The Great Eurovision Row
"He's certainly gay" said my six-year-old son as another contestant appeared on the Eurovision stage. Few other spectaculars, apart from the American elections, are specifically designed for a TV audience so he was allowed to stay up late. He seemed more interested in the contestants' sexual orientation (in a completely non-judgemental, indeed supportive way, I may add) than their nationality. He wanted the Latvian pirates to win. I rather agreed with him. My ten-year-old daughter backed Armenia most of the way but switched to Ukraine at the last minute: long-legged girls in mini skirts with glittery outfits seems to be the common factor. Iceland and Georgia also got strong support in my household. I confess to a sneaking liking for the silly Spanish song.
I'd seen the Russian song in rehearsal and thought it pretty poor. I also saw the Greek singer so despite her sub-Shakira belly dancing not really coming off I was pleased she managed third place. It's all a matter of taste. Bad taste no doubt.
But am I missing something about the Great Eurovision Row? It wouldn't be worth watching without Terry Wogan's commentary which usually hits just the right note of sardonic humour tipping between affectionate ridicule and scathing bewilderment. But this weekend he often seemed plain sour. He particularly disliked those who mocked the contest with their songs: that clearly is his job. When he announced that Croatia featured a grumpy old man I wonder if it was time for a guest appearance.
I've always been a bit baffled by his contention that the Balkan nations love each other so much that they vote for each other's songs. Wasn't there a rather nasty war in the region not long ago, based on ethnic hatred? So I have always shrugged when Sir Terry insists Croatia's admiration for Serbia results in the voting pattern.
Now he says the West should think about pulling out. Is it Finland, Ukraine, Georgia, and Poland's overwhelming love for all things Russian that handed victory to the dull ballad? There is hardly an Eastern European country that has even reasonably passably warm relations with their big neighbour, so voting for them in Eurovision is hardly likely to ease tensions markedly.
My colleague, and Balkans expert, Alan Little, has a theory that it is the national minorities that swing it. This is much more feasible: Hungarians in Romania vote for Hungary, Russians in Ukraine vote for Russia and so on. This makes much more sense, but it still requires them to vote in disproportionately huge numbers to really work.
I must admit I haven't done a psephological study of the voting. Indeed I went to bed before the end of the contest, so I don't quite have the detail at my fingertips. But could people just be voting for the sort of song they like?
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~27~RS~)
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"It still requires them to vote in disproportionately huge numbers to really work" -
Ah, but this is what we'd expect. You see, if you're in your home country (and must vote for a foreigner), voting is just a curiosity - a meaningless act that costs you money and probably won't change the outcome anyway.
If you're an ex-pat, then you can vote for your home country. That's patriotic - it's like supporting your national team at the Euros or the Olympics.
I suspect the vast majority of ex-pats make use of their votes. I bet you and your family didn't bother.
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Glad to hear of fellow Latvian pirate fans. They were robbed!
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oldsaxon@1, are you suggesting that Mark and his family are "unpatriotic" because they may not have given their "douze points" to the British contestant in Eurovision?! Frankly, I certainly hope they have a more grown-up attitude to patriotism than that. Actually, even his six-year-old son seems to...
For the record, I organised a Eurovision party at home, all the attendants were expats, and I don't think anybody voted for their own country (not even me, and I did like the Spanish song...I just liked the Armenian singer's legs more).
Russia won because their contestant is well-known not just in Russia, but also in all the neighbouring countries, even if his song was rather crap. The expat vote does count (certainly in the case of Germany's now traditional 12 points to Turkey, Switzerland's 12 points to Serbia, or Israel's 12 points to Russia), but the impact should not be overestimated. Or were there so many Finnish expats around when Lordi won?
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In Eastern Europe national minorities count for some of the vote, but it is a latent affection throughout the region for Russian popular culture, known as estrada in Russian, that ensured Russia's win this year.
For example, all three Baltic States gave 12 to Russia, not just becuase of the Russian minorities, but becuase people there grew up with Russian music, either loving or hating it. This is what I call Russian's ¨soft power¨ in the region, something ignored by Western analysys and journalists in the Baltics, Ukraine and the Caucasus. People there love Russian music, culture and literature, they just don't like its politics or military.
