Category: GREECE

🇬🇷 ERT pays 16 million Euros for national football league games broadcast but still asking sponsorships for Eurovision

GREECE – It was announced that Greek national broadcaster agreed to pay 16 million Euros to 7 Super League clubs in order to broadcast their games the next season. Aside the 16 million Euros there is the cost of the broadcast production, which is not yet estimated.

In the meantime ERT makes a big fuzz every year for Eurovision costs, asking the record labels not only to cover their participation costs but also to submit a bank guarantee of about 80,000 Euros.

So it seems that ERT can sped 16 million Euros for football but not 80,000 Euros for the participants expenses in the Eurovision Song Contest, in order not to provoke the public sentiment over public spending.

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🇬🇷 Was Kalomira suppose to represent Greece in Lisbon?

GREECE – Speaking to People Greece Magazine, the 2008 Greek representative Kalomira revealed that shew was negotiating potential participation for the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Greece. Due to the anniversary of ten years since she participated there were some preliminary discussions, says Kalomira.

Everything seemed positive but ultimately her husband and children are a priority.

She also praised Yianna Terzi for her performance and expressed her surprise for the elimination from the Grand Final.

At the end of 2007, Heaven Music chose Kalomira to be their contestant in the 2008 National Final to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. Kalomira picked an R&B style upbeat song with a Greek feel composed by Konstantinos Pantzis with lyrics by Poseidonas Giannopoulos titled “Secret Combination”.

The song has an “American production” feel to it. On February 27, 2008, Kalomira won the National Final with “Secret Combination” and represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. To promote the song, Kalomira had a pre-Eurovision tour and visited several Eurovision countries throughout March and April.

In the first semifinal, held on May 20, 2008, Kalomira fared well, coming in first place while at the Eurovision final, on May 24, she came in third behind Russia and Ukraine, with 218 points. In an interview with Eleni Menegaki, she said that above all she wanted the Greek people to be proud of the performance.

Kalomira announced on her online diary that she recorded her new album during September and October 2007 in Greece. The album, named Secret Combination the Album, was released on May 29, 2008 and contained songs in both Greek and English, including her Eurovision entry “Secret Combination”.

There is also a bonus rap remix of “Secret Combination” by Master Tempo. The writers are Konstantinos Pantzis, Tasos Vougiatzis and Sunny X. Kalomira did not participate in the promotion of the album, due to a dispute with Heaven Music.

She focused on presenting TV shows, including the Greek version of the game show Big in Japan which took place in Japan and featured 12 contestants.

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🇬🇷 Tamta releases summer hit in English

GREECE – She was indeed the best performance at the MAD Video Music Awards 2018 shadowing even #QueenF who was so highly anticipated. Her summer hit was performed following a duet with the Czech hunk Mikolas Josef for whom the audience screamed all night, at the event.

Tag You In My Sky, is the English version of “Arches Kalokairiou” a summer hit which was produced for one off the top sun screen labels in Greece by (who else) the Greek Eurovision legend Dimitris Kontopoulos.

MAD VMA 2018 @officialtamta #oikotimes #eurovision

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It is no secret that Tamta is the last hope for the Greek Eurofans for a top ten performance in a future Eurovision Song Contest but it seems (at the moment) unlikely. Every year the rumours about here name on the ERT table are consistent but Tamta is not ready yet. Back in 2015 she had (for me) one of the best songs she ever preformed in her career (Unloved) which missed submissions deadline for the Greek national selection.

Though, just like Eleni Foureira, there are rumours (never confirmed) that ERT could be reluctant to a participation with Tamta du to her Georgian descent. We just hope this is just trash gossip and not true.

MAD VMA 2018 @mikolasjosef and @officialtamta #oikotimes #eurovision

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In January 2007, Hellenic Radio and Television (ERT), announced Tamta’s participation in national final to be the Greek representative in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007. She placed third of the three participants, and Sarbel went to the Contest.

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🇬🇷 Helena Paparizou repsonds why she rejected “Fuego”

GREECE – Speaking to Down Town Magazine, 2005 Eurovision winner, Helena Paparizou, responded to the question why she rejected “Fuego”, originally proposed to her before it was proposed to Tamta and then to Eleni Foureira.

“I wanna make clear that I loved the song and it came as a proposal from a dear friend of mine, Alex P. But it wasn’t the right timing for me to go back to Eurovision. It’s so simple”, says Helena.

