Eurovision 2019 – The EBU has today released viewing figures for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. 182 Million people watched the Eurovision semi-finals and / or final on TV for at least a minute. In the week running up to the Grand Final, 40 Million watched content on the official Eurovision YouTube channel. These views came from 225 different territories.
Backing up the theory that Eurovision is attracting a younger audience, three quarters of the viewers online via YouTube for the final were under 35 years old, and the youth audience (15-24 year olds) of the show was a large proportion.
There were 5 million engagements on Eurovision’s official social media, with Instagram taking 70% of the share.
The winner, Duncan Laurence, of the Netherlands, made 4.5 million impressions on social media.
The Eurovision Times 
“182 million watched for at least one minute”
At least we left behind the 200 number repeated like a mantra all these years. Even though I would still like to know how this number breaks up analytically by country.
200 million was the figure in 2016 before Russia was withdrew in 2017 and the numbers dipped and seemingly even bringing Russia back they didn’t recover.
There is only one thing I want to know and that is how many people voted. The last time EBU released those figures was in 2009:
https://eurovision.tv/story/previous-record-crushed-10-680-682-televotes
I guess releasing those figures is opening a can of worms and it makes it much easier to cheat.
Off topic, former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis seems to have officially lost his party’s seat in the European Parliament as they are now below the 3% threshold with 96% of the votes counted. I have to say that I never remember another year when counting the votes took so long! Simultaneously holding municipal, regional and european elections is probably the reason for that – queues in polling stations on Sunday were quite something…
According to wiwi Iceland had a viewing share of 98,4%. How on earth is that possible. It means that babies were forced to watch? And that the country came to a stand still? No hospitals working?
Nothing beats watching Eurovision when operating in the surgery :-P
Share = of people who watched TV, not of the whole population (that figure would be the rating).
People who watched TV at that time = 100%
Of those 98.4% watched ESC rather than anything on another station.
If, say, only 10% had their TVs on, then that would mean the show had had a rating of 9.84 with the other 90% not wtaching any TV at all.
ok, makes sense
98,4 % of all television viewers (not population). So that means from 100 tele viewers 98 watched the show.
When it comes to EBU and numbers, I decided to become a bit sceptical … :P
Sorry to go off topic again but is it normal in the UK to be expelled from your party if you publicly admit that you voted for a different party than the one you are a member of? Or is this more damage done by Brexit?
From a German perspective such an attitude seems petty, ridiculous and quite surreal …
I never get the brouhaha about party memberships, e.g. in Germany people suing them because they were kicked out of the party and wanted to get back in.
It is very difficult to get kicked out of a party in Germany though. SPD f. e. still hasn’t got rid of hateful Thilo S.
Sarrazin and wasn’t there something with Clement, too? I never understand why they are so insistent on staying in party; it’s not like they’ll be able to change it in their image as in both cases there would be other parties that seem like better options for them.
As I have said many times, collective identities are not for me, and that includes parties. I tried being a member of the Greens but after a few weeks I began feeling uncomfortable and left again.
Off to the grocers now.
It’s a well known rule of The Labour Party. Party membership means not voting for other parties. He blatantly advertised it on social media, knowing what it would mean. It’s all part of the silly Blairite games here in the UK imo.
If you allow it, where does it stop? You get an entire raft of people from another party joining and becoming members to infiltrate the Party, then campaign for anther Party from within? Take it over?
The Tories suspended the Conservative whip from Lord Michael Heseltine last week when he said he would vote Lib Dem too.
I read about Lord Haseltine too. I didn’t know that those were party rules in the UK. It seems an odd thing to do from a German perspective. Celebrate diversity!
I am absolutely baffled why you would join a political party and then vote for another one?! That would be like me joining the Nottingham Forest supporters’ club when I am a Leicester City fan. Just why would you??
I see your point but both Lord Haseltine and Mr. Campbell were party members for decades which makes those cases different imo. As Anna Soubry said (I never thought that I would quote her …): “I haven’t left my party. My party left me.” Both established main parties of the UK have changed a lot over the past years.
Yes it’s perfectly normal to expel disloyal members, been the case long before Brexit, long before the EU even existed.
That doesn’t sound like a party to me but like an army or some occult sect.
All parties do it. It’s pretty common. It’s interesting to me that it’s interesting to you, if that makes sense.
In Germany do you have “collective responsibility” where any government minister has to publicly agree with the government 100% ?
Nope, we do not have such a rule. :)
Given the quite impactful boycott campaign these numbers are not bad at all.
Of course the effects of the likes of Barzilai and Sobral winning have taken their toll as well.
Isn’t it more likely that it had more to do with two countries less competing? Ukraine has a population of more then 40 million. Bulgaria 7 million.
I am not sure about the viewing figures in those countries. Plus Ukraine broadcasted the event. I suppose it is included in that estimate.
And the plot thickens.
Russian juror Igor Gulyaev apparently ranked the songs backwards too in SF2. He ranked Denmark first in the semi, but then ranked it last in the final. He also ranked Azerbaijan last in the semi, but first in the final. If the votes were reversed Lithuania would have qualified instead of Denmark.
Everybody thought Lithuania would have qualified when they watched, including the greek commentators who she “he is a shoe-in”…
* who said
The juries should use a tool like the one by mr. Gerbear to sort the songs. Maybe a confirmation after each choice and no way to alter the ranking. Then it should be send to the organisation that monitors the voting.
How it is now there is no way that a red flag will be raised during the semi voting. Only when comparing it with the grand final voting, which happens some days later, we can see if there are discrepancies.
As for the Italian tele voting, did the numbers provided by RAI include the votes done with the app? That might explain the difference.
I agree that there needs to be definite reforms with the jury voting. My proposal would be that each juror needs to be isolated from the other jurors, and that they just assign 1-8, 10, and 12 points to the songs. I don’t know how someone could mess that up. Regardless, the system needs changing; if it was functioning fine there wouldn’t be three jurors this year who did it wrong.
As for the Italian voting, I know nothing more than what I posted the other day. That was all that I read in the article. I’m expecting things will become clearer in the coming days though as Lithuania seems to be pursuing the issue.
