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The ''Eurovision Song Contest Previews'' are annually broadcast TV shows showcasing the entries into the forthcoming
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...
. They were inaugurated in
1971 *
The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6).
The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history.
Events
Ja ...
for the contest in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, and have been provided by the
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who ar ...
(EBU) to all participating countries ever since.
For a period, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
were responsible for 'collecting' the preview videos and distributing them to the various participating countries. This has been carried out by the contest's host nation more recently. Between 2004 and 2007, the Nordic broadcasters (Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland) co-produced preview shows for broadcast across their region.
Background
All participants in the Eurovision Song Contest are required to submit a video of their entry to the EBU via the host broadcaster, to be distributed across the
Eurovision network
Eurovision is a pan-European television telecommunications network owned and operated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). It was founded 1954 in Geneva, Switzerland, and its first official transmission took place on 6 June 1954.
Major tel ...
. From 1971 until the early 1990s, it was compulsory for all participants to broadcast the videos. Since the mid-1990s it has become optional. Broadcasters either submit a performance of the given song – usually taken from their local national final – or a ''music video'' of the entry, specifically filmed for the purpose. In 1971, the Belgian preview video featured singers
Nicole & Hugo
Nicole and Hugo were a Belgian singing duo of Nicole Josy (born Nicole Van Pamel; 21 October 1946, Wemmel – 4 November 2022) and Hugo Sigal (born 10 November 1947 as Hugo Verbraeken, Leopoldstad/Léopoldville, now Kinshasa).
Beginnings
The du ...
who were forced to withdraw days before the Eurovision final due to illness, being replaced by
Jacques Raymond
Jacques Raymond (born Jozef Remon on 13 October 1938) is a Belgian singer.
He represented Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 with the Dutch song "Waarom?". In the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest, he teamed up with Lily Castel to sing " ...
and Lily Castel.
Occasionally countries rely on funding from their government tourism budget to produce the video, leading to highly commercial offerings highlighting the given country's natural beauty. Often songs would vary from the version that would be heard in the contest itself; either through a change in language or a variance between the length of the recorded version and the permitted live version, or through a variance in orchestration and arrangement.
Rules
Early rules stated that the videos could not be broadcast in any less than two shows, with no more than half the songs in any show and the songs had to be broadcast in full. Later amendments allowed the videos to be broadcast incomplete, but that meant the videos still had to have a uniform length of duration. Generally speaking, the countries broadcast the shows in two parts, the entries divided as evenly as practicable between the two shows. It was also stated in the rule book that the name of the broadcasting TV station for each country be carried on screen to introduce the songs, but many broadcasters ignored this. Some broadcasters would credit the contributing TV station verbally rather than on screen.
History
1974
In 1974, a two-night preview programme, ''
Auftakt für Brighton'' (''Prelude for Brighton''), was coordinated by the German national broadcaster
ARD. It was broadcast at the end of March and hosted by the journalist Karin Tietze-Ludwig. It was the first "preview"-type programme to be broadcast in many European countries simultaneously (rather than each national broadcaster showing their own preview programme). The programme was also notable in being the European television debut for the winners,
ABBA
ABBA ( , , formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group's ...
, who were peculiarly credited in previews as "The Abba". It was first aired on German television
Hessischer Rundfunk
Hessischer Rundfunk (HR; "Hesse Broadcasting") is the German state of Hesse's public broadcasting, public broadcasting corporation. Headquartered in Frankfurt, it is a member of the national consortium of German public broadcasting corporations, ...
on 27–28 March and in Finland on 30 March as ''Eurovision laulukilpailu''. The UK did not broadcast the programmes, instead airing their own preview shows introduced by
David Vine
David Martin Vine (3 January 1935 – 11 January 2009) was an English television sports presenter. He presented a wide variety of shows from the 1960s onwards, most notably his coverage of major snooker tournaments for the BBC.
Early life
Born i ...
on
BBC1
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
on 24 and 31 March, unusually dividing the entries into six songs for the first show and twelve for the second, contrary to the stated rules. In the same year, the French entry was broadcast by all the nations showing the previews, even though the song was withdrawn from the Eurovision final itself.
1977
In 1977, the previews were broadcast across Europe ahead of the original scheduled broadcast date of 2 April for the Eurovision final. When the contest was postponed to 7 May, this left a long gap between the preview shows airing and the final.
1982
For the
Eurovision Song Contest 1982
The Eurovision Song Contest 1982 was the 27th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Harrogate, United Kingdom, following the country's victory at the with the song "Making Your Mind Up" by Bucks Fizz. Organised by the ...
Grand Final, several clips from the preview videos were incorporated into the short 'postcards' used to introduce each nation's entry as part of a video montage. It was the first time the previews were represented in the contest. Only clips from the previews that were not of the performer in a national final or performing the song in studio were used, limiting the usage to half of the 18 contenders. Those that were included: Portugal, Turkey, Switzerland, Ireland, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Finland, Yugoslavia and Spain. Since 1982, only in 2000 were any clips from the previews utilized again, as clips from the Turkish preview were used as a partial background video for the live performance of the Turkish entry.
1990
For the
Eurovision Song Contest 1990
The Eurovision Song Contest 1990 was the 35th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Zagreb, SR Croatia, Yugoslavia, following the country's victory at the with the song " Rock Me" by Riva. It was the only time Yugoslavia ...
Grand Final, at the end of postcard introducing each song, the animated ''EuroCat'' (that year's contest mascot) appeared on screen to click a cartoon camera, the resulting photograph being a still of the artist captured from the previews clips, but represented in monochrome rather than colour.
Modern day
From approximately 2000, the videos have been available online via the Eurovision website and most broadcasters upload them to their own, local Eurovision site.
San Marino
San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...
broadcaster
SMtv
''SMTV Live'' (an abbreviation of ''Saturday Morning Television Live'', and also stylised as ''SM: LIVE'') was a British Saturday morning children's television programme, produced by Blaze Television for ITV (TV network), ITV. Operating on a s ...
televised the previews for the first time in 2012, showing the videos in multiple programmes in the run up to the contest on a rotating basis, hosted by
John Kennedy O'Connor
John Kennedy O'Connor (born 1964) is a television and radio broadcaster, author and entertainment commentator. He was born in North London, but is a naturalized citizen of the United States. He has written, reported and broadcast for numerous m ...
. SMtv continued with the previews each year since, under various formats, until O'Connor retired in 2019. In 2014 O'Connor presented each entry on location in San Marino and in 2015 each entry was linked by video to the participating country. The 2016, 2017 & 2018 previews were presented in a studio setting. SM Rtv revived the previews in 2022, hosted by commentator Lia Fiorio, under the title "Countdown to Eurovision".
UK broadcasts
In the United Kingdom, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
broadcast the programmes in two parts, every year from 1971 to 1994 on