Sorry about the long hiatus, but you probably don't care anyway.
I wanted to make it back with something big, something that you would enjoy.
That's why I decided to make this video.
If you didn't know, I'm a big fan of AlternateHistoryHub and follow them on a regular basis.
I even made a preview video for an episode that never came out,
and it still holds the record as the most watched video on my channel.
Seriously, a forty-second video beat out all of my Let's Plays,
all of my reviews, and every other zany adventure I had planned.
Hopefully, this video will change that.
In honor of AlternateHistoryHub,
I'd like to make my own video using a similar art style to what is used, or at least was used,
in AlternateHistoryHub, to cover one of my favorite topics:
the Eurovision Song Contest.
If you never heard of it, that's okay. It's not an American thing, anyway.
However, since it usually reaches 200 million views,
it merits a bit of explanation.
The short version is each country sends in a song and a performer to perform it,
and competes against each other for points.
The winner walks away with a big shiny trophy
and the honor of hosting the event in his or her home country.
Simple enough, right? Well, here's the longer version.
The contest was launched in 1956,
in an effort to bring the war-battered people of Europe together around a single event,
brought to you by the newly-launched Eurovision Network.
This network would allow events to be broadcast across all of Europe,
or at the very least, Western Europe.
The contest was very different from today:
Seven countries each sent in two singers who would perform original songs
in their home languages, and juries determined the winner.
The event was hosted in Lugano, Switzerland,
and ironically was also won by Switzerland.
Germany would host the next contest,
but only because the original intent was to rotate the host.
With the number of countries competing even in 1957, which was ten, by the way,
that would be a bit impractical,
So the next time, it would go to the winner of the last contest,
which made the Netherlands, the winner of 1957,
the host of 1958.
After 1957, a rule change came in that forced people
to make their songs at most three minutes long.
Italy scoffed at the original "recommended" three-and-a-half-minute song requirement,
so in 1957 Italy sent in a song that was over five minutes long.
With all the rule changes in the contest,
the length of songs in the modern contest still stand at three minutes max.
The contest changed a lot since 1956. For example,
there was no rule in the early days governing the use of languages in the contest.
It was just assumed that people would stick to their native languages...
until 1965, when Sweden sang in English.
From then on a rule had to be introduced
to force people to sing using only the languages that their countries used.
Socialism at work, ladies and gentlemen.
The rule was lifted in 1973 and Sweden won with ABBA in 1974.
(Remember those guys? They did "Dancing Queen"?)
However, the quality of the songs was put on the back burner because of the popularity of English,
so the language rule was reinstated for the 1977 contest.
However, that wouldn't last.
In the 1990s, Ireland won four times in five contests and the United Kingdom won one too.
Notably, they both used English.
The other winners of the decade relied less on language and more on melody,
to the point where Norway won in 1995 with what was mostly a violin solo....
apparently. (I can't find any video of the live performance.)
The language rule was removed for the 1999 contest,
and over half of the acts performing in Jerusalem sang in English.
This time, it stayed removed, and since then,
only the winners of 2007 and 2017 used no English in their winning songs.
Another thing that changed since then is the number of countries that competed.
Seven countries competed in 1956, ten in 1957, ten in 1958, and then it gradually grew.
Many countries entered the contest by the 1960s, bumping up the total to 18 in 1965.
A twenty country contest was held in 1978 and 22 in 1987.
From there, we reach an impasse,
because the European Broadcasting Union did not want to grow the contest any further
for fear that contest eats up too much primetime and messes with people's sleep.
Malta, of course, was upset about this in 1990, when they weren't allowed in,
and even more upset in 1992 when the Netherlands brought participation up once more.
Favoritism, perhaps?
But that was nothing compared to 1993.
Because of the fall of the Iron Curtain, more countries wanted to compete than ever,
so the EBU decided to invite the best three of a qualifier round to join the other 22 contestants.
You guessed it, that makes 25.
What about the other countries? Let them come next year.
We'll kick out the countries that did the worst to make room for them.
And so it was in 1994 that Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Slovakia,
entered for the first time at the expense of Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Slovenia, Turkey, and Luxembourg,
and as for the last of the latter, they have never returned since.
In 1996, the EBU tried something.
Instead of relegating the bad songs every other year,
why not listen to each song and select the best to compete that year?
Sounds good, and 29 countries sent out their entries.
The problem, is six songs had to go, and Germany was one of them.
Not only was Germany's otherwise flawless attendance record tainted,
but with no Germany, EBU funding was less secure,
so in 2000, to fix this problem, four countries --
Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom --
were allowed to automatically stay in the contest without risk of relegation.
In 2003, if there weren't already too many countries applying for the contest,
four more who have never played before wanted in.
The EBU was supposed to relegate 10 countries from 2002 and find places for all the new countries,
but only Ukraine got to sit in for the first time.
Turns out that the EBU only got around to relegating 5.
That means 16th-placed Turkey could compete and win in 2003.
Also, without relegating more countries, the EBU had to make a schedule with 26 countries.
So guess what happened for the 2004 contest?
In the 2004 contest, the EBU got rid of the relegation system and created a semifinal.
Any country that wasn't part of the Big Four or otherwise placed Top 10 the previous year
had to go through the semi-final. The Top 10 of the semi-final joins the others in the final,
and for 2004, it worked wonders.
36 countries played in total, so the deficit in seats was definitely covered.
The contest suddenly could accommodate up to 40 countries.
Now, there's no way we would have that many, right?
But in 2007, 28 countries competed in the semi-final.
That still holds the record for most songs performed in a show.
But how about the grand total of 2007?
Get this: 42 countries participated.
What?
Also, Andorra didn't qualify for the final. They still haven't.
But things changed for 2008. Now there are two semifinals,
and if you're not the host nor a member of the Big Four (or Big Five when Italy plays),
you have to go through the semi-finals.
The system is still in place, and it tends to work...
most of the time.
I could talk about the other ways the contest had changed,
like the switch from orchestra to backing tracks for each song,
or the transition from having one person on stage to six,
but I feel understanding the voting system will help the most.
Voting systems pre-1975 varied from contest to contest,
from having each jury member vote once,
to each jury giving ten points to any variety of songs they want,
to ranking each song out of ten.
But in 1975, that changed.
A new system allowed each country to give points to their 10 favorite songs.
One point went to 10th place, two to ninth place, three to eighth place,
and so on until eight points were given to third place, ten to second place,
and the ever-popular twelve points were given to their favorite song.
Rinse and repeat for every country.
Even that history has its own intricacies, but all you need to know is this:
First juries from each country send in their votes.
The public has their own set of votes, separate from the jury since 2016.
The points given to each country are then counted up and given from lowest score to highest score.
The one with the highest overall score wins.
Getting zero points however, is a huge dishonor in the contest.
It's not likely to happen with this system, though.
And there you have it.
I could explain a bit more about the contest, a bit more about the rules, or notable moments,
but I'll leave that up to you to decide if I should make another video.
For now, this covers a good chunk of what you need to know about the contest.
My next video hopefully will cover another of my interests, and hopefully will follow the same style.
Thanks to the solid few who subscribed to me and to those who liked this video,
and I'll see you next time.
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