Eurovision's Big Five

talisingly close to Liverpool: 2023

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This week we’re going to be taking a look at how we ended up with such a thing as the Big Five at Eurovision, but first: what is in the news?

The results are in from the poll to find the nation’s favourite UK Eurovision entry, and the winner is… Sam Ryder! Still cruising on an enormous wave of goodwill after transforming the UK’s fortunes in Turin last year, Sam’s song ‘Space Man’ was voted the greatest UK Eurovision song by Radio 2 listeners. Bucks Fizz’s Making Your Mind Up was second, and Ooh Ahh Just A Little Bit by Gina G was third. You can listen to the full countdown of the Top 40 on BBC Sounds now, or on BBC Radio 2 on Saturday 13 May from 1-3pm. Spoiler alert: Imaani’s ‘Where Are You?’ was number 15 and IT SHOULD’VE BEEN HIGHER.

The stage for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest has been officially unveiled by King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla in Liverpool. The royals visited the arena last week to light up the arena for the first time and lend their support to UK representative Mae Muller, telling her that they will be watching and egging her on. They didn’t reveal who they’ll actually be voting for, but my money is on them being Loreen stans.

After an acrimonious split more than 35 years ago, the original line-up of Frankie Goes To Hollywood will be reforming for The National Lottery’s Big Eurovision Welcome in Liverpool on Sunday 7 May. The event, which is a huge concert to kick off Eurovision season, hosted by Joel Dommett and AJ Odudu, boasts a star-studded line-up which also includes Eurovision champions Conchita Wurst and Jamala, as well as The Lightning Seeds, Atomic Kitten and The Real Thing.

And finally, if you were trying to dodge the astronomical cost of accommodation in Liverpool during Eurovision week by staying somewhere nearby, you should definitely make contingency plans because an RMT strike has been announced for Saturday 13 May, the day of the final. If you haven’t done so already, now would be an excellent time to make friends with a Liverpudlian who either has a spare room or a car that they’re willing to run you back to your digs in.

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all the way back to the early: 1990

Relax, I’m not going to go into a long geopolitical history lesson here, but one of the many effects of the dissolution of the USSR and break-up of Yugoslavia was that a great many more independent nations existed - and a lot of them wanted to enter the Eurovision Song Contest. This posed a problem for the contest’s organisers, because it was already quite a long event and there were only so many new countries that could be admitted without making the whole thing nine hours long.

e-selection round was held in: 1993

In: 1994

the countries that sat out in: 1994

Despite being an effort to smooth over the relegation system of previous years, this system wasn’t well-received: for starters, it didn’t fix things for Germany, who were two points short of qualifying - making this the only year that Germany were absent for a Eurovision final - and several countries were angry having gone to the lengths of organising national finals and selecting an entry only to not actually get a chance to compete on stage at Eurovision. So, a new solution was needed.

In: 1997

drawing from Eurovision after: 2012

m was introduced - Germany in: 2010

r heads in shame over: in the: 2015

So, we’ve established that Italy is the best performer in the Big Five by a considerable margin, but let’s get down into the dirt: who’s the worst? Who’s dragging everyone else down? If your instinct was to answer “the UK” then… you’re right, pretty much. Taking the average ranking of the Big Five countries since the system was introduced, the UK has the lowest average score, then Spain, then Germany, France, and Italy a long way above. But if you want the good news - and I admit that it’s of the clutching at straws variety - if we just look at the last 10 years, we’re not the worst. Hooray! Over the last 10 years, it’s actually Germany who have the worst average by a whisker, with three last place finishes to our two, and no top three finishes to our one.

Of course, the fact that I’m splitting hairs over this probably just reinforces the overall position that four out of the Big Five are chronic underperformers at Eurovision. It would be reasonable to conclude that automatically qualifying has made us lazy - if you know you haven’t got to battle it out in the semis and you’re not overly fussed about winning, then you’re not going to send your brightest and best?

It’s just a shame that in a lot of cases, this has resulted in France, Germany, Spain and the UK sending song after song that was bland and forgettable, especially when you think how many countries would love to enjoy the sort of privilege that we have at Eurovision. Really, we’ve been going about this all wrong - instead of looking at Eurovision as a chore to complete once a year, imagine if we looked upon our charmed status as a gift and an opportunity, and submitted songs that weren’t especially commercial but were innovative and daring and challenging? What if we became the 6Music of Eurovision?

second with Barbara Pravi in: 2021

That’s it for this week. Next week is Eurovision week - can you believe it’s here already? We’ll have all sorts of Eurovision programming for you across the week, including interviews, previews and reactions - so make sure you hit Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss an episode. Thanks for listening - and until next time, good night Europe, and good morning Australia.