Eurovision 2018 🇵🇹 Winners and losers: cashing in participation

EUROPE – It was a interesting summer where may Eurovision 2018 stars cashed in their participation in the Lisbon edition. This comes after a dull summer last year where the Eurovision winner, Salvador Sobral was out of the scene due to his battle for a heart. transplant.

Eleni Foureira seems to be the winner this summer with live appearances in Spain, Greece and Cyprus (mostly) along with countries such as Belgium, The Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, Albania, Israel. The key to all this success was the gay prides of Europe who demanded Eleni over Netta.

Less live appearances for Netta but definitely better I quality some say. She may appeared in Tel Aviv Pride and had a cover in Attitude Magazine but Netta besides few gigs in Spain, Switzerland, she did some quality promos. In Germany she appeared in ZDF show, she promoted a lot in the US, where NY Times Square featuring her song, appearing on US show Today and featured in Ceeddar.com and Billboard, BBC show. Plus a fuzzy for the press too make news – commercial for cable TV which was filmed in Ukraine.

Czech entrant Mikolas seems to be the bronze winner cashing in his famosity of participating in the Eurovision Song Contest. Appearance in the German MTV, ZDF show, performance at Greece’s MAD VMA 2018 and although few live gigs and appearances he emerges as a. Artist with a extremely fast growing fan base in social media.

Austrian representative appeared in some TV shows and charity galas and in a concert with the Estonian entrant Elina Nechayeva. He weirdly wasn’t updating his social media as much as we expected.

Madame Monsieur also featured in some live gigs mostly in France.

AWS from Hungary seem to have quite a success as they see invited to may gigs in the country and updating their social media all the time touring the country. We have to admit they were unique.

Surprisingly Alexander Rybak is almost out of the scene with practically no appearances. Well it seems that he is not booking-interesting person anymore or he asked for a lot of money. But in any case the interest for Rybak is almost gone in Europe.

Yianna Terzi besides performing at the Athens Colour Day concert she is completely disappeared with only presence that of the social media.

Lea Sirk from Slovenia and the Spanish duo Alfred and Amaia are doing also some gigs this summer but there is almost no press and media coverage of them. The same thing applies for SuRie who did some live appearances in the UK.

In general 2018 Eurostars (i.e Michael Schutle, Eugent Bushpepa, Rasmussen, DoReDos, Ermal & Fabrizio) just had few live gigs every now and the with no big media attention or big publicity on the web and social media.

The big loser (for me) this summer and having in mid the forts mad to be considered as the winner favourite for Eurovision this year was Saara Aalto. Big record label deals, web and social media bombardment of promotion ended up to just two pride appearances.

In sum, for me, placed 1st and 2nd this year entrants, Netta and Eleni were the true winners as the scoreboard indicated. Now iff this success will continue during the next year(s), remains a big question for everyone. But in terms of summer they did it simply excellent cashing in their participation in Eurovision 2018.

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🇮🇱 Regional correspondent claims Israelis believe Cyprus couldn’t afford hosting Eurovision

ISRAEL – This summer reminded us the one of 2016 when we didn’t know what will happen with the Ukrainian hosting of the next Eurovision Song Contest. The dispute between KAN and the Israeli government escalated many times since Netta won the contest.

Many press, media and blogs speculated that there will be a Plan B implementation involving mostly Austria and Cyprus as well. Cyprus was the desire of the Eurofans since for most of them Foureira should have been the deserved winner this year.

Cyprus became a favourite during the rehearsals weeks and close to the final the press and media started wondering if the country can actually host the event. Asked dozens of times, Cyprus broadcaster and government sources assured the journalists that if the country wins, they will find the resources (obviously they meant the money) to host the event.

Israel based journalist Julien Bahloul though claims that regional sources told him that the Israelis believe that Cyprus cannot find the money to host the event in case they are asked to.

‘The European Committee [the EBU] claims to be in constant contact with KAN, but warns that there is a plan B if Israel cannot pay the organization of the competition’. This ‘Plan B’ had previously been rumoured to be either Cyprus, Austria or Germany. ‘Plan B would be Austria, arriving in 3rd place. Cyprus (2nd place) would not have the means to finance the competition’, he continued.

