Eurovision has been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic — but audiences at home have a non-competitive replacement to watch on Saturday May 16. Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light was conceived by the EBU. And the Italian broadcaster RAI and Diodato have announced that they’ll happily take part.
RAI and Diodato join ‘Europe Shine A Light’
Earlier this week RAI and Diodato confirmed the broadcast of Europe Shine A Light. The program will air on May 16, starting at 8.35 pm, on Rai 1, Rai Radio 2 and the multimedia portal RaiPlay.
The commentators for Rai 1 will be Flavio Insinna and Federico Russo, who have been working on the Eurovision Song Contest since 2015.
Here’s what the Eurovision 2020 singer wrote when announcing his participation:
Have you read the good news yet?
On May 16th I’ll take part in “Europe Shine A Light”, the format created by @eurovision to unite all of Europe under the colourful flag of music 🌈
It will be yet another very important opportunity to break down barriers, erase borders and show that we are much closer and more united than this difficult period would have us believe.
Interviewed by La Repubblica, Diodato expressed his thoughts on the cancellation of Eurovision. The singer explained that, at the moment, the competitors themselves still have no idea about the Europe Shine A Light format.
“That there’s no competition seems very appropriate. But it is right now to show Europe united at least around music. I don’t know what will happen and not even where the performances will be broadcast from, no final decisions have been taken yet, we will see in the coming days.”
The Italian singer-songwriter said that his Sanremo winning song “Fai rumore” took on a new meaning when Italians in lockdown sang it from their balconies as a way of supporting each other during these isolating times.
“When I presented ‘Fai rumore’ I said: it’s an invitation to break down the the inability to communicate, to manifest one’s humanity. I never thought about the meaning it could take. In short what I thought could be the apex, in reality it was just the beginning. The meaning changes for me too, because of what comes back to me from people. Writing is a mysterious, intimate, magical act, but when others put their emotions on your song everything changes.”
Singing Italians led to Europe Shine A Light
Italy’s participation in Europe Shine A Light has a symbolic value. Prior to the cancellation of Eurovision, Cornald Maas — Creative Advisor of Eurovision 2020 — said that he saw the video of Italians singing from their balconies and it struck a chord inside him:
“At that time, I was already at home, working on my documentary and I was already feeling nervous about the possibility of cancellation. This made me emotional because it shows the power of social media. At the same time I was also thinking. Sietse and I had already been contacted about this, how beautiful it would be… Eurovision was founded in 1956 with the idea of uniting post-war Europe through music. In corona times, every country is mostly busy with its own policies, with its own battle, with its own worries, its own deaths… And especially through Eurovision, whether you are from Bulgaria, Croatia or the Netherlands, you might be able to create something through music, which can be a great alternative.”
Are you looking forward Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light? What do you expect from the tv show? Let us know in the comments.
As of now, eighteen countries are confirmed to be showing it: Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.
Sorry to be off topic but does anyone know if the junior contest is still planned. I would be gutted if that was cancelled as well. We have to have something to look forward to.
It’s too soon to know but I think there’s a fairly strong chance it will also be cancelled.
Hi. Does anyone in the UK know if we are showing this programme. The BBC are apparently doing their own. I would be interested in seeing both.
Same here. I’m from the UK and our plan doesn’t seem very appealing to me and I would rather watch this.
Meanwhile in Sweden and Austria…
Austria is showing it too.
As is Sweden!
Very wise words, I hope to see him representing Italy one day.
Hopefully Rai internally select him for next year.
I wish I could be as optimistic as him seeing how Europe will now get a whopping 20 second snippet of his song to hear. You think people will be eager to go to YouTube to hear it all? I doubt it.. Nice try but I am not watching this travesty of a show any time soon!
You really can’t help yourself, can you? Why do you bother spreading negativity on every post about this show? What good does it do?
Because it doesn’t do what it said to do, namely to honour the 2020 entries? Unless you think snippets are an honour. Most wouldn’t..
Yes because it is a contest, it’s in the name. Any kind of contest would be nice. If its not a contest don’t bother to replace it. And yes most will compete next year and they can come up with new song but the point is that their hard work with these songs will be lost
It’s not a permanent replacement though. Just for this year.
That’s why it’s just called Eurovisiom: Europe Shine a Light. Much like their other events such as Eurovision Young Dancers, Young Musicians, and even Eurovision Choir.
Just this recent weekend, there was even a Eurovision-branded Easter Sunday mass shown Europe-wide live from Switzerland.
Exactly. If it was the Eurovision Song Contest, it’d be a contest with songs. But it’s not a contest.
I wish I could be as optimistic and cheerful as Diodato.
See? He’s very reasonable. Be like Diodato.
The artists themselves have no idea what the EBU are planning for Europe Shine A Light. When Little Big were asked about their plans for the online format of the contest, they answered that they didn’t know any details, they were vaguely told to record a 30-second greeting video and to choose a snippet of their entry they wish to display. Not sure how relevant this information is, but this was aired on a YouTube talk show yesterday where they had a call with the host. They don’t seem to know about the online concerts either.
Tom Leeb said a similar thing (about the greeting video/extract) in a radio interview few days ago so I guess it’s true.