Category: TURKEY

🇹🇷 Turkish VP sends a message to the EBU for a potential return to Eurovision

TURKEY – Today the Turkish press is dealing a lot with the latest statements of the Vice President regarding the country’s future in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Vice President Fuat Oktay said that the national broadcaster. may return to Eurovision if a more fair voting system applied.

It is widely known than the implementation off 50% jury voting sparkled a lot of anger from Turkey with the country withdrawing in 2013.

Turkey was suppose to withdraw in 2012 but since Azerbaijan hosted the event, they decided to support the brother nation.

Vice President Fuat Oktay also hints that the participation of BIG 5 in the final is unfair and they should be allocated to the semi finals as all other countries.

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➡️ Watch “Total Disguise” with Helena Paparizou and Serhat

GREECE – Elena Paparizou was born on 31 January 1982 in Borås, Västergötland, Sweden; she was the youngest child of Greek parents Georgios Paparizos (1948-2008) and Efrosynë “Froso” Paparizou. Elena’s parents were from the Karditsa region; she has a sister Aretë, known as Rita, and a brother Konstantinos, known as “Dinos.” Paparizou’s parents met and married in her mother’s hometown and moved to Borås in 1970.

In 1985, the family moved back to Greece to live in Volos with relatives because Elena had contracted asthma and her lungs could not cope with the cold Scandinavian climate. After two years, she was well enough for the family to return to live in Gothenburg, Sweden. As a result of the trip to Greece, Paparizou spoke Greek as a first language and did not make friends with many Swedish children, because she attended a Greek-language school.Paparizou continues to suffer from breathing problems and often carries an inhaler on-stage.

Paparizou became interested in the arts at a young age, attending singing, dancing and acting classes alongside her academic studies. She began lessons in piano, ballet and Greek dance at seven years of age, and performed for the first time in front of a Greek audience when she was eleven, singing Christos Dantis’ “Moro Mou”. Two years later, Paparizou had decided she wanted to be a singer and began to study Greek music.

By the age of fourteen, Elena Paparizou had formed her first group, Soul Funkomatic with three Hispanic teenagers. They played hip hop music while saving money to record songs; they disbanded two years later. On 29 October 1998, thirteen of Paparizou’s close friends died in the Gothenburg nightclub fire during a hip hop party, when sixty-three people died and more than two hundred were injured. She had begged her mother to let her go to the party, but was not allowed to attend. After losing her friends, Paparizou decided to abandon singing. She started classes at the Art Performing School where she studied theater, acting, television and directing.

She participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2001 and afterwards became popular in Greece. She won the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “My Number One” on behalf of Greece.

Serhat was born on October 24, 1964 in İstanbul, Turkey. His father, İsmail Hakkı, was a naval officer who was born in Trabzon where his mother was born, too. He attended a primary school in İcadiye, Üsküdar, and then Deutsche Schule Istanbul (German High School) in Beyoğlu, Istanbul. He graduated from Faculty of Dentistry of Istanbul University in 1988. In 1990, he completed two months of compulsory military service in Burdur.

In 1994, Serhat established his own production company, End Productions. After an agreement with TRT, the company became the producer of the quiz show named Riziko!, Turkish version of the American quiz show Jeopardy!. Serhat was also the host of the show that started to air on October 3, 1994.

In 1995, he received two Golden Butterfly (Turkish: Altın Kelebek) awards, one for “Best Male Host of the Year” and one for “Best Quiz Show of the Year” for Riziko!. In 1996 he again received the award for “Best Quiz Show of the Year”. The show lasted over 430 episodes and ended at the end of 1996. A game show named Hedef 4 (Turkish version of Connect Four) that started to air on TRT 1 in 1996, was produced by End Productions. In 1997, he started to produce the game show Altına Hücum (Turkish version of Midas Touch) for Kanal 6 which ended after 72 episodes in the same year.

In 1998, Riziko! returned to television and was aired on Kanal 7 hosted by Serhat. In the same year, Hedef 4 started to air on Kanal 7, too and ended the following year. Riziko! ended in 1999 and in the same year, Serhat started to host a talk entertainment on Kanal 7 named Serhat’la Rizikosuz which ended after six episodes. After a few months, Riziko! returned to Kanal 7 in 2000 and was continued 65 episodes.