Although throughout the history of Eurovision, five contests were not hosted by their winner countries, win modern times EBU makes everything possible to assure the winner country will host the event. This is why they did their best to make sure Israel will host the 1999 edition, Ukraine the 2005 and 2017 edition despite huge political, security problems.

This is why EBU few days before the Grand Final (for years now) calls for private meetings with favourite to win countries to ask them if they are willing to host the event in case they win. This also happened this year with Norway, Cyprus and Israel as we reported, although EBU never mentions something about it in public.

It is vital for the image and the branding of the contest to maintain a historic element of Eurovision: the hosting of the event by the winner country. Though EBU always makes a Plan B which anyway includes the case of Australia winning the contest. If that happens SBS will be collaborating with a European national broadcaster to host the event in European soil upon agreement with the EBU’s Reference Group.

So far everything points out that Tel Aviv will host the event, following the solution upon the bank guarantee issue. Official confirmations and announcement are expected by early September (hopefully).

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Cyprus 2018 🇨🇾 Foureira gets celebrity star in Ayia Napa

CYPRUS – Greek pop star Eleni Foureira who represented Cyprus this year at the Eurovision song contest and came second with the song Fuego, has been given her own star at the Ayia Napa Celebrity Square, the municipality said on Friday.

Foureira was presented with the plaque with her name by Ayia Napa Mayor, Yiannis Karousos, last week while the pop star was on the island to perform at the Ayia Napa Youth Festival.

Ayia Napa’s Celebrity Square also hosts plaques with the names of Luis Fonsi, Chris Brown, Paul Van Dyke, Snoop Dogg, Nana Mouskouri, Vicky Leandros and Mario Frangoulis.

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🇺🇸 Netta speaks out on Cheddar.com

CHEDDAR.COM REPORTS / USA – Growing up in Israel, young Netta Barzilai was made to feel ashamed about her looks and how she sounded. After becoming the first Israeli to win the Eurovision Song Contest in 20 years, Netta the international pop star is spreading messages of love and female empowerment.

The once-shy girl said the experience belting out her hit song “Toy” to hundreds of millions people around the world is “insane.”

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“You can’t even take that in,” Netta said Wednesday in an interview on Cheddar. “You say, ‘OK, let’s like try and turn 180 million people into a local bar.’ It’s like making people connect with you. You have to tell the truth in order for people to connect.”

“Toy” has made it to the top of Spotify’s Viral 50 and has more than 88 million views on YouTube. The international hit has found its way to the U.S. charts, registering on Billboard’s dance and EDM lists.

Initially, she said she was advised to pursue a different image than her pop-star style. She said she was told to dress in black and sing soulful music similar to Aretha Franklin and Adele. But the Netta said her appeal is based on her authenticity.

“There’s not a lot of plus-size singers doing pop, celebrating themselves being sexy. It’s not considered OK, especially in Israel,” she said. “Never have I seen someone looking like me, someone looking like my family. There’s like only one color and only one kind of beauty, and it was very depressing to grow up as a child.”

Netta got her start performing in bars, where she said she was paid in beer and improvised songs about people in the crowd. The more at ease she was performing how she wanted to perform, the more enthusiastic the response.

“I realized when I was like 18, when I was out of school and it was like, the silence all of a sudden,” said Netta. “Okay, I can be whatever I want to be.”

Netta has become a role model. She told the BBC she has received fan mail and messages from young boys and girls talking about accepting their differences. And she and Prince William met earlier this year on the British royal’s visit to Israel; she said the two talked about being positive examples for young people, and how to change perspectives and break boundaries.

Netta was recently signed to S-Curve Records and is working on new music.

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Italy 2018 🇮🇹 Ermal Meta is considered as “person who conveys the values ​​of love, peace, solidarity and friendship” by the Vatican

ITALY – Singer Ermal Meta, representative of Italy in the Eurovision 2018 Song Contest, was considered by the Vatican Secretariat for Communication as a “person who conveys the values ​​of love, peace, solidarity and friendship.”

Fifth in the Eurovision Song Contest of 2018 with Fabrizio Moro, the Albanian-Italian singer Ermal Meta was considered by the Vatican Secretariat for Communication as a “person who conveys the values ​​of love, peace, solidarity and friendship” announced the Holy See in an official communiqué. In this way, Pope Francis blessed the tour of the composer and singer who, on September 3, 2018, will receive the official parchment of the award.

