Winning Maltese songs by the Maltese

I was present at the meeting organised by Public Broadcasting Services some time before the regulations for this year had been drawn up and the first thing I pointed out was that the title of the event (Malta Eurovision Festival, as suggested by PBS) was wrong and it should have been called Malta Eurovision Song Contest.

Another suggestion I made was transparency during the judging panel’s voting. On the final nights, both suggestions were accepted.

During that meeting I had aired my displeasure on behalf of the authors’ and composers’ union, UKAM, that Malta had opened the doors completely to foreign writers, that is, anybody from all over the world could have entered a song in our selection contest. UKAM’s complaint fell on very deaf ears. Strangely enough, albeit one very good song being by foreigners, all first three placed went to totally Maltese packages.

Thank God for that because no one would like to see our “ambassador” going to Dusseldorf waving the Maltese flag accompanied by Belgian or German writers. That would not have been a Maltese song. PBS where is your sense of nationalism? Rethink next year. Carry out some serious post mortems. Those extra places taken by foreign participant writers with no great music to write home about would have been taken by Maltese.

Incidentally, was the event actually broadcast via Eurovision? If not then why the Eurovision signature tune? Otherwise, the production was good.

Finally, good luck Glen Vella.