[URBAN NOTE] "Why it's time for Canada to get on board with Eurovision"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Karen Fricker makes the case for Canada to sign up for the Eurovision Song Contest. If Australia did, why not?

It’s one of the most successful live TV entertainment programs in the world, which this year will reach an estimated 200 million viewers. Europeans have been love-hating it for six decades, Australia’s got skin in the game and for the first time this year it’s being screened live in the U.S.A., featuring a live performance by Justin Timberlake.

It’s time for Canada to get on board with the Eurovision Song Contest.

Founded in 1956, Eurovision is an annual competition to choose the best pop song in Europe and the granddaddy of all TV song contest formats. What makes it unique is that it’s a contest of nations, with broadcasters from participating countries sending along three-minute original pop songs.

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Knowledge of the contest thus far in Canada is limited, despite the fact Céline Dion won in 1988 (artists don’t need to hail from the country for which they perform, so she won for Switzerland, singing “Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi”).

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“There tends to be a definitive concentration of interest in the contest within specific communities in Toronto, primarily European immigrants and the LGBTQ community,” says Slavisa Mijatovic, a Bosnia and Herzegovina-born fan who wrote his MA thesis at York University about the ways in which migrants engage with Eurovision.

Watching the contest and cheering for the home country allows migrants to keep in touch with roots and traditions, while allowing gay spectators to engage with LGBTQ communities around the world, “which are getting more and more interconnected,” Mijatovic observes.