Eurovision 2009 may be held in St. Petersburg – he became a contender for the contest with Moscow.
Singer Dima Bilan only won Eurovision 2008 two days ago, and preparations for the 2009 contest have already begun in Russia. Yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin instructed Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov to oversee this process. Technically, only Moscow and St. Petersburg can pull an event of this magnitude, a government official told Vedomosti. It’s not necessary to hold a competition in the capital, explains Clotilde Melo, an employee of the television department of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the competition. The draft government decree on the creation of the organizing committee for the preparation of Eurovision 2009 is already ready, said Anton Zlatopolsky, general director of the Rossiya television channel, who oversaw the preparation of the Russian delegation and the broadcast of the contest in Russia.
Requirements of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for Eurovision organizers:
- a platform with a capacity of at least 4000 seats;
- At least 2,000 beds in hotels within 45 minutes of access to the concert hall.
The Moscow government has not yet discussed the Eurovision, a government spokesman said. But there are enough venues meeting the requirements of the Eurovision organizers in the capital – first of all, the Olimpiysky with a capacity of 25,000 spectators. Get comments at the city hall of St. Petersburg failed. The president of the PMI promotion corporation, Evgeni Finkelshtein, believes that in St. Petersburg, the CCM is suitable for the competition, comparable in capacity to Olimpiysky.
Eurovision in Moscow will cost $ 20-30 million, independent expert Leonid Yurgelas suggests. Such costs are unlikely to pay off, he said: ticket revenue is unlikely to exceed $ 5 million. But banks or commodity companies may become sponsors, he admits. In 2005 (the competition was held in Kiev), only Nemiroff spent 2 million euros on sponsorship of Eurovision, says company representative Natalya Konovalova. Revenues from the sale of broadcasting rights, tickets and advertising may exceed 20 million euros, the general director of the NCA promotion company Mikhail Shurygin estimates. The Chairman of the Board of SAV Entertainment Nadezhda Solovyova is confident that Eurovision will pay off through advertising and sponsorship.
The Eurovision 2008 broadcast was conducted on Saturday night, but became one of the highest-rated programs on Russian TV: according to Gallup Media, in Moscow it was watched by 13.8% of those who had television and 53% who were sitting at that time at the screen. The UEFA Cup final “Zenit” – “Glasgow Rangers” in Moscow was watched by 44% of viewers. Sorec Media Executive Director Artem Donets suggests that posting a 30-second video in Eurovision 2009 could cost 2.8 million rubles. This is comparable to the cost of advertising, for example, during the broadcast of the Zenit match in the UEFA Cup.
According to Bjorn Eriksen, head of the television department of the European Broadcasting Union, EUR 9.3 million was spent on Eurovision 2008, of which 1/3 was allocated by the union and the same amount was allocated to Serbian television and sponsors. Ukraine spent 104 million hryvnias (about 22 million euros) on Eurovision, of which 67 million from the state budget. Eurovision in Kiev was a profitable event, says the head of the press service of the Kyiv City Hall, Alexander Ivakhnev, but does not give exact numbers. According to the mayor’s office in Kiev, tourists were three times more than usual during the days of the competition. The organizers of Eurovision 2006 in Greece received revenue from the competition in the amount of 7.28 million euros with expenses of 5.5 million euros, the president of the Greek state television ERT Christos Papagopoulos previously reported.
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