Germany: NDR switches to internal selection for Eurovision 2020 and appoints new Head of Delegation
While the days were passing by it was becoming more than obvious that the German broadcaster was heading to an internal selection for Eurovision 2020. NDR finally revealed details about their internal selection and presented two new team members of the delegation.
Eurovision 2020 entry
Thomas Schreiber, Head of Entertainment at NDR, confirmed that the German entry for Eurovision 2020 has already been selected since December 12th. The act was selected by two juries that held a number of votings. One jury was made up by music experts that had already voted in the past in Eurovision. The second jury, named Eurovision-Jury, consists of 100 Eurovision fans representing the televoting trend.
NDR goes internal
During an interview with dwdl, Thomas Schreiber (NDR’s Head of Entertainment) shed some light on NDR’s decision to switch to an internal selection. Specifically the low viewing figures in the last years (last year only 9.4% market share) was the basic reason for change of direction.
Additionally, NDR realized after making the math that the people that voted in the national final were not the same people voting in Eurovision. All that is overshadowed by age gap between viewers, as older ages watch the national fina while younger ones follow the Eurovision Song Contest.
Schreiber also outlined the additional time they are gaining without the pressure of a national final, time used to organise things better and to aprroach international choreographers in order to accomplish the best staging next May.
Barbara Schöneberger präsentiert den deutschen Masterplan für den #ESC2020https://t.co/cQ25OlpHvh
— ESC Deutschland (@eurovisionde) February 10, 2020
The two new figures in the Delegation
Apart from the news concerning the internal selection, NDR announced Alexandra Wolfslast as the new head of delegation. Alexandra was before member of the NDR 2 staff, and now she is appointed to organise the delegation and be the primary contact for EBU . On the other hand, Christian Blenker was presented as the new team leader, repsonsible for every issue that had to do with Tv, radio and social media.
Source: www.eurovision.de
The Eurovision story so far
Germany is one of the Big-5 countries and qualify in Eurovision directly in the final. The country has participated in every edition of the Eurovision Song Contest since 1956, with one year’s exception back in 1996. The country has won the competition twice, namely in 1982 and 2010.
In 2018 Germany placed 4th in the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon with Michael Schulte‘s You let me walk alone , while in 2019 the duo Sisters represented the country and finished second last in the 25th place of the grand final.
