DVDizzy Forum

2099net wrote:Of course, Wogan (our commentator) was delusional throughout the competition, saying at least twice that our entry was the best we'd had for years [?] and that Andy Abrahams had given an excellent performance.

yes old wogan is a bit potty at times. If you cast your mind back to 2003, his exact comments after Jemini performed was "They've done us proud"

Yes Andy Abrahams was poor, his voice sounded quite shaky to begin with and it was just a poor song in general.

As for the contest, I really don't know what can be done. I can't rant and rave to much about the UK's placement this year, as I wouldn't have voted for it. But then again, I thought Russia's song was just as bland as ours. And its clear neighbours are primarily voting for their neighbours. Even the UK benefited from this with the votes from the Republic of Ireland. It's clear you can't have a contest supposedly about "music" continue like this, it really is a farce when you can predict the top 3 countries – if not their exact order – 90% of the times the votes come in.

Well I can understand a certain amount of this neighbour voting. I wouldnt say that Ireland are guilty of it, as quite they didn't give us top marks, some years Ireland gives us relatively nothing and even nothing whatsoever some times, so I don't think it's actually the same situation as further East. Of course Andy Abrahams is probably known in Ireland a bit, so that could explain it.

The same could be argued for other countries. It's highly plausible the Serbia entry could be known in Montenegro etc, but yes on the hole the neighbour voting in the East is getting ridiculous.

In fact I actually freaked out the people who I was watching it with, they all thought I was psychic. Because nearly every time I guessed who each country would give their 10 and 12 points to. They asked how I knew, and I said "I know what a map of Europe looks like."

Like you Netty I don't know how this situation can be solved. Obviously a lot of countries out East and relatively new having only split up in recent years. Perhaps in time they will relaise they're not going to be invaded just because they didn't give Russia 1 points.

But then again it happens in other places. Scandinavia are just as bad. And Germany virtually always gives Turkey 12 points.

Although where did the UK's points from San Morino come from? They were a little bit out of the blue weren't they!

If anyones interested, or just wants reminding, here's a rundown of all the finalist's entries from Russian TV

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I know that many of you guys don't like her voice (which is very sweet), I know that you don't like her undoubtedly catchy song, but what I also know is that our national baby-girl got a very good place and I'm so happy about her because she is just so adorable!!

You know Terry Wogan has floated the idea he (and we) should quit. It appears showbiz names support him!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080525/t ... 4616c.html

Including the mighty Simon Cowell. He's a "Pop svengali" for crying out loud. A "svengali" says we should leave Eurovision.

Why? Just because your song came last? The voting system should be changed, that's all. I think that countries which aren't in the finals shouldn't be allowed to vote, it's simple as that.

And I liked UK's entry for this year, the one from last year (some flight-attendants or something) was awful, but this one was nice.

mooky_7_sa wrote:Why? Just because your song came last? The voting system should be changed, that's all. I think that countries which aren't in the finals shouldn't be allowed to vote, it's simple as that.

But that wouldn't help, because countries vote who go into the finals from the semi-finals. I know they changed the semi-final voting process this year, but that's a direct result of the free-voting system being acknowledged to be compromised.

It's not because we came last. It's because every year, you can predict 90% of the time which country will award 12 or 8 points to another country. If you can do that, year after year, how can it have anything to do with the actual acts?

Wikipedia wrote:Some “Big Four” TV commentators are open critics of political voting is e.g. Germany's Peter Urban and the UK's Terry Wogan. ... [snip] ... Two of the big four countries, the United Kingdom and Germany, came joint last – but alongside the eastern European country Poland, all with 14 points each. These concerns by commentators have been confirmed by several academic papers showing that "block voting" from eastern, balkan and nordic countries has almost removed any chance of seeing a western country win the competition (see Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest). The results of 2008 confirms the "block voting" phenomenon.

The underlining is of course, mine.

How about completely abandoning televoting system and using the good old jury instead? Or use televoting but let the jury have the last word?

Realistically I don't see them removing the telephone voting, because they must make millions from the calls. If they removed it, or weakened it (by only having countries in the final allowed to call and vote) they would literally be throwing money away. So I can't see them doing that. But they may be forced to if more countries withdraw from the competition (some, already have).

I don't know if non-UK viewers can see the embedded movies, but this news story has a brief interview with Terry Wogan on his arrival back in the UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7419477.stm

Netty wrote:Overall, I think I would have preferred Sweden to have won.

Definitely. She was one of the best.

Netty wrote:I too liked Bosnia and Herzegovina's entry. Ignoring the wackiness of the presentation (which I really liked!) the music was excellent.

I'm not the only one who's round the bend then! Yeah!

Netty wrote:Of course, Wogan (our commentator) was delusional throughout the competition, saying at least twice that our entry was the best we'd had for years [?] and that Andy Abrahams had given an excellent performance.

I do think Abraham's song is great, and one of the UK's best in recent years - but yesterday Andy started out rather weak. Something was just not quite right at the beginning of the song. Perhaps he was nervous. The short fallout in the audio feed (which strangely occurred at my end) didn't help either. Nevertheless, I was disappointed at the UK's low placing, and frankly I'm sick of it happening over and over again. I want the UK to do well for the first time in like eleven years! Note that the Big Four have done rather badly recently. Could it be that their automatic qualification may make some people feel bitter?

Alfromag wrote:I know that many of you guys don't like her voice (which is very sweet), I know that you don't like her undoubtedly catchy song,but what I also know is that our national baby-girl got a very good place and I'm so happy about her because she is just so adorable!!

I actually think Kalomira has very good vocals! But I didn't like the song. In the end, blame the composers and not the girl.

---O---

Did anyone catch Malta's song last Thursday? If so, what did you think of Morena's performance? I thought she looked very nervous on stage ... and subsequently her performance was rather wooden. To make matters worse, the Serbs' camera work was abysmal. Nevertheless, I still think Vodka was one of the best songs that night. We were robbed! Heck ... Vodka was one of the best songs in the entire show. And then Latvia and Iceland made it through. Yuck!

I'll be honest. I'm already getting sick of Malta being out of the final, and this is only our second year. Someone mentioned that lately there's an apathy towards the Maltese entries. Could this be fuelled by the comments we've passed in past contests? I think Grace Borg (ex-chairperson of the Maltasong board) was very careless in 2005 when she shouted in front of everyone "We've won because we have no neighbours!", after our Chiara placed second behind Greece's Elena Paparizou.

Coincidentally, our Eurovision outings since then have possibly been the worst on our record:

2006 I Do - Fabrizio Faniello (last place)
2007 Vertigo - Olivia Lewis (failed to qualify)
2008 Vodka - Morena (failed to qualify)

Although we did badly in 1971 and 1972 (and not so bad in 1975), we had a pretty solid track record up till 2005 ever since we returned in 1991.

What do you guys think?

It seems Andy Abraham's song has been considered the worst in the entire contest. WTF?

Ahem ... what about Latvia and Iceland (I soooo hate those two! ... as most of you should have figured out by now).

By the way, I want Germany to send a really good song in the future. This year's was very weak. Quite the opposite from last year's charming, old-fashioned-style song from Cicero.

2099net wrote:Realistically I don't see them removing the telephone voting, because they must make millions from the calls. If they removed it, or weakened it (by only having countries in the final allowed to call and vote) they would literally be throwing money away. So I can't see them doing that. But they may be forced to if more countries withdraw from the competition (some, already have).

True the only real way they could ever put a stop to it would to be to block countries from voting for any country that borders them. But that'll never happen.

But for next year Netty I have a cunning plan.
The UK is 4 countries. So we should have 4 entries. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

That'll show them

Oh and technically the Isle of man is seperate so they can have their own entry too. And Gibraltar!

I guess the "problem" is probably not so much the neighbor-voting (although it is of course part of the voting outcome (because the songs from the neighbors are usually on the radio etc.), but also migration.
Why, do you think, does Turkey always get the 12 from Germany? Because we have a huuuuuge Turkish community and the Germans may probably still watch the contest, but they do not vote, so our points go to the countries where our "minorities" are from. The same I think applies to almost all the other countries, too, especially Eastern Europe, where patriotism and national pride in the country where one (or one's parents, or grand-parents) was born in is much more important than in Western Europe. So, if all the natives don't vote and then the migrants vote for "their" country, plus the neigbor votes, then you get these results that are not about music at all, but about how much has changed in Europe in the last 60 odd years and that there are a lot of Russians not living in Russia.

An unfair element of the Eurovision Song contest is the fact that 4 countries always go through to the finals - no matter how low they ended the previous year - because they are the biggest financers of the event.
A journalist commented that if such a thing would happen in a footbal-champignonship it would be called corruption. I must agree with him, for this really looks like "bribing oneself into the Eurovision song contest finals".


This simply isn't fair competition!

And that's what I think makes the UK, France, Germany and Spain unpopular, BelleGirl.

Well, I think the contest has enough entries these days in fact it's most probably too big - that none of the "big four" need to finance any more than any other country. So if the voting system is to be overhauled, I'd suggest that the need for any country to pay more than another is removed, along with automatic qualification.

Yes it is unfair that 4 countries automatically qualify. But this was only introduced eight years ago and the official word from Eurovision is that if the UK, Germany, Spain and France don't pay for it, it probably won't happen.

I think the EBU/Eurovision bosses would have put a stop to it if it wasn't necessary. Also should Italy decide to rejoin again, its money would also get it through to the final.

Also, I've just noticed with regards to San Marino (the only country to give the UK points aside from Ireland). This was their first year in the contest. I'm still rather confused about why San Marino gave us points.