Top75 of televoting points between 2010 and 2019:
No 2013 entries, for reasons not in accordance with transparency :P
Wiki has only the rankings instead of the points. What happened that year?
ebu never published them, i’m pretty sure DNK didn’t win televoting that year…
But wasn’t that the year that there were serious allegations against Azerbaijan buying votes.
Yes it was the Azerbaijan year. They didn’t pursue it, but in 2014 they introduced more security with the phone vote and the following year Azerbaijan didn’t do so well.
But they published an average rank and Denmark won both sets of votes.
Average of places could mean DNK scored many 5th or 3rd places but still didn’t win televoting by points over a country which was ranked as 1st f.e 20 times and last another 20 times ;)
Hmmm…I never thought of it that way :-o They had no problem reporting a much larger (?) disparity between Italy and Sweden two years later…
Which means a polarising entry or a song from a country manipulating telepoints in quite a few countries won it and EBU came up to this solution of revealing results in order to not embarass themselves imo
They didn’t pursuit the evidence against Azerbaijan.
Year by year Armenian views get less and anti Eurovision ideas get strong (waste of money and blablabla talks).
Meanwhile…
Kamikaze Mkhitaryan/Arsenal fans walking in Baku :))
It’s really an absolute disgrace that the final (as well as some games of the next EURO) is being held in Baku, both for Armenian athletes and for the fans who will have long and expensive journeys (if they can get there at all due to limited number of flights).
but for justice UEFA is ought to promote football in all countries and it is not the privelegy of 1-2 countries!
Let’s look at how blatantly Sweden has been favored with juries since 2011 :
2011 : 9th
2012 : 1st (Well deserved)
2013 : 3rd ?!!!! WTF
2014 : 2nd (I’m ok with it)
2015 : 1st with A HUGE margin for the best LIVE video clip …
2016 : 9th
2017 : 3rd
2018 : 2nd …
2019 : 2nd
The favoritism is even bigger than the one Russia gets with televoting (just saying), unless people think Swedish entries really deserve top 3 with juries in 7 out of 9 occasions…
That’s not true of all juries though – e.g. Greek and Cypriot juries never give 12 points to Sweden ;-).
Of course not. There’s AUS for that purpose :P
As well as various Nordic and Baltic countries.
You forget Central Europe as well my dear…
I think most of them are reserved for Ukraine and Russia.
Cyprus gives to Sweden 7-10 most of the times though.
Wrong! Cyprus gave 12 points to Sweden in 2018. The juries did.
Frans and Eric should sue for discrimanitory treatment ;)
Russia in the televote in the same period:
2011: #7
2012: #2 (how ridiculous – their 2010 NF entry was so much better)
2013: #5
2014: #6
2015: #2
2016: #1
2017: withdrew
2018: DQ
2019:#4
Their top jury rank was third in 2015. They also had one last place in 2011 :-P
2011 was the year JURIES screwed UK though :P
22nd :-o The juries really did not like matinée idols that year (Eric, Alexey, Blue)…
That’s just as ridiculous as the Swedish jury results and that’s the precise reason we need 50/50. But 2018 DQ??? I guess you mean DNQ.
Now the EBU needs to get a grip and practice counting: 1,2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
#sacksand
Yes NQ sorry :) Well at least the televote did not have Russia top3 seven out of nine times. Only 3 out of 9 :-P
At least you wrote it before I did. Also an analysis of the origin of the russian televoting points each year will be interesting as well – compared to the jury results for Sweden which should be more spread through the years.
It’s ludicrous and a tad embarrassing too, especially 2013, 2017 and 2018. As you say, the deserving ones are 2012 (even though there are songs like better personally) and 2014, which has grown on me since … perhaps because I am getting older. ;)
Ok let’s do this :
2011 : about as well as uptempo songs do with the jury (see Switzerland this year) and 2nd in televoting.
2012 : no reason to comment
2013 : the voting system use was different this year and we don’t actually know how well Sweden did with juries and televoting point-wise but yes this could be the one case it was overrated.
2014 : deserved and expected
2015 : deserved and expected – contemporary, well performed and has formed to be an esc classic
2016 : lower with juries than televote once again
2017 : again, contemporary and well performed so suites to jury criteria
2018 : see above (done even better)
2019 : on the steps of AUT18 and everyone expected it to do well with the juries for this precise reason.
So where do we end up ? Sweden does professional contemporary pop well and gets rewarded by juries based on the criteria they are supposed to vote on. Shocking. Also it has won only 2 times the jury vote in these years while 2 times it placed better with televoting than with jury.
Also why do you leave out 2009 and 2010 ? Ruins the narrative ?
2010 : NQ due to JURY vote
2009 : 22nd (15th with televote) – on the same line juries have treated popera at most occasions.
So where does this leaves us overall ? In 4 years Sweden did worse with jury than televote, in 1 year it did the same, in 2 years (2015 and 2014) it did better with juries but with a close result, in 2 years it did better with juries but top 10 with televote again and in just 2 years juries and televoters disagreed a lot on Sweden.
So overall a balanced approach if one takes under consideration the investment and professionalism Sweden shows in its approach.
And then we have Peter Nalitch scoring 90 points with televoting and 11th place overall by scoring televoting points only from its neighbours. I won’t even comment on Russia this year. And we all saw how spread diaspora is with the results of the Italian televote.
“So where do we end up ? Sweden does professional contemporary pop well and gets rewarded by juries based on the criteria they are supposed to vote oN”
The same way Greece did professional ethnic pop and got rewarded by televoting during 00s?
ROFL guitar
Comparing the effort Sweden, a know pop powerhouse worldwide nowdays puts forward with greek ethno shake it ? Come on even you can do better than that
Rofl. Some people know no lows it seems to defend their conspiracy theories and biases. As I said you already diluted your own statistics by inexcusably starting your listing from 2011 because obviously the first 2 years of jury vote ruined the narrative you were trying to build.
Start picking on Australia because this one it seems you lost it.
