Less than a week after Australian audiences voted for Kate Miller-Heidke as our next entrant to the Eurovision Song Contest, broadcaster SBS has announced we’ll be a fixture at the wild musical extravaganza for at least five more years.
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SBS today confirmed the Eurovision Song Contest’s decision to install Australia as a more permanent member of the competition, following a series of year-on-year invitations to perform at the event.
In a statement, Eurovision head honcho Jon Ola Sand said the organisation “couldn’t have imagined quite how popular [Australian] artists would become” after Jessica Mauboy‘s guest appearance in 2014.
“It was a natural progression for us to agree to their inclusion as a participant for the next five years as they bring so much to the table,” Sand said.
At this point in this article, you’re probably still reading because a) you’re a Eurovision nut feverishly scanning for new info, or b) you’re wondering why the hell Australia is part of the competition in the first place.
This is for those in the latter camp: SBS, which first brought Eurovision to Aussie screens in 1983, is a standing member of the European Broadcasting Union, which operates Eurovision. Our fervent devotion to the competition over the years was enough for us to score an official invite in 2015, and here we are.
Furthermore, Eurovision isn’t meant to make sense. At this year’s event, clasically-trained vocalist Miller-Heidke is set to compete against industrial Icelandic bondage goths and bloody Darude. Just roll with it. See you in 2023, folks.
