World of Chig   

15.8.02

Eur A Star


Only nine months and nine days until Eurovision 2003 in Latvia. Regular readers won't be surprised to know that, earlier this week, six of us booked and paid for our plane tickets to Riga next May. And today, RTE has announced that where Spain has been already, Ireland will follow. Ireland's forthcoming version of Pop Idol will be combined with the competition to choose their Eurovision song, which is exactly what Espana did with Operacion Triunfo, which produced Rosa for Eurovision this year. (Quite why RTE have named their show after a Lighthouse Family song hasn't been explained.) Here in the UK, the BBC is about to unleash its own version of Operacion Triunfo upon us, in the shape of Fame Academy. This will be running at the same time as ITV1's Popstars: The Rivals (which will be producing the Christmas Number 1 and Number 2 singles, taking all the fun out of guessing, except which way round the boy group and the girl group will be.) It's a talent show frenzy! Like OT, Fame Academy is a kind of 'Pop Idol meets Big Brother', where we don't get to see the audition process, but the twelve finalists are locked up in an 'academy' and coached by experts, while they are whittled down each week by those experts and the viewers. The difference with the BBC version though, is that they're appealing for a wider range of talents for the show; it's not just for singers. If a singer wins, it would be interesting to see if the Beeb considered them as our Eurovision entrant. At least it would put paid to the rumours that S Club are going to be our entry next year!

If you're going to Latvia, you should brush up on the lingo.
You could go to Latvia if you write the UK's song.

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