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NBC planned to make Eurovision-inspired program five years ago

After listening to Lena Meyer-Landrut sing 'Satellite' for about the thousandth time, I thought, "Hey, why don't we have an American version of Eurovision?" The U.S. could go head-to-head with the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and other titans of the new world.

Lo and behold, several Google searches later, NBC had considered the idea, albeit based on U.S. states competing against one another rather than sovereign states.
NBC recognizes the appeal of the show, and reportedly wants to launch a similar contest in the United States which would involve contestants from every state eventually competing for national recognition. Audience involvement, just as it happens in the Eurovision contest is critical. As viewers are ultimately those who pick the winner, often via a tele-voting process which involves casting votes via telephone calls or sending an SMS. In Europe, the audience of each country is not allowed to vote for their own contestant, which allows for a more impartial result. However, alliances between neighboring countries have often formed when for instance the Swedish vote for Danes and Norwegians, and the Baltic countries for each other as well. Politics do not always make the final call though, as often a song is so good that everyone votes for it.

What happened to it? I don't know. I was very excited until I saw the date was February 2006. Evidently it fated into oblivion.

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