Sounds exclusionary. America is as much European as Australia.

Actually any one person can compete..such as if a person from the US competed in the Swedish melodifestivalen and won the right to represent Sweden, then they could. Eurovision is just so popular in Australia they were invited to be a guest participant. But it is also very political...such as the UK really never winning regardless of song and being one of the main countries in the event.

I am sure that if the US pushed hard enough, they probably could also be invited to participate. America first and all.

An American has already won the competition - Katrina Leskanich, of Katrina & The Waves - who won for the UK in 1997, their last victory.

Also Canadian Celine Dion won for Switzerland back in 1988.

The contest is actually not that political. If you send a good enough entry, you can win. The UK's bad results have nothing to do with "political voting" - it's just that they sent horrible entries, mostly. None of their recent entries deserved to do well. Englebert Humperdinck five years ago? As if he ever stood a chance.

If you look at recent winners like Austria or Germany or Denmark it just shows that any country can win if they pick the right act and the right song.

Actually I don't agree. Voting is very political..at least if you think in terms of countries awarding its highest points to its neighbors. (Such as Sweden with Norway, Cyprus with Greece, the eastern european countries voting for each other, Ireland and UK, etc.). Songs that have won recently usually are making a political statement or have to be really unique (such as the one that won for Germany), such as last year's winner singing about the deportation of her grandmother by Stalin (which, if I remember right, Russia wanted to get disqualified because of "slander"), the year before that was Sweden's entry about bullying, the year before that was a drag queen who became a standard face in the support of gay rights..etc.

Look what happened when Russia was invading the Ukraine a few years back. Their song was not so bad but they still got booed every time they got high points for it by the audience. Of course, the booing could have also been for their gay rights law changes. Regardless, there was no way they were going to win that night.

In fact, it is a shame that Sweden did not send Loreen's latest song "Statements" to Eurovision but it was booted out this year in the qualifiers. It probably would have won.Now we are just sending a guy whose song is pretty much an add for Dressmann (big men's clothing chain in Scandinavia).

Not all the UK's entries were that bad. I kind of like that one that Andrew Llyod Webber wrote a few years back. The one that he played the piano for. Wasn't that bad. Bonnie Tyler's wasn't that bad either...still placed rather low.

Even Sir Terry Wogan stopped presenting Eurovision for the UK because he thought it was too political (at least that is what he said).

In the end though, I think it is rather funny that Sweden usually wins every year, usually in the form of the song being written by a Swede, sung by a Swede (even it is for another country, hello Greece!), or set designed by a Swede. Go Sweden!

Right, the voting can be a little neighbourly, or "political", but not really enough to sway the result in favor of a winner. I mean, everybody hates Russia, yet they topped the televote last year. Austria had years of bad results, then all of a sudden they won. If it can happen to them it can happen for anybody.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber song you mention was quite good (for a UK entry), and as I recall in placed 5th. Which is not so bad. Most of their other entries got the result they deserve.

Also - Australia came second last year. They have no neighbours or no political friends/foes.

The neighborly voting is overplayed, though it does of course happen - especially with the Scandinavian, former Soviet, and Balkan countries - though maybe it's understandable because of the shared culture. UK & Ireland not so much, Ireland only really give the UK one of two points each year.

Agreed on Sweden - they always send great entries, this year being no exception. I love Robin and his song. Loreen would have been great too, though. She is a true artist. They are still behind Ireland in terms of wins though. 7 to 6 at the moment, though maybe that will change this year!

My favorite is still Italy and I would love to see them win.

Is Eurovision really 'all political'?

Interesting article in its own way.

There's so many scandals and politics every year, so even if you don`t wanna watch it anyway you hear bunch of news.

Thank god I live in America, where all we here about is presidential elections.

Italy, France, Sweden & Portugal all have great songs this year.

The winner will be one of these.