It don’t come easy, and it don’t come cheap. But the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 is most definitely coming to the Netherlands. Now a big question: Who will produce the 65th edition of the contest and most importantly who will pay for it?
We should start this discussion by clarifying that the Netherlands’ Eurovision broadcaster AVROTROS will not be solely responsible for hosting and producing the event. It will be a collaboration with news broadcaster NOS, and it will be monitored closely by the public broadcaster’s umbrella organisation NPO.
As you’re fully aware, it takes a lot of cash to produce one of the world’s biggest live television events. But Prime minister Mark Rutte has already stated publicly that the Dutch government will not neccesarily equip umbrella public broadcasting organisation NPO with any additional funds. They should instead first try to finance it within the existing budget.
Geweldig! Voor het eerst in 44 jaar wint Nederland het Eurovisie Songfestival. Heel knap hoe @dunclaurence met een subliem en krachtig optreden zijn favorietenrol waar heeft weten te maken. Heb Duncan zojuist gesproken en hem van harte gefeliciteerd! #ESF19 pic.twitter.com/irCiEeBzRx
— Mark Rutte (@MinPres) May 18, 2019
As we reported a few weeks before Eurovision, The Netherlands already had a basic plan of how to host Eurovision should Duncan Laurence win.
A spokesperson for the NPO, the parent organisation of all public broadcasters in the Netherlands, told RTL Nieuws that a generic scenario to host Eurovision has been in the drawers of the public broadcaster for several years now.
“There is a scenario concerning the outline, but we will only start working with it after the Netherlands has won the final.”
Surely that would include matters of finance. We haven’t seen the document, but given how far ahead they have been thinking of things, it seems likely they would have some behind-the-scenes plans in place.
Dutch broadcasters
The Netherlands has perhaps one of the most confusing and complex public broadcaster structures in Europe, which needs some explanation.
As a result of extreme divides in society at the time of the surge of television in Europe, called pillarisation, the Dutch public broadcaster became a union of several broadcasters with those broadcasters each having their own political or spiritual identity. This was to give every part of society broadcasting time.
The two broadcasters which came together to form AVROTROS originally had more of a liberal stance, but as with many broadcasters, this stance has become less and less visible as time has gone on. Nowadays, the amount of broadcasting time is allocated by the amount of members each broadcaster has.
As the NPO is the parent organisation of AVROTROS, it will mainly be the NPO that would deal with the finances and the subsidies for Eurovision.
NPO told RTL Nieuws that financing is something that they would obviously discuss with the EBU at a later stage. AVROTROS would, however, still take care of all the creative work in the event of hosting.
No funding? So maybe the hosting city will be Madurodam then…
countries from west europe always do well hosting eurovision
I really hope that Martin Garrix will do a guest performance on final
ARUBA 2020 – Opening act: Flamingos ft Eleni Foureira and her pink feather coat!!!
Extra tips: be Austria when they’re hosting. I mean, break from all that blue themes! We already had them for like four years in a row!
IMO Austria and Portugal had the worst organization this decade tbh
Just get the jury votes right, then i am happy!
Honestly they know how to put on a great show, as they’ve hosted Junior Eurovision, and they can attract an audience quite well. I just hope That the Dutch broadcaster and people solely host the show on their own, without any Swedish influences at all. Go back to having 2 hosts, and really go out and put on the best show since Sweden 3 years ago.
You guys can do it and I for one can’t see what you will come up with.
the most important are the songs, the songs!!
thats why ESC2018 was not expensive and it was pretty good
Please Dutch people, you have such an amazing tv industry, don’t let the Swedish mafia into YOUR party.
I am new here, but what is up with the Sweden hate? Is it just because they have a very slick music industry or is there something else going on?
If they think about it for years, they will manage the situation very well. For the rest we will give them just some basic tips:
– do not choose a room that is too dark.
– Never again red lights.
– No need to multiply hosts, just find some good ones.
– No need to break the piggy bank to bring an American superstar: just find someone nice, who honors his contracts and who sings well live.
– find a director who knows how to handle multiple camera angles.
John Paul Gosselaar as host? 🙂
Or probably Cornald Maas?
By the way, what are the red lights about? Is it the Swiss performance or is there something I don’t notice?
Sure it will be an amazing show
It can only get better. And a country like The Netherlands should have no excuse to outsource anything to Björkman, which has become to most important thing at Eurovision.
Björkmann regarded as a thing … lol I feel a bit better now …
One of the most biggest and important events of all tile is coming to your country, and you’re not supporting that? Madness.
Eurovision isn’t really a thing here, except when the Dutch act stands a chance. People here couldn’t care less for other music than pop music, usually in English (although Dutch hiphop has been on the rise the last couple of years), so they aren’t interested in something like ESC. It’s a shame, really.
When the Eurovision Song Contest is taking place in your country you should care though…it’s extremely good for promoting your country on a big international stage…shame 🙁
They should care, but they don’t. And they don’t want to promote the country, they even want to keep tourists away, especially in Amsterdam.
I don’t think we don’t care. Lots of people do care. But the current prime minister has taken a rather tough stance on public TV spending, so to say in advance that he will support more tax euros going there would be a reversal in his position. Don’t worry, the money will be found 🙂
thats the right way to do!
Only a poor and 3rd world country would spend many millions to host eurovision
They don´t need to spend more than the necessary
ESC2018 got 15millions from sponsers and it was done!
That’s wrong. The Lisbon municipality paid for over 5 million euros and the Portuguese Tourism Board paid for around 12 million euros. The remaining 3 million where paid by smaller sponsors and by the national broadcaster.
Yeah… As a dutch guy i can say to you guys: Take everything that our prime minister Mark Rutte says with a great pinch of salt xD
The Dutch and being stingy, name a more iconic duo.
Sweden and the national juries LOL
The UK and the bottom 5
The Swedes and, you know, being Swedes.
Azerbaijan and foreign songwriters
Germany…and (I’m sorry), 0 points.
Valentina and San Marino
Greece and Cyprus giving douze points each
Belarus and voting irregularities.
Or what about madonna and autotune?
Montenegro and Serbia
They have hosted JESC 2007 and 2012 with a safe budget, so I can trust them to do the same with this one.
The Junior’s hosted by the Netherlands were SO good and far ahead of its time if you look at production and organization. Compare the opening act of JESC 2012 (Amsterdam) to ESC 2012 (Baku)….
Eurovision costs the broadcaster around 10-20 million euros. NPO budget is a bit over 800 mililion, of which 75% is taspayer money.
10-20 million euro? Try 40-50 million. Israeli broadcaster kan had spent 45 million euro…
Baku was 60 M (newly built hall), Copenhagen 45M but Malmö around 15M.
The Dutch organisation stated that it expects somewhere between 25-35M.
If your country is outside of Europe or you want to build a new arena, costs are gonna increase. But I agree, “10-20 million” was misleading.
10-20millions are enough to host a good eurovision
Of course if you have good professionals in your country and a good venue….if not, everything will be more expensive
Every year it seems to happen the same thing. But as the Eurovision month comes closer, the organizers always find a way and end up with an amazing show. Support will always show up from somewhere …because you know that (unless you have Sweden’s probabilities) you don’t bring Eurovision home any year.
Not really…in 2018 the budget was officialy announced quite earlier