A pop Powerhouse is how you want to see it to defend your own point of view. I didn’t include the 2008 blatant favoritism pushing Heroes through either…
Not at all. It has produced artists such as Zara Larsson and Avicii among others that have enjoyed worldwide respect and success. Many Swedish producers are involved with the American industry as well which is the trend setting industry. And those influences exist in MF as well whether that is something you would like to admit or not.
You can argue that the EBU could put budget limitations on what each country spends to come up with an entry and promote it but not that Sweden is not in terms of professionalism in music on a higher level compared to other countries.
I never doubted the level of Swedish music industry. Whether they send the best in esc or MF is up for other people to judge too… Personally I think they just keep recycling the same bubble B to C list names (G :Son etc) and of course we never get to see any REAL big name like Russia did (Sergei or Polina)
And the juries decide it is. Russia may sent the artists it does but the song it sends are desperate especially this year and in 2016 they blatantly tried to copy Sweden with a much worse song and a stage concept that had nothing to do with the song unlike Sweden 15.
1. That doesn’t take away from the effort they put BY selecting their A LIST artists. “Desperate” songs is a subjective term not a fact you know.
As If Sweden didn’t try to copy Cezar’s success this year? ROFL
But esc does not reward A list artists – the UK also sent Bonnie Tyler and Blue, admittedly big names. They were not moved one bit. Desperate in accordance to what Kirkorov said of trying to create a song this year that would supposedly appeal to the juries. Even that admittance reeks of desperation.
They did but they did it professionally – John placed higher with televoting than Cesar did as well.
Blue secured UK’s biggest telvoting result in years so sending big names is appreciated in televoting at least (you know one part of the voting procedure)
And Jon scored 2nd with juries while Cezar won jury vote and came 3rd overall. So if juries are the ones to trust, Austria did it better but you keep changing your prespective to suit your own views
We are talking about juries here and your claim was juries should reward Russia because it sends big names. So Blue’s televoting results is irrelevant here and I am well aware that unfortunately televoting is still part of the voting process.
Austria did it better by how much ? I think we are splitting hairs here when it comes to that because they both did very well with jury vote. I keep the same perspective throughout, I have no need to change perspective because unlike you I feel secure in my argumentation. John did this kind of music before esc and will be doing it afterwards as well btw.
Keep on rolling with personal characterisations (insecure etc). As long as others do it it’s called “bullying” by you but of course when you do it it’s “Stand my ground and offer argumentation”
ROFL (again)
No personal characterizations. Saying your argumentation shows insecurity in your own position is just a view on what you say, nothing more.
Rofl indeed. Rofl is my reaction to all this thread to be honest.
Feels fine. Saves me from all this drama
Again, the one causing drama is you I am afraid but, again, this is understandable since you cannot handle someone challenging your biased theories on solid ground.
2008 : of course they should have voted for..whom exactly ? FYR Macedonia ? Please.
And whether I lost a narrative or not is definitely not up to you to judge …
When you dilute your own statistics to make a point it says a lot imo.
I didn’t but keep playing the “I win you lose card”
In the irrationality I have to experience here every day not admitting that you left out some years because they spoiled the narrative you try to build is not surprising at all.
Its like the argument “if you take out California Hillary Clinton lost the popular vote” I read.
Told ya, 2008… I’m including it now.
And you once again showcase how insecure you are in your own argumentation with that :-) pick and choose to fit your “big evil Sweden promoted” narrative. I don’t blame you, I would do the same if I did not have the arguments to fully support my position
Yes of course you are the ONLY one who can provide VALID argumentation.
Greek saying : Stones are laughing :P
Stones are laughing for sure if they are reading this thread and the lengths some people go to confirm their biases in their heads.
Same way you don’t include 2014 to 2019 to support your invalid theories about GRC relying heavily on diaspora vote?
ROFL
I was not the one who out of the blue in an irrelevant thread came to promote a conspiracy theory based on my anti-jury and anti-swedish bias.
If you disagree with my theories, feel free to ignore them. It will definitely save me from much time replying to you
I feel like there needs to be a leveled counter argument to all this huge anti jury and anti Swedish bias on this forum and since I am the only one providing that and the only one willing to talk about televoting mistakes and lack of scrutiny it always falls on me to counter with some facts such theories. Feel free to ignore me if you don’t like my answers to your theories.
You can freely express your opinion seperately. Don’t understand why I need to see all those orange notifications all the time. It’s if as you thrive through dramatic debates
I am doing so all the time. I enjoy debates where my facts are properly challenged and put me through a mental challenge aka productive debates. I still crave to find that here.
But I will keep pointing out the televoting errors and biases even when on this forum it is not the “cool” thing to do.
If you need the last word, I’m letting you have it. It feels ok with me
*sigh*
Not even an effort to try to defend your position with a solid argument. I would say it is dissapointing but at this point I am used to that here.
If you want a bubble that simply bows its head to confirm your biases you can have it. I won’t bother anymore. But I will keep speaking out as the sole voice that talks about the things nobody else dares to mention here for sure.
Also invalid theories ? So you question the diaspora factor for Greece’s success then ? Hilarious truly.
My best answer is the televoting figures RAI has published where we all see the extend of such effects. If diaspora becomes more disengaged and more engaged in some periods does not change its effect.
I was speaking specifically for GRC. What happened, did Greek Diaspora out of the blue moved back to Greece?
I agree with guitar here…except I felt they should have been higher in 2016 and lower in 2017 if you judge by contemporary music at those times. 2019 is also debatable but it’s Top 5 in terms of radio-friendliness.
I do think it has gotten a bit tiring seeing them high in the juries but not as much with the televote the last 3 years, especially because the Scandi neighbour voting is stronger than ever, but I can see why it’s happening.
But they didn’t get Scandi televoting support last year. On the other hand, as much as you disagree, constant top 3 with juries seems like overrating a brand name imo
Sweden 2019 is “radio friendly” in what universe exactly? Austria 2018 was going for a current Rag’n’Bones sound that was merely gospel-infused. It did not become a radio hit but it clearly aspires to sound like one. Sweden 2019 on the other hand takes gospel up to 11 while at the same time removing it from any sort of spiritual or social context. The whole thing becomes a mere talent-show performance or “Disney gospel” as I would call it.
