Eurovision vote-rigging attempts allegations revealed

Over two weeks after John Demanuele made allegations of vote-rigging attempts involving a number of countries including Malta just days before the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest, no action has yet been taken.

During a discussion programme on a local TV station, Demanuele, the vice-chairman of the Maltasong Board, revealed that persons representing Georgia had a meeting with the Maltese delegation in Helsinki, where the Eurovision was held, in what he claimed to be an attempt to agree on how many points the two countries will be awarding to each other.

During the same programme a week later, Robert Abela, the Maltasong Board chairman, confirmed the incident but said that the account given by his second in command may have been slightly mistaken

“Can you give us points?”
But when reacting to the allegations during the same programme, three former Maltasong Board chairpersons, Gejtu Abela, Charlo Bonnici and Grace Borg, insisted that such “dealing” and negotiations for votes before Eurovision contests have been going on for years. “This is nothing new. These things have been going on since the Eurovision contest started” said Bonnici, now a top government official.


John Demanuele explained: “I can say today… Georgia, the new comers in this year’s Eurovision, we had a meeting, and they told us ‘we are new here… how many points are you going to give us? Can you give us points?’ We replied, ‘we cannot give you points because we use televoting’. They replied, ‘so we won’t give you any points.’ Full stop”.Later on, he explained that the conversation took place during an informal dinner between the representatives of the two countries. "They asked us, 'can you promise us any votes?' We answered 'no, we have televoting'... now it could have either been an innocent question, or else he was testing the waters".

Israel IBA wants once again to withdraw from Eurovision

Yediot Ahronot started the IBA soap opera earlier than ever this year. The newspaper claims that the general manager of IBA asked the board to approve his decision to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest. This contest is not fitting to his vision for the IBA future the newspaper continues. Instead of IBA, Channel 2 and Channel 10 eventually will restore Israel in the Eurovision family in the near future. Every year the issue with the possible Israeli withdrawal is a trend during the summer. Israel participates since 1973 and has three victories: in 1978, 1979 and 1998.

New Eurovision?

Toine Manders, a Dutch Libertarian politician and member of the European Parliament is already working for the last six months to create a new E.U. song contest within the borders of the European Community.
Manders idea, which received lots of positive reactions from EU parliament colleague members is to create a new festival that will be taking place every year on the 9th of May when all European countries celebrate the “Day of Europe”.
The annual song contest is about to include all the 27 European countries. The first show, if all comes to a happy end, is about to take place in 2008 with a real jury and with a real orchestra.
If a real jury and orchestra will be used for the new EU festival and if Manders succeeds then we may see Italy back in the new contest because one of the reasons that Italy left from the Eurovision Song Contest was the televoting process.
Manders, is already under discussion with several European TV channels. Specifically, on Friday he will have a meeting with RTL, the European TV channel which broadcasts in 19 of the 27 EU countries and has already expressed its interest about his idea. Next week he also has an appointment with the European Commissioner of communication Margot Wallstrom.Manders is also working on another idea, to organize an annual EU soccer event.

Cyprus to host the Junior Eurovision 2008

CYPRUS may not be able to get into the Eurovision Song Contest of late, but CyBC has won the bid to host the Junior Eurovision next year, it emerged yesterday.

The Steering Group of the Junior Eurovision announced yesterday that it had accepted the Cypriot offer to host the 2008 song contest, choosing Cyprus from four countries that had put in an offer.

The location for Junior Eurovision 2008 will be Limassol, but the venue itself has not been announced. Cyprus has been participating in the contest since 2003, but in 2005 the Cypriot song was withdrawn amid accusations of plagiarism.

The final choice for 2008 was between Ukraine and Cyprus. “We received some high-quality proposals for next year's 6th Junior Eurovision Song Contest and after long consideration, the Steering Group decided to award the honour of hosting next year's competition to CyBC,” said Steve Deconink-de Boeck, the president of the steering committee.

Junior Eurovision takes place in December, and unlike the Eurovision, it doesn't have to take place in the country that wins the contest. This is to minimise pressure on the young contestants aged between eight and 15.

This year, the 5th Junior Eurovision will take place in Rotterdam.

Last year, only 15 countries competed in the competition and since 2005 four countries have withdrawn. The largest number that ever participated was 23. The European Broadcasting Union has promised that the contest will continue until 2007, but has not made any promises for 2008, despite having chosen a host country.

Many countries criticise the show given the pressure it puts on the young children and teens involved.

This year, 18 countries will take part, including debuts from Armenia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lithuania.

Just as with the Eurovision itself, in every Junior contest so far Cyprus has given its 12 points to Greece.

Μείνετε συντονισμένοι στο EUROVISION-CYPRUS...

Μείνετε συντονισμένοι στο EUROVISION-CYPRUS, που έρχεται σε εσάς ανανεωμένο και με πολλά νέα και πληροφορίες για τον Διαγωνισμό. Το site είναι υπό κατασκευή. Εμείς σαν EUROVISION-CYPRUS σας υποσχόμαστε ότι θα καλύψουμε τον διαγωνισμό JUNIOR EUROVISION 2007 και 2008.

JUNIOR EUROVISION 2008:

Συγχαριτήρια στο ΡΙΚ που κατάφερε να αναλάβει ένα τέτοιο μεγάλο διαγωνισμό για πρώτη φορά στην Κύπρο.

JUNIOR EUROVISION 2008:

Απόψε αμέσως το τέλος του δελτίου ειδήσεων του ΡΙΚ θα μεταδοθεί το φιλμάκι με το οποίο πήραμε την διοργάνωση του διαγωνισμού στην χώρα μας.