The national broadcaster CyBC announced in September 2017 that they would collaborate with the Greek Swedish composer Alex Papaconstantinou for the composition of the Cypriot entry. The artist will be chosen through a national talent show. Both the song and the artist will be revealed in January 2018.

In 15 September 2017, CyBC showed a televised trailer in order to find the artists that are to participate in the Cypriot final.

In January 2018, rumours arose that CyBC had asked numerous artists including Helena Paparizou and Tamta to present them in the contest. Soon afterwards, it was revealed that the artist would be announced “in a few days”.

In January 2018 it was announced that Eleni Foureira had reportedly accepted CyBC’s offer and therefore will represent Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song “Fuego”, written by Alex P, after being rejected by the Greek broadcaster ERT.

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MAD VMA 2018 🇬🇷 watch Eurostars’ full performances and rate them in our poll

GREECE – The 15th edition of MAD Video Music Awards were aired tonight through ALPHA TV nation-wide in Greece. The sold out event with more than 10,000 auditors attended by a big majority of the Greek music industry and showbiz including Eurovision stars. You can check their full performances below and have a say in our poll by. choosing up to three of the best performances from the show.

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MAD VMA 2018 🇬🇷 watch Helena, Tamta, Mikolas & Eleni rehearsing

GREECE – The broadcast of the 2018 MAD Video Music Awards concluded tonight on ALPHA TV and wee thought we share a video with a small footage from the Eurostars rehearsing between June 25-27 for the big night. The vent which was sold out for thee first time in almost 9 years featured amazing performances including various Eurovision stars such as Sakis Rouvas, Melisses, Demy and more but it was Helena Paparizou, Tamta and Mikolas Josef, and Eleni Foureira who impressed the audience. Have a sneak peak of how things were during the rehearsals inside the Tae Kwon Do arena.

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MAD VMA 2018 🇬🇷 Tonight the broadcast of the sold out event on ALPHA TV

GREECE – Tonight at 20:40 CET (21:40 Greek Time) the 15th edition of MAD Video Music Awards will be aired through ALPHA TV nation-wide. 19 acts will be presented on stag most of them performed by famous Greek Eurostars.

Either participating in national selections such as Shaya, Melisses, Tamta, Peggy Zena, or hosting the Greek national selections during the years. MAD TV produced the Greek Final such as Mary Sinatsaki, or even participating in Eurovision such as Sakis Rouvas, Helena Paparizou, Eleni Foureira, Demy. Highlight of the evening, the guest appearance with Tamta, of Mikolas Josef, the Czech representative in the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest.

MAD VMA 2018 @foureira #oikotimes #eurovision

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There could be an option to watch the show online at www.alphatv.gr but the performances will be uploaded at the same time via MAD TV’s YouTube channel. Throughout the night we will feature those videos alongside a poll with your choice for the best performance. In the meantime check again some of the rehearsal and live acts impressions by oikotimes.com team.

MAD VMA 2018 @mikolasjosef and @officialtamta #oikotimes #eurovision

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Speaking about awards tonight you will see Melisses (2 awards), Eleni Foureira (1 award), Sakis Rouvas (1 award) and Helena Paparizou (2 awards) receiving their awards. Intotal 14 awards were given on June 27th at the MAD Video Music Awards. The event was also including a spectacular fashion red carpet in which new spotted various Eurostars including Tamta with the same outfit which Eleni used yesterday at her Madrid Gay Pride performance.

The audience went frantic though for Marcus and Martinus, the Norwegian teens who have extremely huge fan base in Greece and caused frantic reactions during. their attendance and performance at the MAD Video Music Awards. Marcus and Martinus are not exactly out of the Eurovision scene as they were thee spokespersons for Norway back in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. It is highly speculated here in Greece that incase those teens enter the Eurovision Song Contest, they will automatically become big favourites for the trophy.

The show will feature though one more Eurostar for whom no one really speaks about in the fan sites recently. The Eurostar who will also perform at tonight’s MAD VMA 2018 broadcast is Themis Adamantides.

The Greek national broadcaster submitted this song but the country forced to withdraw in a last minute notice to EBU as it was accused for not original tune including traditional music and considered a cover song. Officially ERT said they are withdrawing due to low level of song quality coinciding with the French delegation who withdrew for the same reason. The contest aired seven days after its live broadcast in Greece but ERT had to pay 600,000 Drachmas fine to EBU.

