Australia 2019 🇦🇺 SBS confirms participation and hints again national selection idea

Australia will compete in the Eurovision Song Contest for the 5th time, in Tel Aviv in May 2019.

Outgoing SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid confirmed the news to TV Tonight, saying “100% yes.”

But SBS will soon announce plans to shake up the artist selection process with partners Blink TV. Is Australia about to embrace public voting, similar to the UK’s Eurovision: Your Choice showcase?

“We’ve been doing it this way for 5 years and we’re looking at how we can up the ante and mix it up a little bit,” he said.

“It’s safe to say we will be announcing something in the next month or so. We’re putting some finishing touches on some plans at the moment.

“I would love to get Australians more involved in selecting our artist to represent us. We don’t have the money to do The Voice or Australia’s Got Talent, and it wouldn’t work with an emerging artist.

“But we are looking to do something a bit different with some experienced artists.”

All 4 previous entrants, Guy Sebastian, Dami Im, Isaiah Firebrace and Jessica Mauboy, have been talent show graduates, and all 4 through Sony Music.

“Every year we absolutely scour all the record labels. We actually came very close to going with Universal last year. But at the end of the day what I look for is best artist possible, and not the record label. Sony has just happened each year to put forward the best person possible,” Ebeid explained.

“It’s a hell of a lot of pressure and we’ve seen a lot of people freeze on stage when they get up there. There’s 14,000 people in the auditorium and 200 million at home. So you need someone with the experience to get out there and own the stage, with a machine behind them of choreographers, set designers, costume and a record label,” says Ebeid.

SOURCE: TVTONIGHT.COM.AU

🇦🇺 SBS has some bad news for the Asia Pacific Eurovision

AUSTRALIA – SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid acknowledges plans for an Asia Pacific Eurovision, originally due to be staged in 2017, have proved challenging.

“It’s probably been my one disappointment. I would have liked to have made more progress on that. It’s just proven too geo-politically difficult.

“We are still talking to a few of the countries but we have put all our energy into this other idea we’re planning to announce soon. It’s more in our control and continent, whereas trying to get 10 Asian countries to agree has proven really difficult.

“We haven’t given up on the idea, but once we get past this next announcement we will go back to working on it.”

SOURCE: TVTONIGHT.COM.AU

Australia 2019 🇦🇺 SBS rejects boycott petition

AUSTRALIA – SBS will broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest from Israel next year despite an online petition calling on the broadcaster to boycott the event. Expo Tel Aviv was announced last Thursday as the venue for the popular singing contest’s ­semifinals on May 14 and 16 and the grand final on May 19, following Israeli singer Netta Barzilai’s win earlier this year.

A spokesperson from SBS told The AJN, “SBS will continue to be the exclusive broadcaster of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2019. “SBS has been the home of Eurovision for 35 years because of the way the contest celebrates diversity and brings different cultures together, united in a common passion for music.”

The Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) had written to the SBS board and CEO urging them to reject the petition, which accuses Israel of stealing Palestinian lands, of apartheid, of killing Palestinians in cold blood, and of using the competition, “as part of its official Brand Israel strategy, which attempts to whitewash and distract attention from its war crimes against Palestinians”.

“Eurovision should not be used to ‘artwash’ the Israeli government’s apartheid policies and the violence inflicted on Palestinian people,” it states.

ADC chairman Dvir Abramovich said the “grossly distorted” petition takes the extreme and hostile anti-Israel propaganda “to a shocking new level, invoking the antisemitic lie that Israel stole land from the Palestinians and outrageously accusing Israel of apartheid and of intentionally killing Palestinians”.

“The letter deliberately omits to mention that the terrorist group Hamas had carefully orchestrated the Gaza ‘demonstrations’, or that it urged participants to bring a ‘knife or a gun’ in order to kill civilians and kidnap soldiers, or that this was a suicide mission by combatants used as cannon fodder by Hamas,” he said.

“We have written to the SBS board asking it to be a moral voice and to reject this warped campaign, as well as to make it clear that it will never support a campaign that is bigoted in its origins and which makes the possibility of peace between Israelis and Palestinians impossible.”

The boycott petition follows news last week that a number of Australian artists had added their names to a letter calling for the event to be relocated.

🇦🇺 The man who negotiated the Eurovision participation, SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid steps down

AUSTRALIA – SBS’s Managing Director Michael Ebeid is stepping down after seven years at the helm. Mr Ebeid, who has worked in the role since June 2011, made an emotional announcement to staff on Tuesday. “My decision to step down has been one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made,” he said. “I absolutely love this place and what it stands for… SBS is very much a family.”

Under Mr Ebeid’s leadership, SBS launched On Demand, along with the Food Network and NITV free-to-air. He struck an exclusive content deal with VICE as well as securing rights agreements for the FIFA World Cup and Tour de France and deals for the English Premier League and A-League.

Mr Ebeid told staff: “What we do makes a difference to people’s lives and helps shapes the society in which we live. SBS is the strongest it has been in over 40 years. We are more relevant than ever and we are ready for the future. Considering the struggle of societies globally to integrate diverse communities harmoniously, SBS today performs a critical role in the Australian community.”

Mr Ebeid was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours for “significant service to the broadcast media and multicultural affairs as an executive, innovator and business leader”. In 2017, he won The CEO Magazine’s CEO of the Year award. “Serving as the SBS Managing Director has been a real honour and privilege and I depart feeling confident that this is the right time for a new managing director to take the organisation forward.”

Mr Ebeid will depart SBS on 1 October and he will make an announcement in the coming weeks about his next role. His successor is yet to be announced.

SBS Chairman Dr Hass Dellal thanked Mr Ebeid on behalf of the SBS Board of Directors. “I want to thank Michael enormously for his service and dedication,” he said. “Whilst we are very disappointed that Michael is leaving us, there is no doubt that he departs an organisation which is stronger, sustainable and backed by an important and valued purpose to contribute to the ongoing social and economic development of our nation through media services which foster greater understanding and encourage social cohesion. There have been many, many achievements for our organisation under Michael’s leadership and he has ensured we have a very strong and experienced executive team in place to take the organisation forward. We all wish Michael all the very best in his next endeavours.”

Dr Dellal said the board will immediately begin the recruitment process for a new managing director.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield thanked Mr Ebeid for his “exceptional leadership”. “Mr Ebeid has been a strong leader with a clear vision for SBS and the role it plays in supporting social cohesion and fostering a greater understanding of difference,” he said. “Under Mr Ebeid’s leadership, SBS has undertaken a deep commitment to Indigenous Australians and their stories through the launch of National Indigenous Television (NITV) as a national free-to-air television channel. This will be one of Mr Ebeid’s abiding legacies. Mr Ebeid has demonstrated a profound commitment to public broadcasting and the contribution it makes to media diversity and civic journalism. The Government thanks Mr Ebeid for his service to the nation and wishes him well for his future endeavours.”