It was the third consecutive year of application calls for Germany’s Eurovision Jury, which helps choose the songs and acts for the national final. And now broadcaster NDR has answered the applications. It’s been bad news: If you received an e-mail within the last few days, you’re probably out.
Since 2018 the participating broadcaster NDR has cooperated with the strategy consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners to determine the Eurovision Jury. Over the past two years, 100 individuals were selected for the jury based on their results in the surveys. Their taste is meant to be reflective of broader European tastes at Eurovision, giving them some degree of predictive power. They were present during the national final and responsible for 1/3 of the vote, equal to the televote and the jury of music professionals.
Applications opened back in April and consisted of various questions and ratings of certain Eurovision songs from the 2019 edition, among them Norway’s “Spirit in the Sky” and Sweden’s “Too Late for Love”. The results of the applicants were analyzed with the help of a specific algorithm.
The rejection email sent out in recent days reads as follows:
Thank you for your interest to become a member of the Eurovision-Jury!
It wasn’t easy for us to choose a selection out of various exiting profiles. Since we received an overwhelming number of applications, we are sad to announce that we cannot consider you.
We are very sorry that we can’t give you a positive response.
According to a reader from ESC kompakt, the positive responses were already sent as early as July. The congratulatory emails also included many confidentiality notices. According to the reader, the selection process started in August. This time last year the selection was already well underway.
Is an edition of Unser Lied für Rotterdam certain?
At this point, no. There have been no official statements about a national final or an internal selection. Only the reactivation of the Eurovision Jury is confirmed. However, this is no hint that a national final has to take place. Switzerland introduced a similar jury in 2019 and chose their act internally. The email also does not confirm that the panel will again be made up of 100 members. The existence of a jury is certain, anything else is pure speculation.
After the more than unsatisfying result of S!sters, change seems likely. Thomas Schreiber, the entertainment coordinator of NDR, said on the evening of the Grand Final that “it would be wrong to continue the same way” and that “we have to reevaluate whether we are on the right track”. It’s a sensible approach and we commend the broadcaster’s willingness to adapt.
It is interesting to note that S!sters did not win the Eurovision Jury vote and only finished fifth (with 640 points). That was more than 300 points away from Aly Ryan (991 points), who placed first with 44 out of the 100. In contrast, Michael Schulte won all three voting segments in 2018.
Will history repeat itself?
Germany’s recent history hasn’t been particularly successful — bar the big exception of Michael Schulte. Two last and two penultimate positions in just five years had led to discussions about the future of the selection process. And NDR has shown interest in different selection procedures over the last years — for example with Lena’s internal nomination in 2011, widely regarded as a huge success.
Germany finds itself in a similar position as in 2016. That year, they took dramatic measures and scraped the national final for the internal selection of Xavier Naidoo. A move that didn’t happen after all as we know. Nevertheless, the eyes of NDR are surely heading south towards Switzerland’s Luca Hänni and his huge success with Switzerland’s similar procedure.
What do you think? Will Germany change its selection method? Have you applied for the Eurovision Jury? Tell us in the comments below!
Unforgivable mistake Germany every year send a garbage.
Unheilig could win ESC 2014, but Germany missed her chance.
The quality of the last two Unser Lied is good enough overall, and I still want 2020 with another Unser Lied. I just wish they won’t dare screwing up the process, in similar fashion to 2019.
Send your big stars like Xavier Naidoo, Sohne Mannheims, Avantasia or other big names from your national finals if they are willing to participate. Or try Rammstein. Germany has so powerful music scene and they are still trying it with unknown beginners.
Xavier naidoo? Didn’t that end in total drama last time?
Germany is soo bad at Eurovision
question in general for all Eurofans ?
I really want to go to Eurovision this year but none of my friends want to go with me.. therefore I would have to go completely lonely.. is it worth it to go alone, will you get to know some people? Thanks in advance ?
PS: if you live in Berlin maybe we could go together 🙂
I’d love to go and I live in Berlin, but I’ll be in Slovenia at the time. :,)
The German delegation overthinks and overcomplicates this kind of stuff, it gives me the impression they are hiding a lack of vision.
There was nothing wrong with their selection this year, they had really strong songs, but somehow managed to pick the worst! Along with Spain and the UK, there needs to be a new team in charge, otherwise it’s going to be these same 3 countries in the bottom 5 nearly every year! Thomas Schreiber needs to retire, he’s done it for decades now and has lost the plot recently!
Exactly, France were able to escape the Big 5 curse for four years straight (avoiding the bottom 10 entirely since 2015) with a new visionary in charge of the process.
Hey (: I am from Germany and followed the national selection for years where some highlights (Lena, Michael Schulte, Roman Lob) were announced to perform as well as some major lowlights (Levina, S!sters & Jamie-Lee). At this point, Germany has only two options: 1. Send Aly Ryan to the Contest, with a major performance & some sassiness. 2. Germany has to send someone, where people are talking about. Someone like Kim Petras or Rammstein or Gregorian or VoxXClub. Either way, Germany cannot send again a dated pop ballad with some kind of deep meaning & i thought that after Michael… Read more »
Aly Ryan is overrated in esc bubble. Will be like Tamta = Fuego 2.0. Maybe Rammstein, but them and Stromae-Belgium, might end up like Darude. Big name is not enough. I am for VoxxClub.
Actually, Replay still ended up 13th, which is not a bad score, even more for a country like Germany.
Yep but the song was entirely derivative of its predecessor, for all intents and purposes.
I’ve been loving Tom Beck since his AFC11 times. If he went to the contest I would surely vote for him
Aly Ryan is a weak singer. Wear Your Love is a bop, but she couldn’t sell it live. Germany sending an alternative act with name recognition would be great though. Or just embrace schlager in its entirety and send die Königin herself- Helene Fischer!
I would be so proud of my country if we would select Alice Merton internally <3 Just dreaming…
Germany you suck at picking the right song from your national final!! Aly ryan would have done so well
Talk to regular people, for god’s sakes. You have tens of millions of those in your country who could select something better than the NDR dudes. Also: Think of him what you want, but Xavier Naidoo (personally, I feel uncomfortable with ANY kind of religious blabbering) would have given Germany a much better song than the snoozefest they ended up choosing. That’s what you get for being so spineless.
Xavier Naidoo would have been such a headache to handle, and would alienate voters to the point of them withdrawing points regardless of the song- can’t imagine Israeli jurors or voters supporting him, which is more than justified, given his awful anti Semitic streak.
The headache was nothing but self-inflicted. You should apply to NDR. You’ll fit right in.
I would trust more locals’ opinion rather fans tbh.
Specially if it’s Germany as their televote has been giving 12 points to winners every sing year since 2014 but in 2018. Impressive
Germans gave 12 points to Conchita, Il Volo, Sergey, Salvador and Keiino.
That’s a strong stat and no other televoting is close I think.
Also 10 to Netta which is still a high score
UK and Latvia tend to be good at giving 12 to televotes and/or overall winners. As a betting man I’ll add this to my list if stats to research when doing my ESC betting next year