You also say that minorities need to vote disproportionatly. Well, they do, and I have witnessed Lithuanians in the UK sending up to 20 SMS messages in the voting period for the Lithuanian song (that was last year). It is a case of ¨vote early, vote often¨ as they used to say in Northern Ireland.
When the Lithuanian announcer gave 12 to Russia, he said ¨we vote for Dima,¨ showing that Lithuanians know who he is by his first name. He is Russia's biggest pop star, and he is a major figure is popular culture across the Baltic states, with his music selling in all the kiosks. He also visits the region on tour.
Also, have you wondered why Ireland gave 10 to Poland and 12 to Latvia, or Spain and Portugal gave good points to Ukraine and Romania. It's because of recent immigration.
France and Belgium voteds for Armenia because there are well-establsihed Armenian communities there.
Germany voted for Turkey because... I think you can guess now.
It is all a shame, as the voting now has nothing to do with the quality of the songs.
Finally, Eastern European countires take the competition seriously, unlike the west, where the ironic attitue of Terry Wogan prevaills. The production values of the Russian, Greek, Ukrainian and Armenian acts were far better than the pub singer that the UK send.
And Terry Wogan may appeal in the UK, but foreigners watching in the UK are quite insulted and disgusted by his commentary. His attitude is downright rude to most countries, and just shows why the British are not longer respected across Europe.
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It is off the mark to say that Eastern European countries have a love thing going on. I remember Terry Wogan saying 2 years ago that Romania and Russia are best friends.
Well, quite the opposite. Perhaps Terry Wogan should take some time off.
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I heard that only some 3000 people gave their verdict in Lithuania. That's a very small share of the population! It is perfectly possible that the country's Russian-speakers (some 7 per cent of the total populations - in addition to many Belaussians, Ukrainians or 'Russified' Poles) were hugely overrepresented among these. As richardlith points out, it is the minority populations who feel they have a reason to vote. Others do not really care as long as they cannot vote for their own country. That creates a peculiar, but also rather predictable, pattern. Only the old jury system can change it. But it would probably spoil the fun of this silly competition.
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I think there is something in both arguments. Britain have done badly in the last few years because we are sending rubbish. However would a great British entry manage to achieve victory against the Eastern Europeans? I suspect it would be unlikely. Our problem this year was sending a song that has no appeal on the continent - how popular is soul music in Eastern Europe? I suggest that next year we just pick someone to rap in serbo-croat, in drag, whilst juggling swords with attractive backing dancers and we may just reach 30 points...
Oh and my thanks to Ireland and San Marino for sparing our blushes!
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In the last 10 years Eurovision has shown that votes go according to vecinity or cultural links. Since Eastern Europe is split in so many countries, there's no real chance for a Western European country to win the contest, as we have seen year after year.
In this sense, Spain sent a silly song in order to put in evidence how manipulated has become Eurovision which is whatever but a serious song contest.
Western European countries should pull out, starting from the 4-big contributors to the festival.
Paying for the others' party, make France, Germany, UK and Spain even more ridiculous than their persistent poor scores.
Show must go on: yes, in the East, and subsidied with their own money.
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The Russians in Finland voted for the dull Russian song. What did the Poles vote for in Britain? Poland, 12 points! That wasn't a perfect song either.
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We don't take the Eurovision seriously in the Uk because it isn't sport. And we suffer from that British disease of thinking that if we can't win something, it mustn't be worth winning. So we ridicule it instead, whilst secretly hoping we'll sweep the board.
Representing the Uk in Eurovision seems to have reached the level of a suicide mission. Perhaps a change of commentator to one who was positive and enthusiastic would help. A team of commentators who are all europhiles would be a refreshing development, and might change the collective attitude to what is in fact, great value entertainment.
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Britain could send the beatles or queen and would still be near the bottom - i think it's not entirely political and the song plays a part, but the western countries just aren't on the radar - i think eastern europe just want to do it amongst themselves and exclude the likes of britain and germany, i don't see why we should fund it anymore
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The Eurovision thingy shows that, for all the criticism we take, we are probably the most open minded nation in the competition - we are still cool and cultured by comparison: we had the only Afro-Caribbean singer fronting our entry. As soon as my Mrs pointed this out to me I said "We'll definately finish last then".
Wogan is right to be scornful of the generally tasteless garbage spewed out by the rest of "Europe". Eurovision is a big joke isn't it? No less so now than when we used to come 2nd every year.
