Even though there won’t be a regular Eurovision week in May, fans in Iceland still have the chance for plenty of Eurovision entertainment over the next few weeks. That’s because RÚV, Iceland’s national broadcaster, has announced its schedule for alternative Eurovision 2020 shows.
RÚV will, of course, broadcast the official EBU alternative show Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light, which airs on Saturday May 16, the night the actual final was due to be broadcast. But on top of that RÚV will be producing their own alternative version of a Eurovision show.
This will include annual panel show Alla leið (that’s English for “All the way”), which will be used as an alternative to the jury vote. There will also be a public vote where Icelanders can vote for their favourite, which will be used as an alternative televote.
On April 18 the first show of Alla leið was broadcast, with three others shows coming on the next three Saturday evenings. The panel of the show will be used as an alternative jury which will comprise 50% of the alternative voting. On May 2 the Icelandic public can start voting for their favourite song out of all the ones that were to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. This vote will weigh in as the other 50% of the alternative voting.
On May 14 RÚV will broadcast a show where the 15 top songs will be played and the Icelandic public given a chance to vote for their favourite again. In the end we will have the song that would have, or maybe more than might have, gotten the famous douze points from Iceland in the actual Eurovision of 2020.
RÚV had already announced that they would continue with their annual panel show Alla leið where all the Eurovision songs are reviewed by a panel of judges who try to predict which songs make it all the way to the final each year.
The show is hosted by Felix Bergsson, Iceland’s Head of Delegation, who is accompanied by Björg Magnúsdóttir, one of the presenters of Söngvakeppnin 2020. Felix oversees the panel part of the show, whilst Björg gets prominent people from Eurovision and Söngvakeppnin to reminisce on their Eurovision experience.
Iceland: Eurovision 2020 alternative shows
All times are in local Icelandic time – GMT -1.
- Saturday April 18: First episode of Alla leið (20:20 on RÚV)
- Saturday April 25: Second episode of Alla leið (20:20 on RÚV)
- Saturday May 2: Third episode of Alla leið (20:20 on RÚV)
- Saturday May 9: Fourth episode of Alla leið (19:45 on RÚV)
- Tuesday May 12: Eurovision pre-party show where the top 15 songs will be revealed (19:40 on RÚV)
- Thursday May 14: Okkar 12 stig (eng. “Our 12 points”) – the alternative Eurovision show (19:40 on RÚV)
- Saturday May 16: Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light (19:00 on RÚV)
- Saturday May 16: Eurovision-ball (more information to be announced) (21:10 on RÚV)
What do you think about RÚV’s alternative show? Who do think Iceland will vote for? Share your thoughts with us below!
Think about things tops iTunes charts in Austria after winning “the little song contest”
Recent Icelandics 12 points:
2019: Keiino
2018: Rasmussen
2017: Salvador Sobral
2016: Frans
2015: Il Volo
2014: The Common Linnets
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My bet for 2020 was The Roop
They gave 12 points to the real winners in 2014-2015
Yeah you should post something about the bull crap results in Der Kleine Song Contest. Austria in the final…. I wonder how that happened. Also Malta should have won and Norway should’ve qualified. Dumb show
The show was fun and Austria only won very narrowly in the heat in a very close race with Denmark and Germany, and only thanks to two very biased jurors. The other jurors voted harshly against Vincent Bueno. And ultimately, Iceland won the televote.
Those biased jurors are the problem. That should be zero not two. And yea Iceland did win the televote and was a deserved winner. But the thing that annoys me is the structure of the show. The public only get to chose between 3 songs? Out of 41? Not a fan
If you give the public 41 songs to choose from, then you have only one possible winner: Vincent Bueno of Austria.
The concept was good. Too many choices spoil the result. It was good to have jurors rank the songs first. And I love the fact that Cesar Sampson gave only 4 or 5 points to Alive, although he just recorded a song with Vincent Bueno. That’s tough love!
A song like “All of my love” was never going to win a televoting in Austria.
Walk on Water was dead last in Austria in 2016. They didn’t give any points to Chameleon in Semifnals.
It wasn’t going to happen.
In contrast, Austrians did give points to Iceland with No Prejudice in 2014 for instance (was even higher than Undo btw)
It’s just a fun show, obviously nothing serious. The only thing I wish they did instead would be that they showed only music videos and no live performance. For instance, Armenia was kinda portrayed in a bad way, since the audio of the performance is really bad, compared to the music video which is simply amazing. And then it would do much better. But again, it’s just a fun show and worth watching. Aside from the Waterloo, an obviously pretentious old hag.
Is there a place that I can watch? I didn’t know it was live. 🙂
ORF