Woody Allen has this beautiful story with a hero named Sandor Nadelmann. When he once visited the Scala in Milan with friends, he leaned so far forward in the box that he fell into the orchestra pit. Although that hurts a lot, Nadelmann doesn’t admit that he made a mishap. He goes to the opera night after night and repeats the fall each time; once he also suffered a slight concussion. His motto: it is better to suffer on purpose than to foolishly expose oneself to Schadenfreude.
This anecdote inevitably comes to mind the longer you think about Germany’s (recent) failure at the Eurovision Song Contest, for which NDR is primarily responsible. For years, the broadcaster has been trying to counteract European hit pop and confetti furor with something competitive. Year after year the crash, most recently on Saturday evening in Turin with Malik Harris. His contribution was by no means as bad as the last place suggests. There were just hardly any points from Poland, Italy
This year’s concept had provided for a stronger involvement of individual state broadcasters. The ARD pop waves should play songs in advance and let listeners vote. The German ESC delegation had previously selected five artists with their titles.
Didn’t do anything for the NDR and Germany. The “Bild” is already demanding: “Give the song contest to the BR, RBB, WDR, SWR, maybe to the ZDF or Astro TV – just not to this unspeakable NDR!”
We have two alternatives. On the one hand: Germany can be chosen with a bang in the ESC semi-finals, so that there is no great embarrassment in front of 200 million viewers. We can sing what we want, the others don’t like us.
Second suggestion, and thus to Nadelmann and the NDR, the ESC dolts and repeat offenders. The broadcaster actually does without the pre-selection and leaves it to the private television, RTL
Unfortunately there is little hope. The NDR will once again revise the preliminary decision for the ESC, the broadcaster said. How exactly will be announced when it is available. Off to the opera.
