TV-Show
Eurovision preliminary decision: Germany is looking for a good song
A song for Turin is to be found in the program “Germany 12 Points”. Photo: Christian Charisius/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Solidarity with Ukraine and scoring in the style of the song contest final: The ARD show “Germany 12 Points” is looking for Germany’s song for the Eurovision Song Contest in Italy.
In the wake of the Ukraine war and 40 years after Nicole’s victory with the song “A Bit of Peace”, ARD is letting Germany’s contribution to Europe’s biggest show in May be chosen this Friday.
From 9:00 p.m., the first and all third programs on ARD will say: “Germany 12 points – the German ESC preliminary decision”. After two years without a major preliminary decision show and without involving the audience, TV viewers can now again have a say in Germany’s song for the Eurovision Song Contest.
According to the responsible Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), a special version of “A Little Peace” should be heard during the show. In addition, the solidarity of the countries of Europe should be emphasized and reminded that Kyiv, which is currently being attacked by Russian troops, hosted the ESC in 2005 and 2017. The Ukrainian Song Contest winner from 2016, Jamala, has also been announced as a guest.
The songs “Rockstars” by Malik Harris, “I Swear to God” by Maël & Jonas, “Alive” by Eros Atomus, “Soap” by Emily Roberts, “Anxiety” by Felicia Lu and “Hallo World» by Nico Suave & Team Liebe. A jury selected the songs from almost 950 applications.
Schöneberger moderated
The moderator of the preliminary decision is once again Barbara Schöneberger. Guests include drag queen Conchita, the Austrian ESC winner from 2014, as well as comedian Bülent Ceylan and ex-ESC participant Jane Comerford from the German country band Texas Lightning.
Until a few days ago, ARD only wanted to broadcast the live show in all third parties and from 8:15 p.m. However, as a result of the war in Ukraine, the program of the first was restructured.
After the 8 p.m. “Tagesschau” there is now a solidarity show for Ukraine with Ingo Zamperoni from Cologne (“We help – together for Ukraine”) and then at the usual ESC time of 9 p.m. (at which the international final is always begins) the 90-minute preliminary decision from Berlin.
Viewers can choose their favorites during the show; their voting accounts for 50 percent of the decision. The other 50 percent come from listeners of all nine ARD radio pop stations (Antenna Brandenburg, Bayern 3, Bremen Vier, hr3, MDR Jump, NDR2, SR1, SWR3 and WDR2). Towards the end, presenters of the Popwellen present the result of the online voting from their broadcasting areas and allow some points to be awarded, just like at the big Grand Prix.
With the new old variant of the national preliminary decision, ARD hopes to end the German ESC bad luck. Most recently, Germany ended up far behind in the international final.