I am tired of listening to the “radio-friendly” argument. Sweden has sent nothing that was even remotely radio-friendly since 2016.
LOL 12 points for Disney gospel!
Make it 24p (though I admit I fell for the song :P)
I didn’t get the appeal of the song at all and I usually like the Swedish entries but this one does not stick in my head at all. I literally forget it while I hear it.
I believe their 2017 and 2018 entries were radio friendly.2017 more mainstream and 2018 more contemporary.
I don’t see how Sweden was any less radio friendly than AUT18 – it had very similar gospel influences but it had a more pronounced gospel element with the addition of the backing vocals, something we do not usually see in Europe and it was one of the best live performances (also a criterion based on which they are supposed to award performances thus why also North Macedonia did well).
And sorry but all recent Swedish entries have been radio friendly especially 2018 which was imo their BEST effort in quite a few years (at least since their 2015 victory). 2018 was the music of today in every way possible. As I have said before Benjamin single handily humiliated the (as usual) clueless esc televoting by releasing an excellent album as well in 2018.
The cluelessness of televote became even more obvious this year when their own “winner” did not get the views and online streams and sales that correspond to its supposed “success”.
Agree to dusagree, but modeen gospel is fairly popular on the radio. Sometimes we do stretch “radio friendly”, I agree, but remove the Sweden name hate and “Too Late for Love” is something I can see on contemporary charts 100%.
Agree to disagree of course, but we heard the exact same arguments last year and that one didn’t do anything much outside the contest… This year other songs (NLD, ITA, NOR, AZE, CHE) are doing much better in i-tunes charts at least.
I fairly recall Sweden being around Top 7-8 in iTunes last year after the Final, higher than it’s televote score, where it didn’t connect with the “silent voters” who aren’t on these streaming sites. Austria 18 did fairly well on those charts but got like 12th in the televote.
In terms of charts this year, Sweden-Azerbaijan have basically been flipping between 5/6 with the Top 4 of NED/ITA/SUI/NOR.
Yes in 2015 Italy was robbed but it was well deserved ….. Bunch of people chose a winner which wasn’t the one chosen by millions who voted
What was Italy robbed of ?
The millions lost their right to pick a winner when they stopped voting for songs but for countries and novelties.
I wish that bunch of people chose the winner every year. The contest would not be in the dire situation it is now in terms of reputation.
I think it’s fine… I hated the 2017 entry but looking at the line-up I think it sounded and looked good enough to be ranked in that place, then in 2018 the song was good enough (music wise) and looked great so, trying to be as professional as a member of the jury should be, I don’t think it deserves to be ranked lower than 4th. Finally, in 2019 I don’t think you would rank it lower than 5th, considering the live performances of the rest.
My problem is the unclear criteria for judging the entries. It’s obvious some of the 200+ people are acting just like a televote because the song aren’t ranked by any mix of ponderations of vocals, composition, performance, originality, or the silly “chart friendliness”.
The televote is ignoring Sweden so they get a decent place and the fans don’t complain :P
The televoting ignoring Sweden argument feels wrong. Sweden has only missede tele’s top 10 in 2013 and 2018.
So the televote is overating Sweden? :/
They didn’t deserve the 23rd place in 2018, that was too harsh :( . I don’t think Sweden should have been lower than San Marino in 2019, for example… Or below Croatia in 2017.
Just to clarify, I’m not on the side of “Sweden is the best country in ESC, all the rest should do the same”.
And I do want to clarify that Sweden is not an esc “demon” either. But how can you base an argument merely on 2018? The SMR televoting result this year has to do with people overrating the entry (troll vote, possible Turksh diaspora etc) despite some awful vocals. Jon got a very respectable 9th place (even if 60% of the points come from Nordics and Baltics :p )
Well, 9th with half of the points of the 6th place isn’t a success…
But how are you sure it is related to the flag and not to the genre? Austria scored about the same last year
Maybe I need another year to confirm the theory. I just feel there’s a hate towards the country, just like there is hate towards Australia or Russia for different reasons.
But we were talking about the juries overating Sweden! :P
There was a lot of “hate” for other countries during 00s as well (GRC, ARM etc). It’s a tendency of the bubble :P
:(
Televoters aren’t ignoring Sweden; they often have it – deservedly – quite high. Televoters just mostly like other songs better esp. the last 2 years when SWE sent weak songs. What baffles me is how little televote Czechia got this year; I guess it was so early in the running order that people forgotten about it. Either that or it’s a conspiracy. Again.
#CONSP!RACY
ROFL took me a second to catch that!
Running order and/or maybe the lyrics put some people off
Malta too. I guess they are in every top10 possible; final and semi final. Seriously. Malta of all countries being ahead of a whole continent for a decade!
”2013 : 3rd ?!!!! WTF”
A low point for juries’ taste. Both song and singer were a joke.
Yes, that was the most blatant jury support, I agree
The one story that really matters today – the white/albino panda bear!
Cute. :)
I think may be related to your avatar?
LOL :)
Btw, watching the CDU trying to come to terms with communication in the 21st century makes great entertainment. AKK and Mr. Amthor are the stars of this satire.
Ah, the annul manipulation of the numbers. Creative accounting so well done that Enron is jealous.
First off they treat the same viewer watching the SF and F as 2 viewers. Already off to a bad start.
And watching one minute is useless to track. If someone was channel surfing, saw Iceland for one minute, turned the channel, then didn’t go back to the show, I hardly will consider that a “viewer.”
The only number that counts are the viewers that watched all 26 entries. Everything else is just fuzzy math and slogans.
Pretty sure even Youtube requires more than 1 minute to be counted as a single view. (Assuming the video is more than 1 minute long)
Will you join us in VFoS? :P
https://virtualfestivalofsongs.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/vfos17-dakar-registration-dates/
I think it’s obvious to everyone now that Lithuania was the rightful qualifier from Semi Final 2. According to Wiwi LRT are taking action.
Denmark will be definitely nominated as the most overrated entry this year in Fridas from me, that’s for sure
#Justice for Jurijus
Well, Russia and, as much as I like Tamara as a person, North Macedonia are also big contenders for that award.
or Belarus!
