It comes as a surprise to me that fans, on various mailing lists and message boards, don’t understand why the Eurovision Song Contest final and the Champions League final cannot be held at the same time. I constantly see people trying to argue that the Champions League final isn’t that much of a deal except for the two clubs involved. I also see people giving examples of that in many countries it is two different broadcasters who shows the events. This is to me totally irrelevant. No matter that it might be another broadcaster fact is still that the viewers won’t be able to watch both and will have to decide upon them. It is not correct either that only people who are fan of any of the two teams involved would chose the Champions League final over the Eurovision Song Contest final.
The Champions League final is a major TV event. Football fans from all over the world will be watching it no matter who is playing. Imagine if only fans of the Contest would be watching the Eurovision Song Contest final... well, in that case it probably wouldn’t make it to the TV screens in most countries. I might be a minority being both a football fan and a Eurovision Song Contest fan, but it is not due to my double role I find it impossible to have both events at the same time. It must be quite clear that the Champions League final will take many viewers away from the Eurovision Song Contest final. The ones who are not fan of either will have to make a decision on what to watch. It will probably be more men than women choosing the football match, but can we be sure that in every family it will be the female part having control over the remote control that evening? No, we have no guarantee of that and why even cause family problems if we can avoid it? If we are lucky the Eurovision Song Contest final will only suffer a 15% viewing drop – it might be even larger. Should the EBU take that change? Absolutely not!
It also has to do with the voting. The whole point of televoting is that we get a widespread part of the population to vote. We don’t want just the females to vote, nor do we want to exclude football fans from voting. No, the whole debate about having both events on the same night is absurd and I honestly don’t believe EBU intended that. The Champions League final is normally on a Wednesday and EBU probably didn’t notice that it has been changed to being Saturday evenings now. As the date for this football match has been set two years ago and a venue already chosen it is clear that it must be the Eurovision Song Contest final that is being changed. EBU made a mistake and it will be fixed by moving the 2010 Contest – probably one week later. There is no problem in that and it is just a matter of time before it will be done. I can’t imagine anything else than that.
