EBU Press Conference

Jon Ola Sand, the Executive Supervisor, Sietse Bakker, the Event Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest and Annika Nyberg Frankenhaeuser the new Media Director and representing Ictimai TV the Host Broadcaster,  Adil Kermu, Tahir Mamadov and Camran Agasi held a Press Conference this afternoon in Baku following last night’s staging of the Semi-Final of the Eurovision Song Contest.

The hightlights:

• Dates for 2013 confirmed: First Semi-Final on Tuesday 14th May, and the Second Semi-Final on Thursday 16th May and the Final of the 58th edition will take place on Saturday the 18th of May.
• 8 songs that qualified were agreed by both Jury and Televoter, 1 thanks to televoters and 1 made it down to the jury.
• Possible that future contests may be on a smaller scale and there may be possible changes to rehearsal schedules to economise on time and finance.
• 60th anniversary is approaching in 2015 and looking at ways to celebrate it, and discussions taking place with various broadcasters.
• Armenia will be able to take part in 2013 as they will broadcast Saturday’s final and pay a fine of €30,000 due to late withdrawal.
• 80% increase in webviewers on last yea
• Significant buzz on social media.
• Five out of ten trended topics on twitter were on Eurovision,
• Half a million followers on Facebook.
• The EBU are working on an archive project with all song hopefully being made available to view with the exception of 1956

It is also hoped that along with Armenia, Poland will return to next year’s Eurovision. The rehearsals for the Second Semi-Final get under way now.

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Related articles

• [Semi-Final 1] The Qualifiers! (escireland.com)
• First Semi-Final concludes, we have ten finalists! (eurovision.tv)