song Eaea, remains in the top five most popular options among bookmakers, dominated by Swede Loreen, who was also a winner in 2012 with Euphoria. The Spanish option has dropped one position in the past few days, from fourth to fifth place. Only the Finnish candidate, the bizarre and hypersexualized Käärijä, is predicted to outshine Sweden’s representative with Cha Cha Cha.
It will be a 67th edition marked by the referendum, now more global. In November, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced major changes to the voting system. This time, it is not the expert jury that decides which countries qualify for the semi-finals, but the audience. Additionally, viewers in non-participating countries can vote for their favorites online, making the song contest a more universal affair. The public voices from the rest of the world will come together and give their points as if they were one country. In the final on Saturday, the opinion of the expert jury will be combined with that of the world audience to decide on the winning song.
Pictures from day four of Eurovision 2023 rehearsals with two of the favorites to win: Loreen (left) and Käärijä (right). RTVE
Eurovision is the result of perennial controversies and one of them last year revolved around the suspicion of rigged voting among several countries taking part in the semi-finals which, if proven, would have affected the course of the final, including third place for Spain’s Chanel and SlowMo. The organization’s decision to recalculate these suspicious voting patterns based on others from the past did not please many supporters.
Ruth Lorenzo has been chosen by RTVE as the new speaker when it comes to awarding the points of the Spanish expert jury at Saturday’s gala, replacing model Nieves Álvarez. The singer, a former Spanish representative on Eurovision, has an increasing presence on the public broadcaster and is the current presenter of her music competition, Cover Night.
The best of British television
Let’s remember that Ukraine, with Kalush Orchestra’s Stefania, was the winner of Eurovision 2022 by connecting with European audiences by mixing urban rhythms with the folklore of a country at war. But the impossibility of holding the competition within its borders prompted the EBU to name second-placed UK, thanks to TikTok star Sam Ryder’s Spaceman, as the host of this year’s macro event. Ukraine’s presence, in addition to its musical candidacy, Tvorchi’s Heart of Steel, will be demonstrated by one of the presenters of the three galas: the singer Julia Sanina, leader of the rock band The Hardkiss. She will also be joined in the semifinals by actress Hannah Waddingham (who will sound like series star Ted Lasso to international audiences) and singer Alesha Dixon. Joining them for the finale is Graham Norton, whose self-titled Late Night is hugely popular on social media and has been the UK’s official Eurovision commentator since 2009. Almost every British television star is related in one way or another to their Eurovision coverage. Mask Singer host Joel Dommett and Rylan Clark (Big Brother, X Factor) will helm shows and side events.
The technical team responsible for the three galas are also part of some of the best television on the islands: from their look Who’s Dancing to veteran live music program Later… With Jools Holland. The stage has an area of 450 square meters, of which 220 are freely movable screens. There are more than 700 video mosaics embedded in the floor and more than 1,500 meters of LED lights. Julio Himede, the stage designer for this year’s festival, told the specialist portal Eurovision.tv that he bases his stage design on the principles of unity, celebration and community, while placing cultural aspects at the center the similarities between Ukraine and Great Britain.
A festival of this nature, organizing three nights in a venue that can accommodate more than 11,000 people each night, requires a large budget, supported by the host UK, the rest of the Big Five (Spain, Germany, Italy and France). and by sponsors such as Booking, one of the companies specialized in world travel, and the Spanish company Idealista, among others. The UK government will contribute £10m (€11.4m) and Liverpool local authorities will add a further £2m (€2.3m), the BBC said at the time. In addition to the more than 50,000 additional tourists that the British city will receive, the space alone will bring together between 160 and 180 million viewers worldwide via traditional television, not counting the impact on social media. When Elena Sánchez Caballero, interim President of RTVE, appeared in the Senate on March 28, she explained that the Spanish public broadcaster would focus on what she described as a “premium event” with a budget of 656,672 euros. It is one of the great moments of the year for La 1 in terms of audience and the one in which it best comes into contact with young audiences, making the public body increasingly interested in everything that surrounds musical competition.
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