EBU mentions on the story: “Greece also withdrew from the contest, leaving 18 countries in the competition. Greece was supposed to enter the contest with the song Sarantapente Kopelies performed by Themis Adamantidis but the Greek minister of culture Melina Mercouri decided to withdraw the song just two weeks before the contest as it did not meet her quality standards”.

At MAD VMA 2018 the performance of Themis Adamantides is considered the highlight of the night as his latest single “Stin Kardia” is a smashing hit all over the country

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🇬🇷 1980 National Final participant claims Politician changed the result although the story lacks facts

GREECE – In 1980 Anna Vissi won the national final and represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Auto-stop. Speaking to ANT1 summer morning show though Dakis, one of Greece’s famous singers back in the 80s, claims now that during the voting he was called to dress up again as he won the national final and therefore he had to sing again.

Then a politician entered the dressing room and said (according to the singer) “you have to wait as they re-count the votes” and then it was announced that Anna Vissi won. Dakis concludes the interview saying “I didn’t go to Eurovision for one vote”.

Now let’s see what happened. Famous singers like Kostas Tournas, Dakis, Glykeria, Yiannis Floriniotis, participated that year. Kostas. Tournas though according to the official results ranked 2nd with 469 points over 474 points to Anna Vissi. But Dakis came third with 410 points something that shows. that the story is not entirely correct.

Conspiracy theories (true or not, we don’t really know) is a wide spread trend regarding the national selections in Greece and we all remember that when we read interviews like this. For me a characteristic one was the one of Mariana Efstrratiou (1989, 1996) who said in an interview after the 1996 failure in Eurovision that EBU aims to throw out of the contest small countries like Malta, Greece and Cyprus. After 22 years we can see off Cours that Greece got a trophy in the contest and Cyprus just achieved a runner up ranking.

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🇬🇷 Serhat meets Helena Paparizou in Athens to film their duet “Total Disguise”

GREECE – Not exactly well spread on the web, the collaboration of Helena Paparizou with the 2016 San Marino representative, Serhat released and it was about time to get visualised. Both artists meet in Athens yesterday to film their video clip for which the updated their Instagram accounts. Originally performed by Serhat and the 1987 Eurovision hostess Victor Lazlo, Total Disguise was a song that made a success back then in Greece and mad Serhat familiar in the Greek audience.

“I Didn’t Know” is a song by Turkish singer, producer and television presenter Serhat. The song was composed by Olcayto Ahmet Tuğsuz with the lyrics written by Nektarios Tyrakis. It was released on 9 March 2016, and will represent San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. Later in March it was decided that the original version would be replaced by the disco version in the contest.

The song will be performed by Serhat, who was selected internally by the Sammarinese national broadcaster San Marino RTV (SMRTV) to represent San Marino in the 2016 contest in Stockholm, Sweden. Serhat represented San Marino performing in the first semi-final held on May 10, but failed to qualify to the May 14, 2016 final.

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MAD VMA 2018 🇬🇷 Eurostars slay the awards: Melisses top the public choice with two of them

GREECE – MAD Video Music Awards are voted by the public. This year more than 300,000 voters cast through the www.mad.tv platform to cast their votes. In terms of winners among the Eurovision stars we can surely say that Melisses and Helena Paparizou ruled.

This can bring back the interest of the fans and maybe their own record label for the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest as Melisses could bee an ideal solution for Greece in Israel. Melisses are somehow experienced in the Eurovision thing, as in 2010 they participated in the Greek national final.

But Melisses and Eurovision 2005 winner Helena Paparizou are not the only ones who got awards last night. Eleni Foureira (yes the #QueenF got only one award last night), Sakis Rouvas and the 2016 Norwegian spokespersons Marcus and Martinus also got one. The list of Eurostars winners has as follows:

  • VIDEO OF THE YEAR – MELISSES
  • BEST MALE MODERN – SAKIS ROUVAS
  • BEST FEMALE MODERN – ELENI FOUREIRA
  • BEST FEMALE ADULT – HELENA PAPARIIZOU
  • BEST GROUP – MEΛISSES
  • BEST DUO – ΕΛΕΝΑ ΠΑΠΑΡΙΖΟΥ Feat. ANASTASIOS RAMMOS
  • TEEN’S CHOICE – MARCUS & MARTINUS

MAD VMA 2018 @foureira #oikotimes #eurovision

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