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The voting patterns were so obvious that someone should finally publish a formula that would identify a winner simply on the basis of participating countries. That would spare all the fuss with announcing the points.
It's clear that the deconstruction of the USSR was so far the best move Russia could make to secure a good result at the Eurovision contests.
The UK singer will never win unless you give independence to Scotland, Wales, England or invite the Commonwealth states to join the competition.
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This is weird! I've read the same in the Russian newspapers about 'politics', 'neighbours', 'tensions about nato' and so on when Russian singers weren't winners.
Here, in Russia, people are laughting about this winning, there are a lot of polls in Russianblogs "Who is mr Bilan?".
I think you've just overestimated this show.
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With all that gas that the Russians have, who else do you vote for if you want to keep warm during an Eastern European winter?
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Could there be a racist element in the Baltic regions attitude to Black artists? The reaction to Black Footballers in some Baltic countries is evidence that overt racism is certainly an issue in sport, could this have been carried over into other elements of popular culture?
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I wanted the Latvian pirates to win too !
Wogan is becoming a bore. Whats worse is that he now talks over the songs, the interval act and the scores being read out whereas in the past he restricted himself to the gaps between the songs.
Maybe it's time he went and was replaced by someone else. How about you Mark?
But on a more serious point the voting does seam to be more 'political' than in the past.
Whether this is because of migration or not I don't know but its obvioualy a factor thats needs to be considered. I know they split the semi-finals in such a way to try and elminate any east-west bias but again did this work?
Equally what would have been the result if only the 25 countries in the final voted rather than the full 43 countries?
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madmacstoo,
Terry Wogan agress with you. When Ukraine gave 12 to Russa, Wogan said somehting like ¨that ensures that the gas and electrictiy keeps coming¨. Or about Latvia, ¨Latvia and Estonia, they know which way their bread is buttered.¨
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The winning song sounds suspiciously like "Wild World" by Cat Stevens. Am I the only one to notice this, or has it been mentioned before?
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Sir Terry Wogan's frustration is understandable, but he's not considering two of the three reasons why people vote for a particular song in the Eurovision, which are:
1. Taste
2. Silliness
3. Patriotism
Taste - Sir Terry's comments and those of many commentators simply ignore this. In western Europe, we simply don't enjoy the same kind of music they do in the east. Cheesy euro-beats and girly songs like the Greek entry are standard club fare in the east but are considered poor, childish fare here in the UK, where we take our music very (too) seriously and even considered sending Morrissey as our representative. You vote for what you like, and western European songs simply don't strike a chord with eastern viewers. The UK's song was poor and unimaginative for most viewers. If a song is truly exceptional and universal (a couple of Ireland's past entries spring to mind) it will do well.
Silliness - the show's a festival of kitsch, a celebration of over-the-top spectacle and cheesy glamour, so it's only natural that many viewers vote for the entries they think have really pushed the boat out and taken ridiculous risks to put on a show and provide a laugh. That's why people voted for Spain and Latvia (and Russia's ice-rink) - not because they thought the songs were grammy contenders, but because they thought the songs were what the show was about and why they tuned in in the first place. (Ireland's turkey, on the other hand, ridiculed the show itself which is a different matter. The spirit of the show is taken very (too) seriously indeed).
Patriotism - this is the only factor Sir Terry talks about, the diasporas voting for their home countries from their adopted ones. This does happen - people want their country to do well and many will vote for it over songs they think are better - but it doesn't explain everything on it's own.
The UK didn't come last because of the war or because there aren't enough UK expats voting from abroad. It came last because every year, it takes itself way too seriously, fails to put on a song that embodies the kitsch spirit of the festival and plays it safe in an arena where people vote for countries that are ready to dispense with dignity for a night in the name of entertainment.
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Far-Seer,
don't push the black issue too far. Estonia won a few years ago with a black performer.
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Terry Wogan is, and always has been, the best man for the job. Replace him with someone who takes it seriously and viewing figures will drop through the floor. If you can't take a joke (florencefirst) you shouldn't be watching. It's three and a bit hours of laugh-out-loud entertainment, thanks to Sir Tel's commentary. Nothing more.
