The Story so far
Scotland is well liked and well regarded across Europe, we all know that. The depressing spectacle of Scooch gave the Scottish Eurovision campaign the kick-start it needed! While Scotland has a wealth of musical talent, in recent years we have been forced to endure the embarrassment of being associated with “nul points” performances in the guises of Jemini and Daz Sampson among others.
However, the British cringe factor urged us on and www.scottisheurovision.eu was born. With the help of Alyn Smith MEP we have started the ball rolling and have discovered what is and is not possible.
Alyn arranged a meeting with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in Brussels to discuss the possibility of Scotland having its own entry in a similar vein as UEFA allows Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland to compete as separate nations in football tournaments. As far as the EBU are concerned, entrants for Eurovision must be from states that are recognised by the Council of Europe (i.e. the UK rather than Scotland). Therefore, pending independence there will not be an independent Scottish entry, but a Scottish entry can represent the UK.
Just before Moscow 2009 we launched our e-petition with the Scottish Parliament. Our petition calls for the Scottish Parliament to take appropriate measures to gain Scotland its own entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. We will post a link to the petition so people can sign up as soon as it is on the Scottish Parliament website.
As a follow-up to his meeting with the EBU, Alyn met with the Managing Director and a senior producer from Scottish Television to discuss their interest in bidding against the BBC for the rights to the programme. The interest was there although they remained non-committal. They need to be persuaded that there is a desire out there to make this happen. Maybe there are busniess or financial reasons why not, we do not know, but we're confident Scotland's broadcasters could come up with a great Eurovision bid, and a great entry.
So we have to work within the constraints set out by the EBU. However, this does not mean that we cannot change the format of the current broadcasting structure to be much fairer and more representative of all four nations of the UK.
This can be done in several ways, none of which are perfect but all of which are preferable to the current “Scotland doesnae exist” situation.
Firstly, it is not set in stone that the BBC has to be the broadcaster for the UK. Any broadcaster and active member of the union has the right to put forward a bid to broadcast Eurovision. This includes STV, part of the ITV network. The BBC has always put in the bid for the rights to broadcast Eurovision and is never challenged because of tradition rather than because of any specific EBU rules. Therefore there is the possibility that commercial TV could take over Eurovision broadcasting and give it the revamp it desperately needs.
Secondly, and linked to the above, the format of the choosing the entry and the contest itself may well work better with the ITV-style of Saturday night phone-ins and suchlike than the BBC. A change of broadcaster could coincide with a change in format for the competition, in terms of both the selection of the UK’s entry and with the competition itself.
And we're not anti-BBC, far from it. Whether the BBC continues to hold the broadcasting rights to Eurovision or if ITV takes it on, a Scottish entry representing the UK every four years is quite possible. At the most basic level, both BBC and ITV have the ability to give their regional partners (such as STV, BBC Scotland and their equivalents in the other home nations of the UK) the opportunity to play a part in the process of choosing the UK’s entry. There are a couple of ways that this could happen.
One option is for the four nations to take turns to choose a UK representative. While this would mean Scotland is only individually represented once every four years, it would still constitute a big improvement to the current situation. Alternatively, each of the four regional broadcasters could hold regional heats annually to choose a contestant for Eurovision from each of the four nations, and then have a final selection to pick which one would go through to represent the UK.
So now we need your support! We know what is possible, now we have to make it happen!
To see what you can do to help, see our page on registering your support!
Also, please take the time to sign our e-petition on the Scottish Parliament's website calling for the Parliament to support our campaign. The more people who sign, the more seriously we will be taken.