She was very lucky to qualify. But 24th is lower then she deserved in the final. Israel, Estonia, Albania, Serbia (just to name a few) were all worse imo.
I only agree on Israel
Albania and Serbia were great imo.
Agreed, she was a shock qualifier but Belarus was still better than a number of the entries in the final and deserved a bit higher. Plus, she is a good performer and brought a mediocre song up to better heights.
Jurijus deserves to be sent again very soon….Just like Tulia!
Denmark finished 15th in the final’s televoting and 12th with the juries. Hardly “most overrated” material!
But it wouldn’t even qualify :P
It was very, very close though. It would have been unfair for either of them not to go through even though only one could…Jurijus had better running order but also much more male competition, so on that score it is pretty evened out as well.
Well I have DNK around #30 this year, so ending up 12th in the Final sounds quite overrated to me :P
Personally, I would have put Latvia in the Final instead!
But overrated is not about our personal likes. Latvia was no Final material…
Of course it is about our personal taste. We individually send our nominations to Morgan based on our own estimation.
as I always said she would do a Zoë, seeing her at the same rank than Zoë makes sense to me, and always expected to Q!
I will be nominating Iceland and Russia of course.
Russia and Denmark for me :)
But why you felt the urge to let me know? :P
Signed and agreed
The invitation for VFoS 17 applies to you as well ;)
I must confess I hadn’t seen it. Do you run it now?
No, I don’t, but I thought you’d might be interested. Summer is near :)
I have sent you a reminder ;)
So do you run it now?
Which email did you use?
It still remains to be seen what went wrong with the Italian tele votes. For example, did the figures provided by RAI include the app votes?
As for the jury and their upside down ranking. Unfortunately I fear nothing can be done about human stupidity.
In my opinion, the broadcaster should be fined in this case. They are the ones responsible to explain the procedure and make sure it is followed through.
According to Lina, the layout was confusing, they listed 17 at the top and 1 at the bottom. She thought it was 17th place, down to 1st place, where presumably it’s 17 points down to 1 point?
But if Lina Hedlund votes in the right order…Denmark goes through. Wash in the end imo.
Whoops I just read the Russian juror case. Never mind!
I still can’t belive she voted backwards in the semi! :D legend! :D
How come Lithuania is a rightful Q the moment it gets 12 from Latvia and Lithuanians living abroad EVERY year?
fair point !
If you go to that place then many other countries wouldn’t be rightful Q. I don’t know if you attach a moral undertone to this but it should be clarified if it did actually Q based on real data.
Lithuania’s televoting 12s are not comparable to anything else so in that case DNK ”deserves” the final more than them. It isn’t about morality but whether they are a rightful Q given their maximum points is the result of flag voting.
I insist there’s no point going down that road. Just to remind you that Cyprus wouldn’t have qualified without 22 televoting pts from Georgia and Greece and the 10 pts from San Marino’s made-up televotes.
Serbia, Poland, Greece, Portugal, Belarus got points from friends and family too in televoting. Even if you deduct those 22 points Cyprus stays because you should do the same for Poland and Belarus.
If you take out and the San Marino votes it’s out. My point is not that Cyprus should not have Q. It did fair and square based on the system we have now. All i’m saying is that the same should apply on Lithuania even if it got 12 pts from Latvia and Ireland.
Plus UK and Norway …as for SMR televoting. Do we know for sure it is made up? There hasn’t been any official announcement from EBU on the matter.
Exactly. And we have juries since 2009 to correct that. Although it doesn’t help when we have Serbian jurors who all collectively have Montenegro as their best song.
especially if in 2006 they collectively agreed to have montenegrin songs last in their NF :p
But they were the same country back then. I remember it all too well in those esctoday days. Serbians angry that he Montenegrin jurors voted for the Montenegro song, and not seeing that it was exactly the same as the neighbour voting we saw in the actual contest.
The hypocrisy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia_and_Montenegro_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest_2006#Withdrawal
“As a result, the Executive Board of UJRT did not accept the victory of No Name, stating that voting violated the merits of the competition, albeit not being found irregular.”
And after all that outrage the Serbian-Montenegro vote was in the semi:
12 points to Bosnia
10 to FYROM
and in the final:
12 points to Bosnia
10 points to Croatia
8 points to FYROM
After all voting for your neighbours is really the spirit of the competition.
And that was a much better song …
We should really include AUS-SWE in those duets
In 2006 it was special situation..all Montengrin jurors boycotted Serbian entries in Beovizija festival NF due to political reason..that was the problem..
No name won, but we withdrew and EBU accepted that, so they also knew and saw irregilarities..
The Montenegrin jurors acted despicable, I agree. But what they did was within the rules.
About 2006 voting in the final..Hari Mata Hari (Bosnia), Severina (Croatia) and Elena Risteska (Macedonia) are so HUGE here..bigger 100X than all Serbian contestants in period 2013-2019!!!
You have to know Ex Yugoslavia music scene to understand that.. :)
OK 2006 may not be the best example. I know of course that Severina and HMH are big stars.
Fridas are opening soon!
Can’t wait. Have my nominations ready !
I’m sorry I was finishing a small monography this weekend! but this Thursday is a day off in France so I’ll be able to do it then :)
No need to apologise ;)
I have my nominations ready as well :)
Analytical average number of viewers for the final by country!
DEU 8080k
GBR 6900k
ESP 5449k
FRA 4780k
NDL 4409k
ITA 3539k (we can tell what the big5 rule is about – who can provide the largest audiences)
SWE 2556k
SRB 2007k !!!
GRC 1863k
ISR 1300k
NOR 1247k
POL 1151k
DNK 1095k
CHE 660k (small despite their success)
AUT 627k
PRT 554k
FIN 538k
AUS 412k (also quite small to matter)
IRL 285k
CZE 285k
CRO 281k
SLO 276k
BEL 250k
EST 201k
CYP 180k
ISL 171k (in a total population of 340k!!)
ROM 147k
HUN 145k
I sum this up to 48.237k for the final. Russia is of course the big one missing, viewership rates for the final were 37% in Moscow and 28% in other big cities but no specific viewer numbers are given. I think if we add this up plus a few other easterners (AZE, BLR, UKR) we can guesstimate a total audience for the final at around 70-75 million? That would then mean around 54 million for each of the semis (to make up the sum of 182m) which appears to me as an implausibly high number.
