Eurovision: who needs Terry Wogan when we now have Twitter?
I watched the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in years on Saturday night. Being a big Tel fan (I’m following him on Twitter!) I was curious to see how Graham Norton fared replacing him as the Beeb’s Eurovision host.
The evening had all of the usual Euro gems: dodgy costumes, terrible singing, hilarious backing performers – including one who looked like a life size, blue version of Morph (Tony Hart’s little plastecene friend). Germany’s entry was accompanied by a burlesque performance from Dita Von Teese, while Denmark’s entry, written by Ireland’s very own Ronan Keating, was performed by a Ronan Keating clone – seriously, the likeness was uncanny!
Our city hosts Moscow excelled themselves with introduction and interval performances by the fabulous Cirque Du Soleil and Fuerza Bruta (who I saw at the Camden Roundhouse a couple of years ago – they are amazing). And of course every one of the 42 countries calling in with their votes said that Moscow had put on the best Eurovision ever – but they always do say that!
There was the usual bias Eastern bloc voting, and a very pleasing on the eye Duncan James from Blue delivering the votes from Royaume Uni. And for the first time in over a decade, United Kingdom didn’t disgrace themselves. Having Lord Lloyd Webber write the song and tinkle the ivories on the night certainly paid off.
And our Gray didn’t disappoint with his witty and sarcastic TV commentary over the top. He is an obvious and deserving replacement for the legendary Terry Wogan.
But I could have written this review any year and it could have been any Eurovision. Yet 2009’s Eurovision experience was very different and extremely enjoyable thanks to Twitter. Three hours is a long time to sit through terrible musical performances, but thanks to Twitter I had the best three hours in front of the Box that I’ve had in ages! Not only were my fellow Tweeters posting their own hilarious commentary and analysis after every country entry to compliment Graham Norton’s, but the BBC also had their own BBCEurovision thread, forewarning us of what was coming up, and providing us with added Euro stats and facts – it was simply Eurocheese Heaven!
So perfect an example of effective social media was it that I even replied @BBCEurovision to suggest that next year they have a TwitterTicker [tape] running along the bottom of the screen during the TV broadcast (so if they do adopt that idea in years to come, you heard it here first!).
It made the whole event much more dynamic and fun and gave it a great feeling of community. It was the perfect application for Twitter. I couldn’t have had more fun if I were dressed up as Agneta or Annafried at a fancy dress karaoke Eurovision party! And no doubt next year Twitter will be able to facilitate a truly multilingual community of Eurovision fans as more and more Web users from across Euroland sign up to Twitter.
Tags: Eurovision, Social Media, Terry Wogan, Twitter