In September 2005, Serhat co-hosted Show TV’s Kalimerhaba with Katerina Moutsatsou, a TV show which was produced by End Productions. At the end of 2009, Serhat created a dance orchestra “Caprice the Show” with 18 musicians and made numerous performances in the following years.

With his company, he also organizes some annual events such as High Schools Music Contest (Liselerarası Müzik Yarışması, 1998–present), Megahit-International Mediterranean Song Contest (Megahit-Uluslararası Akdeniz Şarkı Yarışması, 2002-2004) and Dance Marathon (Dans Maratonu, dance competition between high schools and universities separately, 2009–present).

LYRICS

Under the blue sky
It’s just you and I
And I wonder why
I can’t be with
Anyone else but you

Is it something in your eyes
Or your innocent lies
That makes me feel like I’m lost here
I’m wandering around in total disguise

It was extraordinary
And for one too many
I loved you sevdim seni
Sen de sev beni , sev beni

Since you could make me smile
Then you could stop the world for a while
Sometimes you make me cry
Then you give me wings and make me fly

I hope it’s true
And I’m with you
We’ll go on trip
That will never be through
Whatever you do
Tell me you feel the same way too

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🇹🇷 Conchita it’s your fault: Turkey to return in Eurovision ‘if no more bearded divas’

TURKEY – The head of Turkey’s public broadcaster has cited “someone like the bearded Austrian who wore a skirt” as one of the main reasons of Ankara’s ongoing boycott against Eurovision, apparently referring to Conchita, who won the international song contest in 2014.

“We don’t consider to rejoin the contest. We have reasons like the voting system. As a public broadcaster, we also cannot broadcast live at 9 p.m. –when children are still awake– someone like the bearded Austrian who wore a skirt, do not believe in genders and says that he is both a man and a woman,” the state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation’s (TRT) general manager İbrahim Eren said during panel at a İbn Haldun University in Istanbul on August 4th.

Turkey has not participated in Eurovision since 2012 in protest at changes in the contest’s voting system that introduced a 50/50 jury and televoting deliberation, as well as the “Big Five” rule that allows Spain, Italy, the U.K., France and Germany to automatically qualify every year for the final.

It was speculated last year that Turkey could soon return to the European competition.

While refuting this speculation on Aug. 4, Eren also cited another reason for Turkey’s decision to boycott the event.

“I have told the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on the Eurovision issue that they deviated from their values. As a result, other countries also left Eurovision. There is a mental chaos at the EBU because of its executives. If they can fix it, we can join Eurovision again,” Eren added.

The “bearded diva” Conchita, formerly known as Conchita Wurst, won the Eurovision song contest in 2014 for her song Rise Like a Phoenix.

29-year-old Austrian is a recording artist and drag performer portrayed by Thomas Neuwirth.

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🇹🇷 Bastırın Kızlar: Can Bonomo pens Sertab’s new song about women empowerment

TURKEY – After competing unsuccessfully in two national Eurovision Song Contest finals in 1989 and 1990, Sertab Erenerr was internally selected in 2003 and won the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, representing Turkey with the song “Every Way That I Can”, co-written by Demir Demirkan.

The song went on to top charts in countries all over Europe, including Sweden and Greece. In the wake of her Eurovision success, Erener released her first English-language album, No Boundaries, in 2004.

Her renditions of “Here I Am” and Bob Dylan’s “One More Cup of Coffee” were used in international movie soundtracks. “One More Cup of Coffee” was used in the soundtrack to Masked and Anonymous a semi-biopic of Bob Dylan.

Bonomo was born in İzmir, Turkey to a Sephardic Jewish Turkish family. At the age of 17, he began his official career as a vocal productionist in Istanbul. At the same time, Can went on with studying TV and cinema at the Istanbul Bilgi University with his programmes being aired on popular radio channels such as Number 1 FM, Radio101 and Radio Class.

Then his radio programmes were followed by programmes in international TV channels such as MTV and Number One TV.[5]’ Sephardic culture and the ancient language of exiled Spaniard Jew’s are the main elements that shaped his music.

After his musical career, he began to write poetry and publish poetry books. His first poetry book was named “Delirmek Belirmektir” (2014) and it was published by Küçük İskender.

In January, 2012, he was internally selected to represent Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan. In February 2012, Can revealed his song “Love Me Back” to the public.[8] He placed seventh with the song at the contest’s final competition on 26 May 2012.