The average viewers’ share for the channels broadcasting the contest was 37% versus 17% for their usual Saturday night audience, which is indeed very good.
Also how dumb the EBU juries are regarding Serbia/Greece and the huge audiences they can provide. Was it really worth it going overboard for Tamara’s old school ballad? Were the serbian and the greek songs really worth to be so low with the juries?
And the same goes for Poland of course.
Well in that case juries should always vote for FRA, ESP, DEU and UK to secure high ratings ? :O
When a country shows devotion to the contest and can pull huge audiences, I would expect the juries to respect and encourage a professional/decent effort just like they always do for the Big5 (to encourage them) and the scandinavians plus Israel (to reward their longstanding devotion to the contest). That makes much more sense than engaging in underdog sympathy voting like they have done with Malta for years.
Any way you look at it, “Proud” being #1 with the juries vs. #14 for “Better Love” and #19 for “Kruna” is totally ridiculous imo. I am the first who said that Katerine had a beige song and a voice that is very hard to like, but her song was indeed more current and better produced than that old-school female ballad. Both Serbia and Poland brought decent, professional efforts at local sounds with impeccable vocals. They also deserved some jury respect instead of being trashed in my opinion!
The thing is jurors vote as another televoting group. I doubt they have done their research on artists, lyrics etc beforehand. So they just vote for what they consider as good during the night and believe me running order does still play big role in their estimations… it’s mostly about impressions imo when it just shouldn’t be in case of jurors
Actually they really shouldn’t reserach the songs beforehand IMO; you then tend to come in with preconceived notions and then the performance may be much better or worse than expected and that’s what should be judged.
For all the problems, I think 50-50 is the best model since they do diverge sufficiently to come out with a deserving winner (though I may have preferred another song, e.g. Soldi this year) – despite the zombie-like Russian satellite diaspora televote and the zombie-like Nordic-Baltic Sweden vote. The latter baffles me since they tended to align on the best song from the region but the last couple of years seemed to blindly favour Sweden even though there are alternatives from that regional market (Nordic televote 12s all went to NOR this year along with those from neighbors GER, NL, UK and from the same bloc AUS).
I disagree. It should not only be about live impressions. Jurors should definitely do their homework beforehand in order to appreciate more “difficult” songs that need their time to get appreciated or get familiar with lyrics not in English. There is already televoting for instant appeal. Juries should take into consideration other objective values imo
Don’t see the point personally – it’s music so will always be subjective. I think there’s just a limited number of factors the jurors can probably judge better even on first hearing e.g. vocal quality (BLR and EST lol – fail) or to weed out obvious joke numbers (POR tho the televoters nixed that, too).
But what about lyrics?You can’t just be a juror voting for entries whose lyrics you don’t understand. Sebi f.e is objectively more poetic (lyrics-wise) than Proud but did all 205 jurors know what it talked about in order to evaluate it fairly as they did with songs in English?
#When she GO low she GO so low
To me lyrics don’t matter that much unless they’re totally ridiculous like RUS 2016 – you’d just end up with endless dull message songs like s!sterZ, Mercy, Proud. You then also get to the point where people can claim Spain is worthy because of the text or that Amor pelos dois was about incest (I’m exaggerating but you get my point). The other problem with that is the pure logistics and effort jurors would have to put in esp. in countries where few people speak English well.
Especially for GER as we bring the most viewers as well as consistently great songs with intriguing performances and wonderful choreography.
and sexy dancers
I wish lol.
So you suggest voting for flags instead of songs? And I really wish you all the best and hope that you’ll get over Tamara’s success soon. ;)
Also, I liked the Greek song in studio version but as a German blogger pointed out correctly: Katerine sounded like a goat with a sore throat live … :(
See my response to Donnie. I believe professional efforts should be rewarded for countries that show longstanding devotion to the contest just like they are for the Big5/scandis/Israel. That does not mean voting for Donatan&Cleo or Michael Szpak but definitely being decent to a very professional effort like Tulia would help. So I am not talking about preferential treatment but equality of treatment.
I will also wish you to get over Tamara’ s success soon and finally recognise that ESC does not need typical beauty contest material. You don’t have to be so rude about Katerine, I have been very clear from the beginning about what was wrong with that entry. But I still find #1 vs #14 kind not serious or normal.
We will never agree on this topic then. I have pointed out again and again that I am not a fan of ‘Proud’ but of Tamara as an artist. Both her vocal performance and stage presence were in a league of their own this year, and that’s what the juries rewarded imo. Of cousre I would have loved the Netherlands, Italy or Slovenia to win the jury vote because those countries had the best songs in the final imo but I perfectly understand why the juries thought otherwise … just like I understand the reasons people vote CDU or FDP (and find those reasons legitimate) even though I would never do so myself.
They were perfectly fine to rank her above Greece or Serbia. Personally I also rank her marginally above Greece. What I talk about is the huge differential between entries that fished in the same pond and all had some positives and some negatives but nothing wow about them overall.
But we see that all the time: Most juries agreeon who is the best in a certain pond, and then their votes go mostly into one direction. I did not analyze the jury points but I wouldn’t be surprised if both Serbia and Greece died a miserable death with Western and Northern juries whereas MAK probably did well. Makes perfect sense if you are familiar with German music f. e.
What I simply am saying is that when you have a country that provides 2 million viewers out of 10 million inhabitants and has made a bit of an effort for something “credible” (even though I agree the end result was disappointing) it does not make much sense to risk having it close to last. Just give them a tiny push so they will not become totally dispirited. Just like with “Mercy” last year: It did not amount to much, but France is a big country that was clearly making an effort. The juries recognised that and did not trash them completely.
But Toggie you told before ESC to me when i asked you about German juries that you doubt Tamara will grab any point, maybe 1-2 if lucky.. :)
@ Michos
I agree with you on Serbia and jury push,,,I’m afraid next year we will have huge problem finding singers interested in ESC…it will be some unknowns and we will sink more and more.. :(
i didn’;task for juries to push her to victory, but a bit of help.,,
About Serbia in VFoS, please check your mail!
