Euromerica

In 2020, the global market research firm IPSOS determined that only 6% percent of Americans had ever seen the Eurovision Song Contest, this despite the fact that the annual event is the most-watched live music event in the world – second in viewership only to World Cup Soccer. After the 2019 edition of the contest, the organizers at the European Broadcasting Union announced the contest would be expanding to America. Then Covid-19 happened. Eurovision was canceled for the first time in the contest’s 65-year history. These changes and challenges offered a perfect launching point to try and find American superfans who’ve been following the contest each year, traveling thousands of miles to take part in the musical festivities.
Filmed and edited during the height of the pandemic, Euromerica will introduce you to Atlanta, Georgia native who moved to London and launched the world’s most-visited Eurovision news blog (more than 30 million views and counting) and New Yorker who has organized the largest gathering of Eurovision fans in America. Together with journalists and leading Eurovision scholars, these superfans reveal how they came to know and love a contest that America generally seems to ignore. They reveal their favorite aspects and making the case for new fans to discover this kaleidoscope of musical treasures. These fans and experts discuss the history of the contest through the lens of gay rights, ever-changing trends in language usage, and expanding ideas of what it means for nations like Israel, Azerbaijan, and Australia to participate in a contest geared toward the European continent.

Through the discussion about the possible expansion of the Eurovision Song Contest in America, we discover the challenges that may lie ahead for this global music phenomenon, specifically how it can gain traction in a market that seems to have very little knowledge of its existence. We’ll learn how the people closest to Eurovision in the United States think the music competition could find its foothold here, and whether or not these passionate enthusiasts and aficionados are ready for America to take on the world’s biggest music stage. This journey will also uncover changing ideas of what it means to be European in a world where pop music is becoming more and more globalized with every new album release. By the end of this Euromerica journey, you might just find yourself jumping down the rabbit hole and becoming a fan yourself.