It’s the Eurovision down season, and don’t you for a second think we’re going to stop speculating, arguing, and pushing our heated opinions. Our latest series looked at the national finals of Eurovision, and discussing how we would reform the national finals of Eurovision. This time we’re creating national finals from scratch; continuing with Switzerland.
In part ten of this series Euan, Angus, and Kittens discuss how they’d create a national final for Switzerland.
Do we think that they will return to a national final, and would we want that?
Euan
Yeah now Nemo’s won there’s no hope in hell that they’re returning to a national final again. And to be fair, it probably is for the best. The current strategy of how they’re doing their internal selections is working extremely well, and they are producing absolute bangers. That being said if they are continuing with the internals they should go back to the sad men singing ballads (sorry Kittens). I really would love for them to bring back Die Grosse Entscheidungsshow because it was such an important part of the Eurovision calendar, and did have some great entries.
Angus
Wasn’t going to happen anyway, and then Nemo won ensuring we will not get a Swiss NF for a long time. And despite some great songs and acts getting to be a part of the (Extended) Eurovision family thanks to those NFs, I am at peace with that. The internal process is clearly working for Switzerland, and I prefer that over a messy NF.
Kittens
As a certain song not from Switzerland said this year, ‘There’s no going back’. You won, you won with a complete curveball that nobody was expecting, and it was glorious. Internal is working, and it’s good to see them acknowledging where problems have been in the past, and working to fix them. I suspect Switzerland will struggle over the next few years to properly find their niche, but I would still massively advocate for an internal approach until they feel the need to make any changes.
What would our dream national final look like?
Euan
I wouldn’t wholesale lift what they previously had. Any Swiss national final should absolutely showcase the regional diversity in the country’s music scenes. Each of the four linguistic regions should have a roughly proportionally allocated number of acts for the final, but the manner in which they are decided should be more consistent across the regions when compared to how they previously did it.
I’d have all four sub broadcasters holding an open call for entries, to then be whittled down by each broadcasters’ professional jury. I would then open up these songs to an online voting round open to all Swiss inhabitants making up 50% of the vote, and a live show with a pure televote making up the other 50% restricted to their linguistic region if that is possible.
I would then have a 15 song final; with two rounds. With proportionally weighted juries from each Canton or Linguistic region (whichever is more logistically feasibly) making up half of the vote in the first round, and a televote making up the other half. I would also love to see the Norway style announcement of the regional televote all adding up to the total, but just for a purely presentational manner rather than regional weighting. The top two would then battle it our in a gold final duel under a pure televote.
Angus
Sub-broadcasters holding their own heats, a final with about 12 to 15 songs, chaotic yet sensible juries? There is more that Euan and I agree on here than I would’ve expected. My hate for gold finals is well known but beyond that I like his proposed NF quite a bit. This also would be a NF varied and big enough that I understand the argument for another round of voting for the top two. The only additional rule I would like to add is some attempt at a language diversity quota. Have each sub broadcaster select at least one song in their respective language. If that song fails to make it to the final, so be it. But it does further highlight the linguistic diversity of Switzerland, which I do think is a good thing.
Kittens
I really agree with the linguistic diversity from Angus’s idea, but I think sub-broadcasters sending their own is slightly gimmicky on this front – and might mean that a good set of artists from one area gets culled down unfortunately and pitted against poorer entries from other areas. While I do think it’s a good idea to make sure the location acts are from is diverse, I think it’s more important to make sure the set of musical styles is diverse overall, to give a good chance of picking a winner across a small 8-10 song NF. (With no gold final, no thanks Euan)
I do think they have so much momentum to build on, and it shows that a wild surprise entrant can really take the edge if they have the energy. Maybe if they were going to have a national final, it could focus around their songwriting camp – even a reality TV element to it could work. But I don’t really see this happening under any circumstances, so it’s entirely a pipedream.
Switzerland’s Eurovision Journey
Switzerland both hosted and debuted in the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. Their first participation was successful, as they won with Lys Assia’s “Refrain”. Since then, they have participated on 63 occasions, making the Grand Final 52 times.
Switzerland’s most recent participation saw them being represented by Nemo with their song “The Code”. Performing in the second semi-final, they qualified for the Grand Final for a fifth consecutive participation. At the end of voting in the final, it was revealed Switzerland had won the Contest. Nemo scored 365 points with the national juries, as well as 226 points with the televote. The overall winning score for “The Code” was 591 points. This win marks Switzerland’s third win in the contest following on from Lys Assia in 1956 and Celine Dion in 1988.
What do you think about our reforms? As always, let us know what you think by commenting down below. Also, be sure to follow ‘That Eurovision Site’ on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Bluesky for all the latest Eurovision news!
News Source: That Eurovision Site
Photo Credit: Corinne Cumming / EBU
Tim J