So today’s conspiracy theory is that the juries vote for countries with large viewing figures then ? I can’t even anymore honestly…this is hilarious.
No, but I guess that will do as your Headline of the Day :-P
It will sure be. You the anti-jury crowd find a new way to entertain me daily :-) I will admit your vivid imagination is admirable. You should consider writing a novel of some kind.
Should I call it “Me and my Guitar?” :)
No call it “Area 51 : How the esc juries participated in the alien cover up”. Very catchy. Or “the esc juries and the murder of JFK : the whole story”.
Naah, we need something with the Kremlin in it :)
I wrote my opinion analytically on this thread on a stand alone answer.
Honestly if I engage with you people for a bit longer today I will lose my mind. I had enough dose of et crazyness for one day.
Why do you do it then? I always enjoy talking to people here :)
As a scientist I am allergic to non factual conspiracy theories and that is a flaw of mine indeed. Plus I feel the need to p provide some balance on a forum dominated by a crowd with huge anti-jury bias that produces one conspiracy theory after the other on a daily basis.
Look at this thread : it was a thread about viewing figures and out of the blue another anti-swedish, anti-jury theory with cherry picked statistics that support the narrative promoted (supposedly) appears. And to think this is nothing compared to all the howling and hysteria we witnessed after Mans won in 2015. Those were the peak times.
I am all for science which is why I wanted Serhat to win :-P He is a dentist!
I don’t think the EBU figure refers to average viewership but to the number of people that tuned in even if only for one minute.
Υes you are right. The number of viewers per country referees to average, not peak viewership. So it makes sense they the sum should be quite lower than 182k.
The real numbers might actually be higher since a lot of people watched at parties or bars.
The viewing figures include the YouTube viewers and the EBU has clearly stated so. Gosh.
Actually I think it’s what Dimi said. 182 million is peak viewing figures (people who watched even for a minute). The country figures are about the average number of viewers throughout the final.
That too but YouTube views were counted in as well.
I want Madara for Latvia in 2020!
+1
Maybe this can work for Serbia like Norway 2019, in English of course, and more upbeat!
Martin submitted Lexington’s ‘Donesi’ to one of our online song contests some years ago. The song is still popular in my playlist. :)
Great didn’t know that! They are actually from Banja Luka, Republic Srpska, BIH, but live in Belgrade…so they could be for BIH or Serbia…
What an interesting new single by Severina..I like combination of modern and Istarski mih (Istrian mih) instrument – kind of bagpipe!
@ Marko, I can’t reply to your comment … you probably addressed me but replied to someone else. :)
I told you that if any Balkan song would get points from Germany, it would probably be MAK, and I added that it would probably be lower points because I hadn’t seen any entry live back then. After the semi-finals I expected higher points from Germany and a top 10 result for Tamara overall (it was so obvious …) but did not dare say so here because I wouldn’t have enjoyed the condescending replies and comments (perhaps even mixing predictions with personal taste) such a comment would have generated. :(
Winning jury for NMK is a bit of surprise, you have to agree.. :)
I expected The Netherlands (becauseof the song) or Sweden (because of the flag) to win the jury vote and Tamara 3rd would have made perfect sense. She was the only legitimate female option the juries had this year.
I will rephrase : Sweden losing the jury crown, THAT’S a surprise!!! 😜
Exactly LOL :P
In fact NMAC probably got as many jury votes as it did because it was a musical theatre type song like RUS, GER, FRA and not a Balkans song (no hystrionics, no slutty dress), which rarely appeals to many people outside of the region and diaspora.
That’s exactly my point. Once we had seen Tamara live it was crystal clear that this would be the only female song and Balkan entry with wide appeal.
The voice was great and stood out on a night where many performers seemed to have vocal problems. I also think there was probably a very clever under-the-radar PR campaign because you heard the same talking points in support of the song (her voice, her daughter, female empowerment) oevr and over whereas usually few people would have taken note of a NMAC entry – so good for the team! Compare to the campaign for the other big musical song, Scream, which fizzled rather quickly like RUS team had lost interest.
Tamara most certainly had a plan from day 1 because she perfectly knew that she needed one, representing a country that had lost all symbolic capital inESC. She needed a message, she needed a mainstream song and she needed an intelligent campaign in order to get a good result. You could tell that from the reactions on YT too. Many people thought that ‘Proud’ was a good song but predicted that it would be a trainwreck live, this being North Macedonia. Reactions only changed once people had seen (and heard) coverage from the 1st rehearsal, and now only the most silly ones (like Kaytie from Hanco and Katyie) don’t get it.
MAK decided to give ESC another (perhaps the final) chance with one of their biggest stars. If Tamara had failed, where could MAK have gone … except for leaving ESC with the name tag ‘hopeless case’ attached to it.
It was also funny that so many YTers expected a trainwreck.Showsyou how little they know about music from smaller countries. Tamara isn’t a rookie like Jana or a no name like EyeCue but one of the most competent live performers from the Balkan region.
All in all, we can only say ‘well done and mission’ accomplished, no matter what we think about ‘Proud’ as a song. :)
Not sure if anyones posted this before but I’ve just found this and it’s hilarious lol, I’m not sure that it’d end up in my top 10 lol
Yes, it was already posted. It sounds like a song Serhat would sing.
Agreed haha
Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema said today that while she would love the contest in Amsterdam, she wouldn’t put a fight over it. She said there are already enough events in that time period in Amsterdam, so she wouldn’t object to any other city.
So while the bidding process still has to start, I think it is safe to conclude that we will be going to Rotterdam next year.
Go go Rotterdam.
ESC has never been to Rotterdam before, has it?
No. You would love it. Has a huge Cape Verdian community.
One of them singer Gery Mendes. I am seriously thinking to go to Rotterdam next year and combine it with Antwerp/Utrecht in case ESC goes there.
