Spain's 'own' Eurovision in the pipeline: Dream of a common language through music

RESULTS for Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest are typically very disappointing – coming second from last or within the bottom five every year – which rarely reflects the quality of its entries or experience and talent of its artists.

The best finish in recent history was exactly a decade ago, in 2012, when legendary flamenco-pop artist Pastora Soler came 10th, and otherwise, music star reality show finalists and winners, long-running chart-topping singers, and everyone in between, have never been anywhere near close to getting a victory for Spain.

Song language has little to do with it, given that Barei's 100% English Say Yay met a similar fate, and hers was a catchy, upbeat number rather than a slow ballad – fast-paced and uplifting entries tend to reap more votes than romantic numbers.

Success in the Junior Eurovision has been far greater, showing Spain's popular music industry does have winning potential – but that this has yet to be realised.

Now, though, it might just be on the brink of realising it: Spain has announced plans to launch its own version of the Eurovision.

The 'Hispavisión' would involve entries from the whole of Latin America – countries which, of course, thanks to geography, would never be able to enter the Eurovision (even though Australia managed to switch hemispheres in time to get itself in on the act).

Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), Spain's national broadcasting company – the Spanish answer to the BBC – is the 'management team' behind the country's Eurovision entries and provides the commentary throughout the show; it is now the driving force behind Hispavisión.

The idea is to showcase entries from countries with a common language – Spanish – which is the majority national tongue in South and Central America, official in 19 countries, although it would seem likely that other Latin American nations such as Brazil, Belize, Surinam, Guyana and others would be allowed to enter if their songs were at least partly in the Spanish language.

In fact, the first-ever Hispavisión will include Portugal and Brazil as 'guest countries'.

No mention has yet been made of inviting territories or nations beyond Europe and Latin America which share the Spanish – or, indeed, the Portuguese – language, but the song contest will probably be open to future development and expansion.

Hispavisión comes as part of a wider project uniting common-language nations on either side of the pond: RTVE wants to launch a new television channel focusing on Latin American arts, entertainment and culture, with music videos, films and celebrity interviews, and will actively reach out to the industry in Latin America itself and among the non-Spanish Hispanic community in Spain.

“The idea and determination to do so came out of the recent Benidorm Fest,” explains RTVE chairman José Manuel Pérez Tornero.

This song contest in the Costa Blanca holiday capital was devised as a vehicle for choosing Spain's 2022 Eurovision candidate, although it ended in major controversy - Rigoberta Bandini and Tanxugueiras getting the lion's share of the public vote, particularly the former, and yet it was Chanel Terrero who won the honour of representing her country in Torino this coming May.

Still, the event sowed a seed of inspiration in RTVE's collective mind: Firstly, the fact that Chanel is originally Cuban, even though she would remember little of her life on her and her parents' native Caribbean island, given that she was just four when the family moved to Barcelona, which already singles her out from historic Spanish Eurovision entries – she is the first, in recent history at least, candidate for Spain of Latin American origin.

And secondly, because Benidorm Fest was an excellent way of showcasing up-and-coming young talents who have never yet been able to get a break.

By 'young', the festival did not just mean teenagers or very early 20-somethings; Rigoberta, whose real name is Paula Ribó, is 31 and Chanel is 30, meaning in the mainstream pop industry they would have been already considered 'too old' to sign up as entry-level artists.

The Hispavisión is likely to capture a huge TV audience, fan-base, voter base and competition for entry, given that the latest figures by the Spanish-language standardisation board, the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, show that 493 million people are native Spanish-speakers, and 591 million are 'potential users', meaning they live in a Spanish-speaking country, have Spanish-speaking partners or spouses, or their job involves being able to communicate in it.

This number has grown by six million since 2020, and is in addition to another 24 million who are currently students of Spanish as a foreign language.

The first Hispavisión Song Contest will take place in 2023, in the Caribbean Colombian holiday hotspot city of Cartagena de Indias.