The UK could lose its automatic place in the Eurovision Song Contest final in the latest review of how the pan-European music competition works.
Eurovision producers, the European Broadcasting Union, will meet next month to discuss the growing concern in Western Europe regarding the influence of political voting by Eastern European countries in choosing the overall winner, amid chatter that some of the big traditional Eurovision countries will pull out. Quite how stopping the big four Western European countries from having their automatic place in final (the UK, Germany, France and Spain go through because they provide the most funding for the event) will convince said countries to not leave the Contest I'm not sure, given that by current voting patterns it would mean none of the main four funding countries would make it to the last leg of the tournament.
A Eurovision organiser told the Media Guardian that everything about the Contest would be reviewed, including the big four's guaranteed place in the final. I think the logic is that the big four's automatic place in the final pisses off the smaller countries, and may make viewers in those countries more prone to politically vote for each other. Or something like that. Asked about what would happen if the big four were to contribute less money to the Contest because of the risk they wouldn't make the final, Eurovision chief Svante Stockselius said the Contest now pulled in sufficient amounts of sponsorship that it is becoming less reliant on funding from larger EBU members. A BBC spokesman said they were "open minded" about all or any proposals for revising the Contest, including the abolition of automatic places in the final.
For more chatter on the future of Eurovision and the UK's role in it, get thee to the CMU blog.