The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la Chanson) is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. Each country participates via one of their national EBU-member television stations, whose task it is to select a singer and a song to represent their country in the international competition. The Contest has been broadcast every year since its inauguration in 1956 and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also one of the most-watched non-sporting events in the world,with audience figures having been quoted in recent years as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to such places as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Uruguay despite the fact that they do not compete. Since the year 2000, the Contest has also been broadcast over the Internet, with more than 74,000 people in almost 140 countries having watched the 2006 edition online.
In the 1950s, as a war-torn Europe rebuilt itself, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)-based in Switzerland-set up an ad-hoc committee to search for ways of bringing together the countries of the EBU around a "light entertainment programme".[10] At a committee meeting held in Monaco in January 1955, director general of Swiss television and committee chairman Marcel Bezençon conceived the idea of an international song contest where countries would participate in one television programme, to be transmitted simultaneously to all countries of the union.[10][11] The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy,[12] and was also seen as a technological experiment in live television: as in those days, it was a very ambitious project to join many countries together in a wide-area international network. Satellite television did not exist, and the so-called Eurovision Network comprised a terrestrial microwave network.[13] The concept, then known as "Eurovision Grand Prix", was approved by the EBU General Assembly in at a meeting held in Rome on 19 October 1955 and it was decided that the first contest would take place in spring 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland.[10] The name "Eurovision" was first used in relation to the EBU's network by British journalist George Campey in the London Evening Standard in 1951.[11]
The first Contest was held in the town of Lugano, Switzerland, on 24 May 1956. Seven countries participated-each submitting two songs, for a total of 14. This was the only Contest in which more than one song per country was performed: since 1957 all Contests have allowed one entry per country. The 1956 Contest was won by the host nation, Switzerland.[14]
The programme was first known as the "Eurovision Grand Prix". This "Grand Prix" name was adopted by the Francophone countries, where the Contest became known as "Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne".[15] The "Grand Prix" has since been dropped and replaced with "Concours" (contest) in these countries. The Eurovision Network is used to carry many news and sports programmes internationally, among other specialised events organised by the EBU.[16] However, in the minds of the public, the name "Eurovision" is most closely associated with the Song Contest.[13]
Format
The format of the Contest has changed over the years, though the basic tenets have always been thus: participant countries submit songs, which are performed live in a television programme transmitted across the Eurovision Network by the EBU simultaneously to all countries.[17] A "country" as a participant is represented by one television broadcaster from that country: typically, but not always, that country's national public broadcasting organisation. The programme is hosted by one of the participant countries, and the transmission is sent from the auditorium in the host city. During this programme, after all the songs have been performed, the countries then proceed to cast votes for the other countries' songs: nations are not allowed to vote for their own song. At the end of the programme, the winner is declared as the song with the most points. The winner receives, simply, the prestige of having won-although it is usual for a trophy to be awarded to the winning songwriters, and the winning country is invited to host the event the following year.
The programme is invariably opened by one or more presenters, welcoming viewers to the show. Most host countries choose to capitalise on the opportunity afforded them by hosting a programme with such a wide-ranging international audience, and it is common to see the presentation interspersed with video footage of scenes from the host nation, as if advertising for tourism. Between the songs and the announcement of the voting, an interval act is performed. These acts can be any form of entertainment imaginable. Interval entertainment has included such acts as The Wombles (1974) and the first international presentation of Riverdance (1994).
The theme music played before and after the broadcasts of the Eurovision Song Contest (and other Eurovision broadcasts) is the prelude to Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum.
The Eurovision Song Contest final is traditionally held on a spring Saturday evening, at 19:00 UTC (20:00 BST, or 21:00 CEST). Usually one Saturday in May is chosen, although the Contest has been held on a Thursday (in 1956) and as early as March.
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A decorrer desde 1956, o Festival Eurovisão da Canção (em inglês: Eurovision Song Contest e em francês: Concours Eurovision de la Chanson) é um concurso anual de canções transmitido pela televisão com participantes de diversos países cuja televisão nacional transmissora é membro do European Broadcasting Union. O concurso é transmitido na televisão e também na rádio por toda a Europa. Recentemente, a transmissão do mesmo foi também alargada a outros países não europeus e também pode ser acompanhada na internet.
O nome do concurso deriva da palavra Eurovision que é a primeira palavra da cadeia de televisões europeia: a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) (União Europeia de Radiodifusão em português). Esta união pode conseguir uma audiência de mil milhões de pessoas ao mesmo tempo. Qualquer membro da EBU pode participar no concurso, mesmo que não seja um país europeu. Isto inclui países africanos e asiáticos tais como Israel, Marrocos, Tunísia, Argélia, Egipto, Líbano, Arménia, Líbia e Geórgia. Destes países não europeus somente Israel, Marrocos, a Arménia e a Geórgia é que já participaram no concurso. O Líbano tinha intenções de participar pela primeira vez no ano de 2005, mas decidiu desistir pois não queria transmitir a actuação de Israel
Baseado no festival de música de São Remo, o primeiro festival eurovisivo saiu da mente da EBU. O primeiro festival teve lugar no dia 24 de Maio de 1956, onde sete dos originais primeiros convites concorreram (três países foram desqualificados por terem entrado tardiamente). Assim, os primeiros países foram a França, a Alemanha Ocidental, a Itália, a Holanda, o Luxemburgo, a Bélgica e a Suíça. No ano a seguir, juntaram-se a estes o Reino Unido, a Áustria e a Dinamarca e em 1959 o Mónaco. Muitos outros países se foram juntando nas décadas seguintes, como por exemplo, Israel em 1973 e a Islândia em 1986. No entanto, o culminar da Guerra Fria no início da década de 90 fez com que muitos países de leste entrassem no concurso, competindo pela primeira vez. O processo continua em 2005, com a entrada da Bulgária e da Moldávia, que concorrem pela primeira vez neste concurso, e em 2006, com a Arménia.
Até ao ano de 2003, a participação neste concurso estava dependente de quão bem o país se tinha saído no ano anterior. Se a participação ficasse classificada num dos últimos lugares da tabela, então o país não concorreria no ano seguinte, em detrimento dos outros que tinham ficado fora no ano anterior. Mas a Espanha, o Reino Unido, a França e a Alemanha são países que excedem à regra. (os chamados Big four) Qualquer que seja a sua posição na tabela classificativa, estes países estão sempre apurados para o ano seguinte, devido à contribuição monetária que dão todos os anos para o festival se realizar.
Desde 2000, é editado um CD com as canções de cada edição.
Em 2004, a EBU decidiu fazer do Festival Eurovisão da Canção um evento de dois dias, limpando todas as regras existentes anteriormente relativas à não participação de um país por um ano por causa dos maus resultados. Assim, todos os anos se organiza uma final (com os Big four já apurados) mais os países que tiveram boa classificação no ano anterior. Os restantes concorrem todos na semifinal e tentam a sua sorte, já que só há mais dez lugares disponíveis na final do concurso.
Para a edição do festival de 2002, a televisão Espanhola (TVE) criou um reality show chamado Operacíon Triunfo que mostrava a formação e selecção de cantores desconhecidos. O formato televisivo foi um enorme sucesso em Espanha e no concurso. A partir daí, o formato foi-se espalhando pelos vários países europeus (Irlanda, Reino Unido, Portugal, França, Itália, Albânia,...). O auge do formato foi 2005,aonde vários países seguiram o formato.
in wikipedia, adaptado
