The Eurovision Song Contest gets an offshoot in the USA with 56 acts – including well-known names. Hosting are superstars Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg.
«And finally… Alaska! Twelve Points! », something like that could soon be the motto when the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) expands to the United States for the first time.
From March 21, the offshoot of the spectacle that has been broadcast in Europe since 1956 will find new fans in the USA as the American Song Contest (ASC) over eight episodes. Five preliminary rounds are followed by two semi-finals and the final on May 9th.
The power of music
There are slight doubts in fan circles as to whether the range of the wind machine spectacle with drumming grannies from Moldova, Finnish monsters and Norwegians playing the violin can also be transferred to the pop-culturally more uniform USA – but co-moderator Kelly Clarkson reminded in a press conference that that too the ESC started with the idea of uniting the partly hostile countries of the continent with music a decade after the Second World War.
“People just have to be cheered up a bit because the world is so gloomy at the moment,” said the singer, who once starred in the first season of “American Idol”, the US version of “Deutschland sucht den Superstar”. Star became the entertainment page «The Wrap». “We’ve been at odds in this country for a while, but we’re all more alike than we think,” she said. Clarkson will host the shows alongside rapper Snoop Dogg.
56 acts are taking part, one for each of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia with the capital Washington and the five territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. As with the original, each of these areas will award the same score regardless of its size.
Broadcaster NBC has not yet explained exactly how voting and scoring should be organized given the large time differences: Guam is ten hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, American Samoa eleven hours behind it – and the US mainland from Maine to California already includes four time zones.
stars and newcomers
It is already clear who will start. Some of the better-known names in attendance for the premiere edition include Macy Gray (“I Try”) from Ohio, songwriter Jewel for Alaska and soft-pop veteran Michael Bolton, who sings for Connecticut.
In addition, there are many newcomers who are presenting themselves to a large audience for the first time, some of them appropriate to their home state: country singer Tyler Braden comes from Nashville, Tennessee, and Enisa, an artist who, according to the NBC website, is “contemporary Soul-Pop with Middle Eastern influences».
The broadcaster clears the best slot for eight weeks until the final on May 9th – the Monday before the first semifinals of the European ESC – and seems to be hoping for a lot from the concept: A big advertisement was during the halftime show of the football final switched to Super Bowl.
The first live preliminary round on Monday (Tuesday morning German time) with eleven participants will now show whether the concept can actually be transferred to the United States. From March 29, viewers in German-speaking countries can get a picture of the ASC on Servus TV every Tuesday evening a week later.
For years, people have been working in the background to make the European contest better known in the USA. The ESC has already been shown several times on niche stations and recently two winners in the States, Duncan Lawrence (“Arcade”) from the Netherlands and the Italian rock band Måneskin, also celebrated great success.
Will Ferrell paves the way
“Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga”, a comedy about the ESC on the streaming provider Netflix, also turned out to be a smart move, approved by the EBU, the association of European broadcasters that organizes the contest.
Hollywood star Will Ferrell took on the leading role – according to his own statements, he is a fan after he happened to watch with his Swedish wife in 1999 as their home country won the ESC. The title song “Husavik (My Hometown)” was even nominated for an Oscar. Gradually, the US audience was able to get used to the show, sold as a mixture of a talent show and the Olympics.
On the other hand, the EBU has often had little success with ESC-supplementing show formats in the past. A “Junior Song Contest” with children as participants is given little attention in many countries. Plans for an Asia-Pacific Eurovision Asia Song Contest have been shelved by Australian television in 2021 and the Eurovision Choir of the Year competition has been canceled after just two editions in 2017 and 2019.
An international team of producers that has already been responsible for the original ESC in more than 20 cases, above all the Swede Christer Björkman, who has had a lot of influence in the EBU for years, should ensure that things run differently in the USA has trimmed marketability.
At one point Clarkson and co-producer Audrey Morrissey have announced that they want to keep up with the European original: There should be the same level of flashy costumes and elaborate stage shows. Clarkson: “Definitely. I’m very excited about that.”