I love when a new town gets to host
From here there are cheap flights with low coast company to Eindhoven…hope the train from Eindhoven to Rotterdam is not too expensive.. :D
€19,10 one way.
https://www.ns.nl/en/journeyplanner#/
Time for some facts now :
Sweden has won the jury vote in esc a total of 2 times, both in years during which it won the actual contest. The first time it won both sent of votes and the second time it placed in the top 3 of the televote.
That’s a hard numerical fact.
Sweden has been placed lower than its televoting score by juries in no less than 4 occasions one of them being the cause of their sole non qualification in a esc final.
That’s a hard numerical fact.
Sweden has placed inside the top 10 of televote every year it placed well with the juries in all but 2 total occasions in the last 11 years. Out of those years in 2018 juries had every reason to vote for Sweden as it was a song and performances that perfectly fit the criteria they are supposed to vote on and the other is a year we hardly have a clear picture of the actual points awarded due to the ranking system used. Arguably this is the only year where one can argue that Sweden was overrated in any way.
Comparing this to Russia’s televoting results where it placed 11th in 2010 with pointe coming solely from its neighbours in televoting, 2011 where it placed insanely high with a badly performed dated ditty with atrocious diction, 2018 where it almost qualified with televoting in a year where it arguably offered the entry with the worst vocals and 2019 where it again got more than half its televoting points from its neighbours and diaspora I think one would be perplexed at least by visiting this forum on the constant obsession with Sweden and juries while there is no one but one individual (me) talking about certain televoting results like Russia’s.
A few days ago someone published the results of the Italian televote and while everyone went on to focus on the controversy and the bad EBU I was the only person yet again pointing out the dominant to a scary degree effects of diaspora vote that dominated the Italian televote. Nobody is even willing to talk about these issues they just pass by as legitimate and natural. But God forbid a country that invests effort and has a big music industry that is reflected in esc does well with a set of votes that has been given certain criteria to vote on and adheres to such criteria. We hear one conspiracy theory after the other on that but not a single voice willing to talk about what we see in televoting year after year.
I rest my case for now.
I will never understand your obsession with the diaspora vote. Just like everyone else people who moved from one country to another simply vote for what they like, and it is just normal that they prefer sounds they grew up with or that remind them of the place they left, in particular if they did not leave voluntarily but because of war, disfunctional administrations, corruption or economic hardships. And what would a pure Italian televote look like, one that is not tainted or corrupted by the ‘scary effects of diaspora vote’? I know that you lean towards the left in politics but every answer to this question would necessarily involve a taste of Salvini. :(
You know that I have a strong dislike of the very idea of patriotism, and therefore I would never vote for a German entry just because it is the German entry. However, people are different, and I respect that some people have a blind love for what they feel is home, their roots etc even though the concept is totally alien to me personally. Who am I to condem them just because they are different from me? I will only get in fighting mode if people think that their country, culture etc. is superior to others or that cultures and societies need to be kept clean … or if they vote for and/or support fascist parties.
It’s not just the diaspora doing this but neighours. Nowadays even countries that years ago were objective to their neighbours now they vote for them regardless. For example is unbelievable that Switzerland got only one 12 and that from Austria. Netherlands from Belgium and Romania (that would have been a 10 had Moldova was in the final) because the rest were busy awarding maximum points to their immidiate friends.
and France still has no neighbors. We start at 0 when almost everyone else starts at 12 or 20 or 50 or like Russia 100…
So what do you suggest the EBU should do? I suggest to just relax and not get upset. ESC is only a song contest at the end of the day, and as long as we have culturally defined identities, what we see is quite logical. On the other hand we could try to do to culture what Enver Hoxha tried to do to religion in Albania. Such an approach might weaken the diaspora vote. ;)
I am not upset. I only pointed to some new televoting trends which have little to do with cultural biases.
I did not say that you were upset. :)
However, someone else is …
My problem is that the prequalifies are allowed to vote in semis. No way the public in any of these countries is interested in watching or even voting in a competition they are not in. And so the tele vote in any of these countries is hugely dominated by diaspora. Let’s see next year if the Netherlands has to vote in the semi that has Armenia in it. Or Poland. The Armenian diaspora vote is largely eliminated because the viewing figures in the Netherlands increased since 2013. But I wonder how that will be in a semi we won’t have to compete in. I guess the viewing figures are still high, because people want to see how the contest in the own country will look like. Not so sure about people willing to pick up the phone though.
As I said the other day, get rid of this whole BIG nonsense. Alas, EBU won’t listen because of the final’s viewing numbers.
in a country like France, the final is also dominated by diaspora! I wish we had to not Q for 8 years, had to make a Uturn and finally care for the contest…
Oh please tell more about e.g. ARM14 – a Western sounding song that could represent any country deeply moved Armenian diaspora who would ignore it if it was the swiss entry for example.
I cannot think of a more nationalistic thing than what diaspora voters do to esc and its televoting honestly. Blindly voting for whatever comes with their flag.
I will respect the right of diaspora to blindly support whatever it wants when others here learn to respect the fact music professionals don’t agree with them and their judgement. But I don’t see you scolding the likes of Donnie and Michos and their constant stream of conspiracy theories against juries.
You don’t make much sense. :(
He seldom does, and I’m saying this as he deliberately chose to mention my name :)
I watched both the “Top 75” jury and televote points of the decade…crazy to see “Amar Pelos Dois” topped both. Truly domimated that year’s vote and only time the last 5 years the jury and televote agreed on the winner, and maybe will be the last one we see in a while? Feels like if “Arcade” couldn’t top both/either, what can?
Next year they should ask him and Netta to switch songs ;)
I have to say I’m not that surprised that Arcade didn’t top either set of votes – there really were a number of strong and diverse songs this year: NL, ITA, CH and to a lesser extent AZE took points almost everywhere; NOR and RUS dominated their regions in televoting (with NOR being to my mind unfairly graded down by juries – I understand they didn’t love it but come on – performance of the night). They’re all plausible winners so results were tight, which is great – most exciting voting sequence in years!
It is a very sad reality that such a horrible human being with a dated song did this well. This is one mistake I won’t excuse of the juries for sure.
He also won the tele vote. And it is always a bit difficult to compare years, every year has it’s own dynamics. But I wonder what would have happened had Sergey competed for Russia in 2017.