Americans Vote for Eurovision
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=220832006

THE US TV network NBC has announced that it is planning a singing competition based on the 50-year-old Eurovision Song Contest, in a bid to beat the success of Fox's American Idol.

The US version of Eurovision would combine broadcast and online elements, NBC said on Friday. As with American Idol which was itself patterned on the hit British series Pop Idol the winner will receive a recording contract.

"Eurovision is the granddaddy of all talent shows and the Super Bowl of singing," Ben Silverman, chairman of series producer Reveille, said.

As described by the network, the show will include an online competition to find singers from each state, with the winners in each case advancing to the broadcast series to vie for the title.

Voting - notoriously viewed as being regularly rigged in Europe - will be in the hands of viewers.

Further details on the series, which will feature amateurs and professionals and both solo and group acts, were still in development, NBC said.

American Idol last week attracted 28 million viewers, compared with 15 million for the Grammy awards.

However, award winner Kelly Clarkson, whose career was launched by American Idol, failed to mention the programme in her acceptance speech.

The Eurovision Song Contest has helped to launch the careers of many pop stars.

In 1974, ABBA won the contest for Sweden with 'Waterloo'. Celine Dion won for Switzerland in 1988 and Olivia Newton-John competed for the United Kingdom in 1974.

In 1958, an Italian singer performed the show's most widely-recorded song, 'Volare' NBC said.

At last year's contest in Kiev, a record 39 countries from across Europe participated, with Helena Paparizou capturing a first win for Greece.

No air date for the NBC series was announced.
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WAY cool! I've been waiting for Eurovision!!!! :D

That sounds interesting. :)

Eurovision is great. I especially like Ruslana.

http://www.ukrainianmusic.net/catalog/images/ruslana-dykitanci-300x300.jpg

http://www.wildhunt.org/ruslana.jpg

Yeah!!! I liked the 2004 Eurovision Juniors as well. They had a really great round of kids. I have those MP3s. My favorite juniors were María Isabel (Spain), Limelights (Sweden), Thomas (France), and Young Talented Team (Malta). They were great!!! :D

Eurovision sucks and has been sucking since its invention.

The 'songs' are awfull and the voting system is quite corrupt. You can vote by phone for your favorite act, but since you can't vote for your own country, most people tend to vote for their neighbours: Norwegians vote for the Swedish, Panish people vote for the Portuguese etc. And in some countries it's not possible for the people to vote, so a jury is giving away the points (12 for the best, 1 for the 'not-so-best', since there are more than 12 countries participating) and then the 'corruption' is even bigger, almost predictable.

So no, you don't want this. It's horrible.

Oh, and can somebody explain me why Israel is in it when it's a European contest? :confused:

Great! More untalented people sucking on TV!

;)

Fonzarelli, I did hear about ESC being rigged, and that's a shame..... I'm sure the American version wouldn't be so rigged. Yeah, I've wondered about Israel too....

Fonzarelli, I did hear about ESC being rigged, and that's a shame..... I'm sure the American version wouldn't be so rigged.
Why do you think that?

Why do you think that?
I guess what I meant to say was that maybe if the public was more aware of what was going on in the current "riggings" of ESC, then maybe they will change some of the rules for the American one. I don't know. It seems like that public is aware of what is going on but not much is done about it. I don't know enough about it as I have never seen the show. I've only read about it through Europeans.

Eurovision sucks and has been sucking since its invention.

The 'songs' are awfull and the voting system is quite corrupt. You can vote by phone for your favorite act, but since you can't vote for your own country, most people tend to vote for their neighbours: Norwegians vote for the Swedish, Panish people vote for the Portuguese etc. And in some countries it's not possible for the people to vote, so a jury is giving away the points (12 for the best, 1 for the 'not-so-best', since there are more than 12 countries participating) and then the 'corruption' is even bigger, almost predictable.

So no, you don't want this. It's horrible.

Oh, and can somebody explain me why Israel is in it when it's a European contest? :confused:

Israel is usually included in things like these. They're also in the UEFA I believe. But then again, so are countries like Turkey and Kazakhstan and they aren't in Europe, either.

Israel is usually included in things like these. They're also in the UEFA I believe. But then again, so are countries like Turkey and Kazakhstan and they aren't in Europe, either.
Well, I do consider Turkey to be a part of Europe, too. They're already negotiating with the European Union to become a member. But countries like Kazakhstan and Israel don't really belong in these kind of things.

We don't need talentless phonies from other countries when we have so many of them here! Besides, everyone knows the British and Irish ahve the best pop performers anyway - we Yanks have known that since at least. . . 1964! :lol:

Well, I do consider Turkey to be a part of Europe, too. They're already negotiating with the European Union to become a member. But countries like Kazakhstan and Israel don't really belong in these kind of things.

Well, I think of it as Russia, a bicontinental country. Istanbul and the whole western coast as a part of Europe while the far east is more middle eastern influenced.

AI is probably better :snob: