The Greatest Sham of All?

Dear RTE,

The Eurovision Song Contest is a serious international event that has brought honour to Ireland many times in the past. Until recent years, the selection of a song to represent this country was a positive encouragement to Irish songwriters, both new and established. It was an event taken seriously by the public, the music industry, music publishers and songwriters alike. 

But over the past four years, RTE have conspired with others to turn the event into a cheap sideshow intended to do nothing more that generate money through phone-calls. The change of format for 2006 brought some hope that this might change, but, thanks to RTE’s insulting treatment of Irish songwriters and the public, it has now become a laughing stock, confirming all the old clichés about things in Ireland, especially in RTE, being done on the nod-and-a-wink principle.

RTE’s Euro Song entry procedure was a disgraceful insult to the numerous songwriters who put considerable time, effort and money into their entries only to have them treated so dismissively by RTE. As our national broadcaster funded primarily by the taxpayer, RTE has a duty, not only to be fair and professional in all its activities, but to be seen to be so. Sadly, it seems to treat such duties as dismissively as it treats our songwriters.

I believe the station, and others involved in this fiasco, have a number of serious questions to answer, and I know these questions need answering sooner rather than later, as I believe there are a number of Irish publishers and songwriters contemplating taking legal action on the grounds of what they perceive as the fraudulent aspects of this year’s event.

My main questions are as follows:
1 The original closing date was extended from December 17th to allow for additional entries, because of the alleged ‘lack of quality’ of the entries. Who made this decision, what were their qualifications to make such an assumption and on what grounds was it made?
2 We were originally informed that Brendan Graham, Paul Brady and Shay Healy comprised the selection panel. This was reassuring to Irish publishers and songwriters as they all have a superb track record as songwriters. Their presence, I suspect, was one of the reasons why Fidelma Kenny was able to confirm to me personally that RTE were ‘overwhelmed’ with the volume of entries (over 1,000 when I spoke to her). There was no mention whatsoever at any stage that this panel would only listen to less than 4% of the total entries. Why did RTE not clarify the role of the panel in advance?
3 It was only when I had a telephone conversation with Julian Vignoles of RTE several days after the closing date that he confirmed that the ‘initial’ selection procedure would be carried out by himself and other RTE personnel. To my knowledge, this was the first we’d heard of this masterstroke. Mr. Vignoles now needs to explain to us how this initial selection panel, which he has since admitted comprised himself and two others, listened to over 1,000 entries and gave them sufficient time to make fair judgements on them all. In my own experience of carrying out such work, one usually needs to devote an average of 10 minutes per song, including the time it takes to load the CD player, listen to it, reflect on it and take notes. So listening to over 1,000 songs even ONCE would take at least 170 hours, while, we presume, these same gentlemen were also carrying out their daily responsibilities for RTE! So by what trickery did they achieve this miracle of speed-listening? The writers of over 1,000 entries deserve to be told this.  
4 In late January 2006 (before the final four songs were announced) I discovered that some Irish Music Publishers had been approached by RTE asking them to submit songs by client songwriters. This was done in a manner that can only be described as underhand, prejudicial and a flagrant breach of the rules. It then became rumoured that RTE were spending their time and money recording a Jimmy McCarthy song. When the final four songs were announced, lo and behold, the list included a song by Jimmy McCarthy called ‘The Greatest Song of All’ (were you being ironic, Jimmy?). So on what authority did RTE decide to over-ride their own rules? On what basis did they decide not to call certain Irish songwriters? On what basis did they decide to call others? Did they, as rumoured, spend taxpayers’ money recording a song for one songwriter? If so, did they do this for other songwriters, and why did they not provide this service for all songwriters?
5I watched the Late Late Show special that included the performances of the three songs. Viewers to the previous week’s show were lead to believe that presenter Pat Kenny had the four songs in envelopes for the random selection of the order they would be sung in. But replays of the recording show that Pat did not do the customary shuffle/pick out by guest of the envelopes before selecting them, but simply chose them as he held them in his hand. Perhaps he would explain why he did this?
6 When one of the four songs selected was disqualified because it had been previously published, why did RTE not substitute another song?
7 I have much respect for Brian Kennedy as a singer and for his track record, but did it never occur to him that maybe having his own song as one of the final three might look a little odd? I am also disappointed that in media interviews about the entire fiasco he has been totally dismissive of the issues raised. As a songwriter himself, does Brian Kennedy feel no responsibility at all for the part he played in RTE’s dismissive treatment of the 1,000 Irish songwriters who put time and energy and money into trying to give him the best Eurovision entry possible?
8 During Pat Kenny’s interview with Jimmy McCarthy, Jimmy stated that he had registered his song with IMRO years ago. In fact his song was registered with IMRO/MCPS in 1992, and in my view, it should also have been disqualified under the “previously published” rule. Surely Jimmy McCarthy has been around long enough, as a renowned songwriter, to know the basic Rules of the Eurosong? Isn’t it extraordinary that RTE could run a competition that whittles more than 1,000 entries down to 4, 2 of which are in breach of their own rules?
9 Before the public were allowed to vote, Linda Martin, Marty Whelan and Louis Walsh were interviewed and enthusiastically tipped Brian Kennedy’s song. Do RTE not consider that this was also likely to be prejudicial to the public vote, with viewers at home likely to be influenced by three seasoned heavyweights and a Leaderboard all just happening to plump for the song written by the singer of the entries?
10 To reinforce RTE’s treatment of the competition as a mere phone-call generating exercise, they offered a car as part of a draw for those who voted for the winning entry. Did it not occur to RTE that this too might prejudice the viewers into voting, not for the song they personally felt was the best but for the song most likely to win, especially after the panel of Linda, Marty and Louis had unanimously delivered their esteemed views in favour of one particular song, along with an auto-suggestive Leaderboard.
Below is a direct quote from The Irish Eurovision Website:
"Halfway through the televote the studio audience was asked to choose their favourite. 19% chose "The Greatest Song Of All", 34 chose "All Over The World" and 47% supported "Every Song Is A Cry For Love". To add to the feeling of momentum around Brian Kennedy's own song, when there was an update on how the televote was going and again it was "Every Song Is A Cry For Love" was in the lead. At this stage RTÉ was little short of putting up an on-screen message to the effect of "if you want to win the car, you have to vote for ""Every Song Is A Cry For Love""
11 Many of the 1,000 entries received by will have come from young songwriters hoping to become the Grahams, Bradys and Healys of tomorrow. Does Julian Vignoles believe that RTE’s treatment of them is likely to act as an encouragement, or will it merely confirm for them that RTE no longer values the Eurovision Song Contest and our place in it, and that it’s time RTE came clean and admitted this?
12 I cannot imagine our selection of athletes to represent Ireland in the Olympics or the panel for Ireland’s World Cup soccer team being selected in the same shoddy manner. So why does RTE feel it can treat Irish music and our talented songwriting community with such contempt?
I write the above as the Publisher of songs by a number of songwriters who submitted entries into this fiasco on the assumption that their entries would be treated with due respect and not with the contempt meted out to them by RTE.
Having spoken to other songwriters and publishers I know I’m not alone in feeling that RTE’s handling of this event was at least despicable and quite possibly fraudulent and illegal.
I await answers to the above questions from those who have the courage to answer them.  
Johnny Lappin
LETTER FROM THOM MOORE
Dear Johnny:
First of all, thanks for including me on your mailing list for your timely and appropriate commentary on the RTE Eurovision farce.
I am one of the people who felt encouraged by the participation of Shay, Brendan, Paul, et al, enough to write a new song and submit it. Not only did I not ever receive confirmation of the fact that I had delivered it (by hand, one day before the first deadline), but none of my friends who submitted entries did either.
And like Barry Walsh, I had a song thrown out of the last stages of the 2001 contest because of prior performance -- not due to release on a record, like Barry's, or over a decade of existence, like Jimmy's -- just the fact that an earlier (and different) version had been in the Dun Laoghaire Song Contest six months before.
Not wanting to repeat that crushing humiliation, I did everything I could -- involving great effort and expense -- to produce a brand new song that would be effective in a Eurovision context. It was a song in honour of Hussein al-Ali, the wedding singer killed in an American attack on a wedding party in western Iraq in May 2004. The song is far from polemical; it has no overt references to the event or anyone involved; it was crafted to the best of my ability as a vehicle for Brian Kennedy to win Eurovision. IT WAS ALSO SUBMITTED UNDER A PSEUDONYM, to avoid any of RTE's well-demonstrated malice towards certain people (including me, presumably for my sins in 2001).
All other things aside -- if RTE has not already binned the 1300 entries that were unsuccessfully submitted, I think they should turn them over to IMRO or some other such body, which should review them and have a memorial concert of some of the best of them to mark the absence of an Irish song this year from the Athens Eurovision. At the very least, this issue should not die: so someone (you? IMRO?) should encourage them to resubmit their entries (to you? to IMRO? to TV3? the Carmenism Project?) for an objective reconsideration of their merits, if they have in fact disappeared into some black hole.
Keep up the good work -- this is an issue that should not be allowed to die.
Thom Moore