Eurovision 'contest'?

Before I get to the point I want to say that I enjoyed the performance by Lynn Chircop. Like so many others I believe that Lynn should have been at least in the top 10.

But as it is with the present system of voting it is not that much about the songs any more but rather about who the neigbouring countries are. Now that the organisers of this song contest have decided to hold a preliminary round so that some countries can qualify for the finals I believe they have not gone far enough.

My suggestion is as follows: hold a preliminary song contest in five regions in Europe (something like Scandinavia, the Mediteranean, west Europe, central Europe and eastern Europe). From each region two contestants will go through to the final. So that gets us 10 contestants to try to win the Eurovision song contest.

Then there needs to be a change in the voting system.

In this final round you still can use the system of televoting so that you keep a high audience attracted to it. But the televoting should be restricted in a way that voters from one of the five regions can only vote for a contestant of one of the other four regions.