Eurovision

Eurovision (pronounced your-o-vish-on)

(1) The network of the European Broadcasting Union for the exchange of news and television programmes amongst its member organizations and for the relay of news and programmes from outside the network.

(2) The widely used clipping of "Eurovision Song Contest".

1950: The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) (Européenne de Radio-Télévision (UER)) was formed in February 1950 as an alliance of public service media organizations and currently has seventy-three members in fifty-six countries and thirty-four associate-members in a further twenty, not all of which are in Europe.  The EBU is now best known for producing the Eurovision Song Contest although it broadcasts a wide range of programmes.

Blatant injustice, 2003

The Eurovision Song Contest (Concours Eurovision de la chanson) has been held since 1956; the format essentially that of the Sanremo Music Festival first held in Italy in 1951 and (structurally) little changed since although the voting system has bounced around a bit.  In the early years it was a quite earnest song contest which gradually became rather naff until later in the twentieth century when, quite organically, it transformed into something of a self-aware freak-show spiced-up by amusing political squabbles.  The apparent anomaly of Australia’s participation is by virtue of (1) being a foundation associate-member of the EBU and (2) an invitation to compete, first extended in 2016 as part of the sixtieth anniversary celebrations.  The quality of Australia's entries being in keeping with the spirit of the competition (with all that implies), they've since been invited back. 

Serious students of the event (and that niche is populated not only by the usual pop culture suspects) have since 2003 thought the voting system suspect after irregularities deprived t.AT.u. (the Russian lesbian schoolgirls, Lena Katina, (b 1984) and Julia Volkova (b 1985)), of their deserved victory; that actually they were neither lesbians nor schoolgirls seemed hardly the point.  The scandal probably shocked Russians less than some because they'd long been aware of how elections are conducted, comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) once explaining to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) that the point about democracy was that "...it matters less who votes than who gets to count the votes."

All The Things She Said by t.A.T.u. (official music video, 2002).

D.A.D.I. (Lindsay Lohan and comedian Rachel Dratch (b 1966)) offer their take on on t.A.T.u. on Club Traxx (a Euro-Trash MTV-style talk show parody), Saturday Night Live (SNL) 1 May 2004.