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Turkey 🇹🇷 TRT moves further away from the EBU shutting down their Eurovision liaison office

TURKEY – More sad news come from Turkey. As we read at ESCape News fan site for the Eurovision Song Contest and as we tried to understand from the contact we had with their team, it seems that Turkish national broadcaster has shut down the Eurovision office at TRT, which serves in each broadcaster as a liaison between the national broadcaster and the European Broadcasting Union. It is unknown what the next steps will be and we have no reaction by the EBU yet. TRT is the only active member of the EBU and therefore eligible to participate or broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest. Besides the Eurovision Song Contest all news and sports services will be inactive and the fans in Turkey hope it’s just temporary.

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Turkey 🇹🇷 Abdi İpekçi Arena to be demolished

TURKEY – Abdi İpekçi Arena, formerly known as Abdi İpekçi Sports Complex, is a multi-purpose indoor arena that is located in the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul, Turkey, situated just outside the ancient city walls, in Yedikule. Designed in 1979, and opened in 1989, after several years of interrupted construction, it is named after the renowned Turkish journalist Abdi İpekçi. The arena has an audience seating capacity of 12,270. It hosts national and international sports events, such as basketball, volleyball, wrestling, and weightlifting, as well as concerts and congresses, among other events. The facility contains a multi-faced visual scoreboard, six online-system counters, four locker rooms, two internet rooms, a press room, two multi-purpose offices, VIP rooms, etc. Its parking lot has a capacity of 1,500 cars. (source: wikipedia.org)

Abdi İpekçi Arena is going to be demolished the upcoming months as a new sports complex will take its place. The needs for a completely revamped venue for games and events is a necessity in Istanbul. Speaking to the press, Hidayet Türkoglu, President of thee Turkish Basketball Federation revealed information about the new multi-sports arena not forgetting thee great moments Turkish fans have experienced there.

Abdi İpekçi Arena hosted the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, a historic event for the contest’s history as for the first time the semi final was introduced. Ukraine won that contest. In this post you can also see a short BBC tribute to the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest edition. Turkey might have withdrawn due to objection to the basic EBU rules but one thing is for sure: we miss them!

For oikotimes.com that Eurovision edition was also historic as due to Peter and Vassilis, the website had it’s first on the spot experience in its 17th years online!

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Can Bonomo 🇹🇷
Watch him in the kitchen of Arda ile Omuz Omuza

TURKEY – Bonomo was born in İzmir, Turkey to a Sephardi Turkish family. At the same time, Can went on with studying TV and cinema at the Istanbul Bilgi University with his programmes being aired on popular radio channels such as Number 1 FM, Radio101 and Radio Class.

Then his radio programmes were followed by programmes in international TV channels such as MTV and Number One TV. Sephardic culture and the ancient language of exiled Spaniard Jew’s are the main elements that shaped his music.

After his musical career, he began to write poetry and publish poetry books. His first poetry book was named “Delirmek Belirmektir” (2014) and it was published by Küçük İskender.

In January, 2012, he was internally selected to represent Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan. In February 2012, Can revealed his song “Love Me Back” to the public. He placed seventh with the song at the contest’s final competition on 26 May 2012.

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The annual summer saga with Turkish return to Eurovision once again without a happy ending

TURKEY – Every summer the same thing: someone spreads the information that Turkey returns to Eurovision, the regional fan sites claim secure soruces and negotiations and in the end Turkey is not returning to Eurovision. Well, we have to write something in this empty month and waste both yours and our times. Finally and thanks to TRT the official announcement came: the country is not returning to the Eurovision Song Contest.

We couldn’t believe their return anyway especially after months of Erdogan attack to Europeans.

Sertab Erener was the first to spread this summer the rumour about Turkey returning to Eurovision Song Contest followed by Can Bonomo who left the imply that they are the 2018 representatives to Lisbon’s Eurovision edition. Hadise also declared her interest to represent again Turkey in Eurovision. The most hilarious was the implication that Fatma Turgut was in negotiations with TRT for it!

Deputy Primise Minister, Bekir Bozdag visited TRT headquarters and after a meeting there was an official announcement: the county is not returning to the Eurovision Song Contest. The statement was also posted on TRT Twitter account but it was withdrawn moments after it was posted.

Officially TRT is not participating in Eurovision due to televising system and the rule of BIG 5. The deadline for participating in Eurovision 2018 is still far away and miracles can happen (although we doubt)

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