Born in Fier, Albania, Fabrizio Moro moved to Italy at the age of 13, where he began his musical career.

With three previous appearances at the Festival of Sanremo, the singer and composer entered the edition of this year with Fabrizio Moro in defense of “Non mi avete fatto niente”, song that reached the victory.

Ermal Meta is an Italian singer and songwriter. He was a member of Italian bands Ameba4 and La Fame di Camilla, both of which competed in the Newcomers’ section of the Sanremo Music Festival.

After becoming a songwriter for several Italian artists, he launched his solo career, releasing two studio albums: Umano (2016) and Vietato morire (2017).

The latter peaked at number one in Italy, and was preceded by the single with the same title, which placed third in the main competition of the Sanremo Music Festival 2017, also receiving the “Mia Martini” Critics’ Prize.

In a duet with Fabrizio Moro, he won the Sanremo Music Festival 2018 with the song “Non mi avete fatto niente”, that also represented Italy during the Eurovision Song Contest, in which they came fifth with 308 points.

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🇮🇪 Johnny Logan has told how his brother has a “long journey back to health” after emerging from a three-week coma

IRELAND – Relieved Johnny Logan says brother Mick has ‘long journey back to health’ after emerging from three week coma. Johnny’s elder brother Mick Sherrard suffered a major cardiac arrest while riding in his daughter Chloe’s car in Manchester. Elder bro Mick Sherrard suffered a major cardiac arrest while riding in his daughter Chloe’s car in Manchester. His life was saved when Chloe gave him CPR until paramedics arrived.

But he later slipped into a coma as his loving family awaited anxiously around his hospital bed. Miraculously, Mick, 66, suddenly came out of his coma after nearly a month. A grateful Johnny, 64, told the Irish Sun: “Mick is improving but it’s going to be a long journey for him until he’s back to full health. “But with the love and support of his family and friends and the wonderful care of his doctors and nurses he will make it. Thanks to everybody for their prayers and good wishes.”

Mick has been Johnny’s guitar man and musical director for nearly four decades. And Johnny — known as Sean to family — rushed to be at Mick’s bedside when he got the bad news of his brother’s heart attack in April. Mick was still undergoing treatment in hospital as he paid tribute to his brother and kids this week.

He said: “I was in a coma for three weeks, during which time Sean (Johnny) and my children Chloe, Ellen and Nathaniel stayed by my bed.” Mick joked: “No one is more amazed than me that I am still around to annoy you all. I am still in hospital and need a few more ops, but hope to be back soon. The reason I have kept quiet about my illness is that I wanted to get over the worst of it before I told people. My dear brother Sean agreed not to say anything and I thank him for his love and care, as well as my magnificent children, Chloe, Ellen and Nathaniel, who have been my strength.”

The brothers are two of three sons of Derry-born tenor Charles Alphonsus Sherrard, who went by the stage name Patrick O’Hagan. They have played hundreds of venues in Ireland, the UK and across Europe with Mick providing guitar-playing and backing vocals for Johnny. Fans will be hoping Mick recovers in time to duet with Johnny on The Irish Rover and The Little Drummer Boy during their Christmas tour. A family friend said: “Although Mick never made it to Eurovision like Johnny, he’s been a huge part of his brother’s success.”

When Johnny and Mick started out with their first gig at the National Ballroom in Dublin in 1977 they were known as the O’Hagan Brothers Band. The following year Johnny took top billing ahead of Eurovision glory with his own Johnny Logan Band.

He went on to win Eurovision in 1980 with What’s Another Year and again in 1987 with Hold Me Now, before writing Why Me? for Linda Martin in 1992. Mick entered the Irish Song Contest in 1985 with the song Hearts and again in 1991 with the track When Do I get Over You, both written by Johnny.

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Israel 2018 🇮🇱 Eurovision hitmakers said to ink deal with US label over ‘Toy’ plagiarism claim

ISRAEL – The composers of Israel’s winning entry in the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest are reportedly about to sign a deal with a major US record corporation to end a legal threat over alleged plagiarism, according to a Wednesday report.

