Andrew Lloyd Webber for Eurovision
Posted Mon 20 Oct 2008 1:25PM BST by Mitch Carter in The Guestlist
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is set to compose Britain's entry for 
the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. The composer will write a song for the winner of Your Country Needs You, a BBC television program in which musicians compete for an audience vote.
After a string of disappointing entries into the competition many have called for an experienced hand to break Britain's run of poor scores. Previous Eurovision losers have included X-Factor's Andy Abraham who finished joint last in 2008 and Jemini's entry Cry Baby which famously received "null points".
"In my life I've never shied away from the impossible and this looks like the biggest mission impossible of all time," said Lloyd Webber in a statement on Saturday.
Controversy was rife at last year's Eurovision final with seasoned presenter Terry Wogan complaining about the political nature of the voting.
Can Sir Andrew win it for Britain or has the political voting got out of hand? Have your say below.
the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. The composer will write a song for the winner of Your Country Needs You, a BBC television program in which musicians compete for an audience vote. After a string of disappointing entries into the competition many have called for an experienced hand to break Britain's run of poor scores. Previous Eurovision losers have included X-Factor's Andy Abraham who finished joint last in 2008 and Jemini's entry Cry Baby which famously received "null points".
"In my life I've never shied away from the impossible and this looks like the biggest mission impossible of all time," said Lloyd Webber in a statement on Saturday.
Controversy was rife at last year's Eurovision final with seasoned presenter Terry Wogan complaining about the political nature of the voting.
Can Sir Andrew win it for Britain or has the political voting got out of hand? Have your say below.
Since almost every country in Europe has been allowed to vote (whether they actually have a song in the contest or not) they have exacerbated the tendency to vote for their geopolitical neighbours, irrespective of the merits of their songs.
We do not get very many votes because we are not in a political bloc like the Scandinavian countries or like the Balkan area. This will not change any time soon.
One thing that would help is to go back to the system whereby only countries making the final of the contest can actually vote for the winner.
Point 2. The songs are played in the respective country on the radio etc before the competition so those countries with borders near each other have the benefit of having heard them already and them being plugged by the national radio stations. Familiarity will boost the vote. As with UK and Ireland.....Call that political if you like.
Solution: Make the competition the first time anyone hears any of the tunes....level playing field. The media can then not then biase the audience......simple.
Mike
It has nothing to do with the song but what country you belong to and it would be better for the BBC to put the licence fee to better programmes or even start up a similar contest with only members who contribute toward the cost taking part.
That would sort out the block voters!!!!
how wonderful, this will be the first time I will actually want to see the contest. I do hope that Andrew will also have a say in who sings it please make sure that this point is raised.
If the song does not do well there will be no shame on Andrew at all, we will ALL just know that the whole contest really is a fix.
Generally, all the songs from all countries are abysmal. Here, we don't take it serious enough to enter anything of note - just pop star wannabes. Maybe Andrew Lloyd Webber can do better, but he won't. It'll be funny to watch the humiliation though. After thjis year, if the BBC continue to show this and fund it, iI'll seriously think about refusing to pay my TV license fee! I don't want to fund and watch a politics show, thank you very much!
If the BBC was to withdraw its significant amount of funding and stage a BBC Vision Song Contest (open only to British artistes without a recording deal) then we could still have a contest to watch, and could still laugh at all the daft entries, without politics getting in the way. Terry Wogan could happily continue to extract the michael in his commentary and all would be well with the world