It’s that time of year again – the country gets excited about the Eurovision Song Contest. Well, some of it does. Not me. There are several major issues that the Contest currently has and will most likely have for the forseeable future.

Firstly, lack of talent. Eurovision seems to be more of an opportunity for countries to laugh at what the others have managed to come up with than an actual show of talent. Dustin the Turkey, Ireland’s entry from last year, is a perfect example of this, but is by no means the only one. This lack of talent has not been addressed by any of the countries involved. Long lost are the days where you’d find acts with true talent at Eurovision, such as Abba.

Second (and the reason I refuse to watch) is bloc voting. Eurovision is now highly political, with countries that are near each other (and usually share the same political ideals) voting for each other. For example, Russia won last year’s contest. The majority of their points came from other eastern bloc and former Soviet nations. We have also seen a steady drop in the amount of points nations that were traditionally strong in Eurovision, such as 7-time winners Ireland, are gaining, so much so that Ireland have failed to even qualify for the past two contests.

Third, and most important for the people organising the contest, is money. The BBC (and thus the UK taxpayer) contributes the most money out of all the participants in the contest. This means they automatically gain entry into the final of the Contest, however the monetary investment is mostly wasted as the UK’s entries have not had much success at all since Katrina and the Waves’ victory in 1997. The Contest is, then, effectively money down the drain for the British public, whose TV licences are contributing to the Contest.

So, three reasons that Eurovision is a waste of time. In my opinion, all three need to be fixed for the Contest to be worth watching at all. However, I shall make a prediction as to the winner of this year’s Contest: Serbia.