The brutal answer is that the show is seen as a joke in the UK, and probably everywhere else, and that even if the show was seen as being serious, the vast majority of popular music emanating from the continent is shit, so the quality would barely improve.
Just listening to what was playing on the radio in the Balkan region this summer, whilst on holiday, it seemed they were stuck in the music equivalent of the 1980’s (and IME, this isn’t limited to that region). When you’re picking the worst of a bad bunch, you get the Eurovision.
One explanation I heard was that record companies lost interest when they couldn’t rig the results. There wasn’t as much money to be made from the Eurovision as they imagined. The Eurovision was a springboard for a number of artists and certain songs, and also, if anyone recalls RIVERDANCE began as an interlude in 1994 however none of the successes were predictable or controlable.
Meh. It’s pop music, and any in-depth study of the best-selling pop music on any given day will reveal that most of it is trite and disposable. I’m not trying to be negative, it’s just more of the old “80 per cent of everything is crap” rule.
Watching the two videos linked in the OP is like watching some sort of pop digest. Even the La La La thing that’s been mentioned sounds like a lot of the charted pop of it’s time. Remember, the 1969 Billboard #1 was Sugar Sugar by the Archies. I like that song, but I don’t really think of it as a towering musical achievement.
My point is that, for the most part, these songs are not better or worse than anything you hear when you turn on top 40 radio.
thwartme