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Two "Western countries" finished in the top 5 this year. "Western Countries" have won it twice in the last 5 years, Greece and Finland. Can't believe Mark Mardell put Finland in with the Eastern European countries, it is a Nordic country which is richer per capita than the UK and Germany, it also gave its 12 points to Norway.
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Personally, whilst I disagreed with most of the voting, I find it hard to believe that any of the votes were political.
If that was true then why did Finland win it with Lordi?
I also find Terry Wogan's whinging and excuses appalling as is his constant interruptions of songs, introductions, and downright insulting commentary.
Its simple - if we want to win it then we need a song and a singer that will appeal to the masses of Europe, not just to those who are involved with the UK's Eurovision process.
Stop whinging Terry and give the job to someone who can be upbeat and enjoy the competition, win or lose.
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I think richardlith (4) got many points correct with his comment.
However I would like to add that winning eurovision is more or less random. In example this year we have many similar kind of dance songs from Greece, Ukraine, Armenia, Sweden and Iceland. Also there where rock and heavy metal songs from Turkey, Azerbaijan and Finland. When you have so many songs from the same genre peoples vote will split between them. If we would have had a fewer dance songs in the competition, Ukraine could have won Russia. Russia this year won because, besides having an excellent singer and show, they were unique: they didn't have any other serious songs from the same genre competing with them.
I also do think that eastern European countries, beside exception, lean more on traditional music genres thus meaning performers that have more contemporary or modern music don't fare so well on their chart. Then again this isn't a bad thing, after all it's their opinion and culture, it's the same as Finland preferring to send heavy metal bands and singers to the competition lately.
I for myself enjoyed this years eurovision song contest, which had in my mind quite high quality. The winner wasn't in my mind, but nobody can say that he didn't deserve to win. It's sad of course that Finland didn't fare higher with our contribution, but then again the point of euvision isn't about winning, but on presenting the rich cultural variety of the region.
PS. I voted for France and Sebastian Tellier :-)
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"It still requires them to vote in disproportionately huge numbers to really work" - of course, they do.
My native Lithuania started receiving 12 points from Ireland several years ago, compared to 0 previos to that. And, you know, the strange thing is Ireland also started getting points from Lithuania, no matter the song. Of course, never 12s, as we have other constant "favourites" - Russia, Latvia, Ukraine and Estonia (well, maybe some times in a slightly different order, but Russia always goes first)
This year we did not cross ways with Ireland, being in different semis, and both dropping out. So Latvia was the one to get 12 from Ireland - and I think Lithuanians there had also a lot to do with it, as there was no Lithuanian song in the final. By the way, should we've been in the same semi with Ireland, who knows, we might even get through with the additional 12.
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It is true, that as a foriegner temporarily living in Britain, I was quite suprised over Terry Wogan's commentary. I am a Finn and as a Finn I know how it feels NOT to be successful in the Eurovision Song Contest. Finland has been in that position for ages, but we always rose up from the ashes like the bird Phoenix. Troughout the years we never had any supporting friends to vote for our songs, whether they were good or bad.
When it comes to this years contest, I would have gladly woted for the British entry, because it was one of my favourites, but I was not allowed to do so since I'm now based in UK.
Russia probably got some votes from ice-scating fans.
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I am a Brit living for 12 years in Spain. My vote went to Azerbaijan. Their act was witty with angels and devils, well sung and well presented. Who cares if it is further East than Iran and that is the point. Europe is about people not borders and artificial borders drawn on maps. Mind you, our friends across the pond whould be very upset if Isreal applied to join us. Impossible, well they do have a bit of an attitude problem, but - wait and see.
Our grandchildren and all their friend under 10 are jiggy up and down to the Spanish sing. The backing group reminded of the Telly Tubbys and that the Spanish do like their your women to be substantial.
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I think Terry Wogan is spot on. Although I think the Eurovision song contest is a great idea and brings Europe together in front of the TV, the voting patterns are entirely predictable and make a farce of the whole enterprise. Yes, the show is silly, but I would prefer if it was silly in the songs and not so much in the voting patterns. I went to a party with many expats (or, migrants, as they tend to be called nowadays) and they all voted for their own country, without question. I was also bored with the many English songs. Europe is so diverse with so many fascinating languages. So: I'd be in favour of re-introducing jury voting and the requirement to sing in one's own language (countries with more than one official language could choose).
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The Eurovision Song Contest has been a waste of serious time for years; most English people know the old chestnut "Le Royaume Uni - Deux points" that happened year after year with the French judges always giving us the bottom mark - but now even that's changed as the French have realised what they encouraged and co-created. It became a national joke as far back as the 1990's, this is where Terry Wogan's dry wit at the competition grew its roots. Now we see clearly that The Eurovision Song Contest is a continental joke. It's about time that England, Germany, France, Ireland and Spain left it. Without their credibility to hold it together it'd fold. Why ought we to add credibility to a competition that isn't fair.
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Im sorry but I think what has been written here is totally wrong.
Bosnia and Herzegovina deserved no points whatsoever but because the Balkan nations carried on voting for each other it ensured that they got a high finish.
The only vote that had no reflection on countries liked and disliked every year is in fact our own. A lot of people liked the Greek song for 12 and I was among the voters of the Turkish who came 2nd in our vote. These 2 deserved to come in the Top 2, as they provided the best pop-like song and the best alternative-rock option of the night.
Russia did not deserve to win, Isreal had a similar style of music which was about 5 times as good as what the Russians came up with. Question: Russia had the world ice skating champion in their performance. Would UK win if we had David Beckham doing kicky-uppies around Muse?
Wogan is right, he should step down, BBC should step down, BRITAIN AS A COUNTRY should withdraw all funding and participation, let the Eurovision Politics Contest continue without us!!! Its a farce.
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Let us be honest shall we?
We lost because we are not European and we will never will be.
We can opine in a measured and reasonable manner as much as we like but the fact still remains. We just don't fit in.
We can either continue coming last each year or we can pull out. I would enjoy the 'contest' just as much if we were not involved because to me it is not a song contest but a window upon every other country's idea of what fun is. Thank God I am British!
People can now attack my comments for being out of touch or for missing the point.
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"It is all a shame, as the voting now has nothing to do with the quality of the songs."
_____________
True, but it's only a shame and a frustration if you believe that the contest is all about the quality of the songs...
It's not anymore. Quality's a factor (the winning song tends to be, at the very least, well sung), but presentation, spectacle and memorability are now far more important. Just look at some of the comments here - long legs, costumes, child-friendly songs and ice-rinks are all vote-getters!
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MootSights, I agree with a lot of your comments, but not this one:
"The UK didn't come last because of the war or because there aren't enough UK expats voting from abroad. It came last because every year, it takes itself way too seriously, fails to put on a song that embodies the kitsch spirit of the festival and plays it safe in an arena where people vote for countries that are ready to dispense with dignity for a night in the name of entertainment."
What about last year's UK entry (Scooch)? That was kitsch and extremely silly, but we still came near the bottom!
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Instead of writing about the Eurovision song, fun though that is, why not try covering the Commisskion's attempted demarche against Bulgaria, including telling the Bulgarians who they have to fire? Perhaps such a story is little too difficult, though it has far more implications for the future of enlargement.
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Removing Terry Wogan would be awful - the only reason I watch Eurovision is for his commentary! It's classic dry humour that isn't meant to be taken seriously or to offend. Perhaps Britain does have a different musical taste to parts of the Continent but if that's true, why should we change? I just think it's a pity that so many of the songs are sung in English - one common language is brilliant for diplomacy and business etc but its a shame that there doesn't seem to be quite the same extent of different languages in Eurovision anymore.
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I completely agree with what you have said, sadly I think it will fall on deaf ears.
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Russia had all its top marks from Warsaw Pact/diaspora countries. It only had 2 scores higher than 6 from non-Eastern European countries. Conversely it didn't have any scores lower than 6 from Eastern European countries.
The only Albanian top score came from Macedonia, the only Spanish (with a dreadful song) came from Andorra, the only Icelandic came from Denmark, the only Danish came from Iceland, the only Norwegian came from Finland, the only Bosnian from Serbia and Croatia (there's an odd couple), the only Turkish from Azerbaijan, the only German from Bulgaria - the nationality of one of the German performers. None of these votes was "neutral", all were biased.
I think it's fair to say that certain countries ought to be barred from voting.
Is it significant though that the only points Britain got from continental Europe came from San Marino - the only country voting via a jury rather than a phone vote?
