Too camp. It ought to be taken seriously; it's then far funnier.

John Peel was magnificent and a smile hardly cracked his face or voice (though he was howling in hysterics inside).

That's the way to do it. I'd give John Humphreys the gig.

Western TV companies often fall into the camp trap with Eurovision. They know that probably 90% of hardcore fans are gay, but forget that the majority of viewers as a whole are not.

However Norton is a good presenter, so I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a serious mistake, though I agree that appointing someone like Humphreys would have been a more interesting choice.

I'm probably the last person to be expressing an opinion on this, as I'm usually in the hall watching the contest live, and then buy the official DVD and watch without commentary. Not that I wouldn't listen to Wogan's commentary once, so that I was able to disagree with everything he said. To be fair to Terry, his decades of ESC commentary have become a national institution, and for many the contest won't be the same without him.

Glad you agree getting Norton to replace Wogan on Eurovision is a mistake JK.

My stomach churned when I heard the news. For one, I cannot stand Norton... a little of him goes a very long way... in my case after 5 minutes, I have to turn over... he just gets on my nerves. Wrong approach and message for the Eurovision job, plus there's Norton hosting the Lloyd Webber show...

Well, they're guaranteed one viewer less next year. I think getting Lloyd Webber involved and making a reality TV series out of it is a mistake and to top it off with Norton replacing Wogan... forget it.

Earlier this year, it was announced that a new voting model will be used in the Final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. Today, we can exclusively announce that jury and televoters will each have a 50% stake in the outcome of the Final. The proposal, made by the Reference Group of the Eurovision Song Contest, has already been approved by the European Broadcasting Union's TV Committee.


Half way back to the old method I changed in 1996, assuming that a jury will be less "political" than phoners.

A mistake I think.

Unlike the juries of old, these ones will be made up entirely of music professionals, it appears.

I think this is a mistake too. The Eurovision reference group, I believe, has bowed to the pressure of the public misconception of political voting.

The media, as usual, have played their part in this, portraying UK and other western European failures as victims of unfair voting, rather than the abject no hopers they were.

It wasn't broken, but I suppose the EBU were left with no alternative but to fix it.