Eurovision Song Contest

Most of you know that Idol has been replicated in countries all around the world (Malaysian Idol, Australian Idol, etc.) and was originally a show in the UK called Pop Idol (complete with Simon Cowell as a judge). But apparently there has been a show around MUCH longer called Eurovision which sounds like an amazing project.

Can you believe there is something Idol-related that I didn't even know?

In 1955, the EBU came up with the idea of an international song contest whereby countries, represeted by their respective broadcasters, would participate in one television show, to be transmitted simultaneously in all represented nations. This was conceived during a meeting in Monaco in 1955 by Marcel BEZENÇON, a Frenchman working for the EBU. The competition was based upon the Italian Festival di Sanremo, held for the first time in 1951, and was also seen as a technological experiment in live television: in those days, it was a very ambitious project to join many countries together in a wide-area international network. Satellite television did not exist yet at that time, and the Eurovision Network comprised a terrestrial microwave network. Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne was born!

Without interrpution, the Eurovision Song Contest has been broadcast every year since 1956, which makes it one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. The competition has been broadcast throughout Europe, but also in Australia, Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Jordan, Korea, New Zealand and the United States, even though these countries do not participate.

Here is the music video of the song performed on this year's show from the representative for Greece. His name is Sarbel (just Sarbel...I guess he's like Madonna and only needs one name). Ummm, how do you say "hot" in Greek?