ESC 2007 hosts Jaana Pelkonen and Mikko Leppilampi in rehersal for final (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Eurovision Song Contest 2007 Presenter Jaana Pelkonen at the semifinals on May 10, 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Presenting at Eurovision has changed radically over the years.
It used to be a one-person job (with occasional forays into two) from 1956 all the way until 1993.
Then two presenters became standard from 1994 to 2006 (with 1995 being the last gasp of the solo presenter).
Now it’s pretty much standard to have three.
More than numbers of presenters, the role of the presenter has also changed. (You can read AJ’s view on the evolution/devolution of presenting Eurovision here.)
Whereas before, the presenter was the glue that held together disparate performances and the disembodied voices of jury spokespeople, now the presenter almost has to fight a battle with spokespeople keen to get their time in the sun in front of the hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide.
Related articles
- Musings – Compère & contrast (joyeurovision.com)
- Musings – Sharing the passion (joyeurovision.com)
- Calling the Americas, Africa, Asia, and beyond… (joyeurovision.com)
Two points:
“Let the show begin” is always a terrible line because it leads straight into the rather VTs. Instead they should go with the Melodifestivalen approach and play some music.
Second, while presenters never get famous out of presenting ESC, in Ireland Pat Kenny (1988) did make his break into light entertainment through Eurovision. Up until then he was generally a political presenter. This lead to him eventually getting a Saturday night talk show, which ran until 1999 when he took over the biggest prize of light entertainment Irish television, The Late Late Show. Sadly over 10 years presenting it he never fully settled into the show.