One of the biggest events on television is the Eurovision Song Contest. This huge event gathers millions of tele-viewers from all around the European continent and even outside the European borders. Last year we celebrated the Eurovision's 50th Anniversary from its first broadcast in 1955.

In the past years, there were requests from American, Australian and Asian countries so they could also broadcast this grand musical show. The brain behind this event is the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) that regulates the broadcasting and participation of this events to all the national affiliated stations.

We have seen the number of countries able to participate in this event increasing to 39 countries, including other countries that are not geographically in the European borders, like Israel, who won this festival three times (19978 with "A-bi-ni-bi", 1979 with "Halleluyah" and in 1998 with the controversial "Diva").
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An event of such large scale and with a history now of over 50 years, groups all over europe started to form fan clubs. For this reason there was the need to start the Eurovision Song Contest Fan Club. The official title of this club is in French Organisation Generale des Amateurs de l'Eurovision, in short... OGAE. The official site of the international OGAE branch is www.international.ogae.net

This club has branches in all the European countries who have Eurovision Fans. In Malta we have also a local OGAE Fan Club. The first president of this club was Nazzareno Micallef. The local Maltese branch was founded in 1993, but after a few years after the foundation of this club, all operations of the club were ceased.  When the OGAE Club was inactive the International President Leif Thorrson, approached Deo Grech to undertake the presidency of this club, and re-start the national operations and contact with the other European branches. Till date, the club is managed by Deo Grech.
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OGAE Malta Members with Johnny Logan
© ogaemalta.com


OGAE Malta Members with Kate Ryan
© ogaemalta.com


OGAE Malta Members with Dima Bilan
© ogaemalta.com


OGAE Malta Members with Ira Losco
© ogaemalta.com







 

This year, the maltese club is celebrating it's 6th year of operations, since it's re-opening by Deo Grech. In these years the OGAE Malta Club has been involved with a lot of local and international activities related to the Eurovision song Contest.

The OGAE club has also been very active on local media with "Eurovision Radio" that has been broadcasted on Super One Radio since the year 2000 (Every Tuesday at 8:30pm on Super ONE Radio 97.7FM, or streamed on www.super1.com/live/).  From January till May 2006, Ogae Malta produced the TV programme "Eurovision Fever" on Super one TV.  And now we are producing "Eurovision Clips" throughout Summer 2006 on the same station.

OGAE members receive a bi-monthly brochure with past and present news, facts and gossip  related to the Eurovision Song Contest. All news come from 100% reliable sources as they come directly from official sources and even from delegations of other countries and record companies. The Brochure Euro-MALTA-Vision also includes the schedule of programmes related to the ESC on local media.

The OGAE also holds the the OGAE Song Contest, Second Chance Contest and also the OGAE Video Contest. Club members have the opportunity to vote for the best song that has not passed for the finals of the ESC. In the past years, Malta  has participated in this contest, this is a list of songs and artists, who have participated in these events.