Crash boom bang… The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 is approaching and Swedish national broadcaster, SVT, which will be hosting the event for the 7th time in the history of our beloved contest is aiming to shorten the length of the Grand Final.

Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet’s Tobjorn Ek had the chance to interview two of the new members of the Eurovision 2024 CORE Team: Christer Bjorkman ( Contest Producer) and Per Blankens ( Head of TV) in order to shed more light on the upcoming Eurovision edition which is scheduled to be held in Malmo, Sweden next May.

Last June we reported about SVT’s plans to shorten the length of the Grand Final by an hour, aiming to bring it down from 4 hours 15 minutes to 3 hours 15 minutes.

Tobjorn Ek (Aftonbladet) asked Christer and Per to shed more light on this issue. Per confirmed that one of the key goals for the next Eurovision edition which is high on the agenda is to shorten the length of the Grand Final.

Per Blankers comments:.

There may be reasons why the competition is so long, you have to have time to collect and compile all the public votes. But it will be late for those who live in the east and also for us who live in central Europe, so the program has everything to gain from being made shorter, but without shredding or just tearing it off.

Christer Bjorman adds:

We have a format that is very good and alive and many of the big changes happened in 2013 and 2016 in tonality and with the voting. I don’t think a lot of adjustments are needed right now. What we have to work on is trying to make a tight broadcast, efficient good television that doesn’t take up too much time. That is our big goal.

Eurovision’s evolution

The Eurovision Song Contest has grown immensely since it was born and a record number of countries compete in the contest today. The event has gone from one to two shows, from two to three shows. Today the Eurovision Song Contest consists of three televised shows (2 semi-finals and 1 Grand Final) with circa 40 odd countries partaking in the event.

A total of 26 countries compete in the Grand Final and circa 40 countries vote during the show. The numerous interval acts, the flag parade the jury voting sequence and the televoting results sequence has all in all lengthened the show.

We must note that the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final has surpassed 4 hours in the last few editions (2023, 2022, 2019) or has been aproximately 4 hours long (2021, 2018).

The 2024 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held on 7, 9, 11 May at the Malmö Arena in Malmö, Sweden.

Source: Aftonbladet
Photo credit: EBU