Abstract
Despite the apparent geographic barriers, Australia has been a notable participant in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) from 2014, when Jessica Mauboy performed as an interval act in Copenhagen. Since 2016, when Australia has been allowed to vote in the ESC as well as perform, the “live broadcast” of the ESC has taken place on SBS from 5.00 a.m.—marking a departure from the previous delayed telecast, which had been in the “prime time” slot from 8.00 p.m., since the ESC’s debut on Australian TV in 1983. This has complicated notions of ESC fandom in Australia: instead of consuming the broadcast in the evening, accompanied by alcoholic drinks and dance parties, fans now watch the broadcast bleary-eyed and pyjama-clad in the morning, more likely accompanied by caffeinated drinks. This chapter considers how the live audience experience has changed in Australia with the shifting time of the broadcast, combining a historical survey of the ESC’s Australian reach with a thick description of the contemporary experience of Eurovision fandom from down under.
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Notes
- 1.
The sequence described can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHKf1LwdrVs, in one of the many unofficial fan uploads of footage from the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest.
- 2.
In 2016, the system of vote calculation changed to report the national jury votes and the national televotes separately, in an attempt to build more suspense into the long vote-reporting sequence. (In previous years, as in the clip referenced above in Note 1, the result was regularly known before the final nations had reported their votes). It is a source of much bitterness to Australian fans that had the previous vote system been in place, Dami Im would have won the 2016 Contest.
- 3.
Between 1983 and 2000, the Australian broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest featured the BBC’s commentary, provided by the famously acerbic Terry Wogan. Wogan’s influence on Australian Eurovision viewers was so strong that SBS’s first attempt to replace him, with Mary Coustas in character as the Greek-Australian comic stereotype Effie (supported by a host of Australian comedians) in 2001, resulted in “about 2000 complaints: its most unpopular program ever” (Martin 2001). Wogan’s BBC commentary was retained in 2002, and SBS made a second attempt to change hosts in 2003 and 2004 with broadcaster Des Mangan—only to re-air the Contest in 2003 with Wogan’s commentary restored. SBS again returned to Wogan from 2005 to 2008, when he retired, and SBS introduced Julia Zemiro and Sam Pang as Australian hosts from 2009 to 2016. Since 2017, the Australian commentary has been provided by Myf Warhust and Joel Creasey.
- 4.
Even now that Australia competes in the Contest, the EBU has stipulated that in the event of an Australian win, SBS would need to partner with a European broadcaster in order to host the Contest in Europe, rather than hosting it in Australia.
- 5.
This is a fascinating assertion, but not one I can find any proof for. In a 19 June 1978 news report on the first Pacific Song Contest on New Zealand’s TV One (the national broadcaster), the Pacific and Eurovision Song Contests are explicitly compared, suggesting there is at least some public knowledge of Eurovision.
- 6.
This broadcast pattern was interrupted in 2018, as part of SBS’s effort to build support for Australian entrant Jessica Mauboy (See Carniel 2018: 46). The Australian Federal Election also interrupted the usual broadcast pattern in 2019, causing the semi final replays to be broadcast on Thursday (semi final 1) and Friday (semi final 2) nights before the grand final on Sunday.
- 7.
In Australia’s first competing year, 2015, the Australian entrant automatically qualified for the grand final. The subsequent competitors from 2016 to 2019, at the time of writing, have all successfully qualified through the semi-final before competing in the grand final.
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Hay, C. (2019). Pyjama Fandom: Watching Eurovision Down Under. In: Hay, C., Carniel, J. (eds) Eurovision and Australia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20058-9_12
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