Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest is one of the longest running television shows in the world, the first ever contest held on May 24, 1956. After 56 runnings, the contest is one of the most typical European traditions and without a doubt, one of Europe's favorite TV shows. After more than five decades featuring some 1,100 songs, the contest has become a modern classic, strongly embedded into Europe's collective mind. Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television. During the program, after all the songs have been performed, the countries then proceed to cast votes for the other countries' songs (nations are not allowed to vote for their own song). At the end of the program, the winner is declared as the song with the most points. The winner receives, simply, the prestige of having won, a trophy is awarded to the winning songwriters, and the winning country is invited to host the event the following year. This year's competition will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, following Azerbaijan's win in 2011.

In the United States the only program I can think of that is of equal magnitude and popularity is American Idol. Unlike in Eurovision, only Americans participate in the contest and therefore Americans can vote for other Americans. Also unlike Eurovision, anyone can participate in American Idol and not one person from each state. The winner of American Idol actually wins something at the end, a cash prize and a record contract to come out with their own CD. In Eurovision, groups can participate together as the sole representation of the country while in the United States, only solo singers are permitted to participate. In American Idol, there are judges that give their opinion about the singers yet the vote is completely up to the viewers, while in Eurovision there are no judges. Yet American Idol and Eurovision have something in common: they both attract record numbers of audiences and the winners of the competitions go on to become famous singers.