The eighth esctoday.com TOP TEN list starts today with the places 3 and 2 being announced. As announced on Saturday, this week's topic are the TOP TEN most crazy national final formats.
National final formats that met one or more of the following criteria were considered:
- strange/complicated/unsual voting system
- overly lengthy process/unusual selection of finalists
- high effort turns out to be needless
This list is about formats, so strange/unexpected results and bizarre entries, performances and presentations are not considered.
So we continue…
No. 3 – Evrobahenni-2010
The Ukrainian national selection in 2010 is very special for one reason: It is most likely the only time that a broadcaster organised two entirely different national finals with both of them not featuring the song that would eventually represent the country in Eurovision…
Originally, Vasyl Lazarovich was chosen internally to represent Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. In the first national final, he presented five songs and none of them was met with an enthusiastic reaction from the audience or the jury. At the end of the voting, I love you… was the chosen song. Less than two weeks after the national final, NTU announced that a new national final would be organised due to personnel changes within the broadcaster. The deadline to submit entries for Oslo was coming closer, but within only one week, the broadcaster managed to organise a new national final with 20 performers and songs. Vasyl Lazarovich also competed again. At the end of the voting, Alyosha was the winner with her song To be free. However, this did not put an end to the story: As the song was published before October 2009, it was disqualified. NTU was granted a new deadline and eventually, the song Sweet people was sent to the Eurovsion Song Contest in Oslo.
Although all odds seemed to be against them, this national selection did pay off for NTU. Ukraine finished 10th in the final in Oslo and was even seen in sixth place by the juries.
Vasyl Lazarovich with I love you…:
No. 2 – Eurovizija 2006
In 2006, the Lithuanian broadcaster proved that it is possible to make a national selection more complicated than you would ever think it were possible…
The 2006 Lithuanian national selection began in January with three heats featuring 28 newcomers. The top four of each heat, chosen by televoting and a jury, managed to go forward to the quarter final in February. From those twelve songs, six were chosen to move forward to the semi finals. Those six entries met no less than 19 other ones by more experienced artists. Three semi finals were held, the first two with nine songs each and the third one featured seven songs. Televoting selected the top five songs in the first two semi finals and the top four songs in the third semi final to move forward to the final. The jury then selected another two wildcards out of the semi finalists to compete. In the final, LT United were the winners getting about twice as many votes as the runner-ups InCulto, who would represent Lithuania in 2010. None of the 28 acts that had to go through the heats managed to reach the top three.
Although the heats and the quarter final turned out to be quite useless, LT United's We are the winners was a success in the Eurovision Song Contest. The song finished sixth in Athens, which is still the country's best result.
InCulto with Welcome to Lithuania:
Tomorrow, we will introduce the no. 1 on the list.