Universal Music Studios, one of the world’s biggest music companies, sent a pre-suit notice letter two months ago to Doron Medalie and Stav Beger, who jointly wrote the song, “Toy,” claiming that Netta Barzilai’s contest-winning hit was copied from The White Stripe’s 2003 song, “Seven Nation Army.”

According to a Ynet report, Medalie and Beger will give Universal some of the distribution rights of the song in certain countries, resolving claims of copyright infringement.

Both sides will reportedly benefit from the deal because, with the backing of Universal, the song will reach a much larger audience.

If upheld, claims of copyright infringement could have disqualified “Toy’s” eligibility to participate in Eurovision, meaning Israel could have been stripped of its win, and in turn losing Israel hosting rights for the 2019 tournament. Eurovision entries must be original material.

“The agreement is expected to be signed in the coming days,” sources told Ynet. “Medalie has been in the US for a month and a half in order to end this saga.”

Many have observed that the two songs have a similar baseline — as is the case of many other pairs of songs — but Universal’s attorneys alleged that similarities in rhythm and harmony constitute copyright infringement.

In March, Haaretz writer Ben Shalev noted of “Toy” that “the music closely resembles ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes. Let’s hope Jack White doesn’t hear this song before the Eurovision Song Contest. He may sue.”

News of the imminent deal came a day after Israel’s public broadcaster and the government reached a last-minute deal to end a spat over funding for hosting next year’s contest, which had left Israel’s hosting duties in jeopardy.

One of Israel’s most successful hit-makers, Doron has written over 250 songs, ballads, Middle Eastern pop songs, children songs, soundtracks and theme songs for TV.

He wrote “Tel Aviv Ya Habibi Tel Aviv” – the official anthem of Tel Aviv Gay Pride 2013.

He has worked with Israeli singers including Eyal Golan, Shlomi Shabat, Omer Adam, Lior Narkis, and Harel Skaat. His solo album, Abyss, was released in 2008.

Medalie has coordinated the theme songs and soundtracks for many TV shows, among them Goalstar, The Unit, Bolywood. Royal Chef, The Bachelor, Split. Zagury Empire, Disney Israel, Summer Break Stories, North Star and Shavit Ventura Show.

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Eurovision 2019 🇮🇱 Charles Clore Park suggested for EuroVillage by Tel Aviv Mayor

ISRAEL – After declaring full support to KAN over the funding problems recently, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai made one more public suggestion for hosting in his city the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest. He suggests Charles Clore Park as the best sight for hosting the EuroVillage next May.

It is o secret that Tel Aviv is the top favourite bid city and somehow we all know it will end up there but still we have to wait for the official announcement by KAN and the EBU. Charles Clore Park is also not unknown to most Eurofans in Israel as it hosted the 2018 Pride.

However, the construction of the complex, as well as financing the hall where the competition will take place, are in any case the responsibility of the host city.

If the competition actually takes place in Tel Aviv, it is expected to be located in Pavilion 2 in the fairgrounds. Huldai’s proposal comes as part of the warming of the battle for the hosting of the competition and against the backdrop of the hand-wringing between the government and the corporation regarding financing – in addition to the upcoming municipal elections. The corporation here notes that Huldai’s proposal is irrelevant because according to the terms of the tender, the host city should in any case bear the costs of the hall.

In the matter of the EuroVillage, the rules of the European Broadcasting Corporation stipulate that the construction of the compound is the responsibility of the municipality, and the contents are under the responsibility of the European corporation and here.

According to senior officials in the Tel Aviv municipality, if the competition is held in Tel Aviv, the EuroVillage will be built in Charles Clore Park, on the seaside, and will be larger than the one in Lisbon (will contain more than 10,000 people). This is a huge entertainment complex that includes performances, stalls and bars, where the singers and artists will perform during the competition and rehearsals (two weeks in May). The semifinals and finalists will be screened at the Leviev and the entrance will of course be free.

The event, which is broadcast to billions around the world (no matter what city it takes place), will give exposure to the beautiful Israel many in the world The Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality is ready to join the national effort and absorb the costs of the hall – a major cost at the event – it may help those who climb trees again instead of finding solutions. ”

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