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All those who are advocating a return to the jury system would do well to remember Gina G's experience. A great pop song, with massive appeal, and at the time of the contest, number one in the singles charts in the UK, and after the contest was massive across Europe. It even reached number 12 in the States, and a Grammy nomination.
Result, thanks to the jury system? Eighth place. The winner that year was yet another dull Irish ballad.
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For the past decade the Eurovision has given up the ghost of even pretending to be about songs and is purely political.
It's quite an interesting and easy exercise to guess the top few and bottom few before hand (you don't even need to have heard the songs).
Strangely (and scarily in several contexts) it could even be a model for the issues the EU may/will face in the not so distant future.
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Just to correct your English. It is not the American election it is the USA elections. They do not effect Canada, Mexico, Peru or any other country over that way.
Surely you 'heard' the Russian song rather than 'seen' it.
The Balkans are still in a state of 'war' that is why the UK has just had to send over more peace keepers to stop the blood shed.
The reason the UK lost was the BBC made sure we had a rubbish song and a rubbish artist, picked within a closed shop election. Why not pick someone at number in the hit parade. We could have Cliff again, with Franco dead top spot is open.
Nutbad
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I think this post by Mark is telling the hidden truth: His son wanted the LATVIAN pirates to win. His daughter backed ARMENIA and UKRAINE, other members of his family supported ICELAND and GEORGIA. So whats about West European songs - Germany, France,... It is simple - their songs were bad.
The same is with UK entry. Terry Wogan is accusing East European countries for not giving point to Andy, but the problem was that he didint get points from West Europe - Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark.... no point for UK! Only Ireland and Malta.
I was in Belgrade Arena on the final and Andy was accepted great by the Serbian audience. But BBC didint spend enough money in his promotion, and that was a big problem.
UK has to select good song, spend lot of money in promotion, present the contest in little bit more serious way (just a little bit) and everything will be OK.
Cheers from this years host Serbia :-)
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Don't change anything except next time the U.K. should do what Ireland did and deliberately submit the worst song possible in the hope we won't make the finals.
Wogan is great and it would be a pleasure to listen to him without even the vaguest hope of the U.K. winning.
Eurovision is also the best recruiting poster for those who have some doubts about the European political project - keep it going - fantastic
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The BBC and its EBU bretheren pass off the racist voting behaviour exhibited by certain Eastern European nations as a trivial matter. Where is your honesty?
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Love Eurovision, though I think Terry Wogan has got peevish and unpleasant over the years.
Please BBC retire the man!
Get Jonathan Ross to do Eurovision, he's a much nicer guy.
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I have to feel sorry for Andy Abrahams. His song was actually quite a good song and really did not deserve to be in last place. If It was somewhere in the middle or in the top half, I would tend to view Wogan's comments as none more than sour grapes but given how it ended up in last place, I do see a pattern emerging. The UK, Ireland, France, Spain and Germany should withdraw now. It was fun while it lasted.
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dear kids
just short vision about saturday night
how possible england deserve better, when from 50 countries ONLY 2 give points ?!?
(why not 10-15 countries give some points)
that IDIOT terry all night haven't stop to talk negative, hate all around and make jokes on everything
(no positive word about noone song and nothing)
send that rubbish to pension
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IRSWalker, even well before Gina G, you have Volare's third place in 1958. With juries or telephone voting, with or without Eastern Europe, there are plenty of examples of absurd Eurovision results since the inception of the contest. Which is why I don't understand why some people take it so seriously. In particular the Brits may claim not to take it at all seriously, but I can't think of any other country whining so much about the results online. Not even the Italians, and at least they were consistent and withdrew long ago...
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The eurovision Song Contest just would be the same without Terry Wogan long may he continue to commentate on this show. I don't think our entry was good enough to win but having watched the show for past few years it seems to me that the UK and other western Europe countries don't stand much of a chance while the former eastern block countries vote for each other (the Scandinavians are no better in this respuect). We should either pull out or the rules need changing so countries cannot vote for their neighbours.
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San Marino voted for UK besides Ireland, not Malta. That was last year. :p Perhaps in order to increase the chances of a British victory you should start having a English, Scottish and Welsh victory. That would certainly increase their chances, although I don't think many Welsh or Scots would be voting for England.
38."The only Albanian top score came from Macedonia, the only Spanish (with a dreadful song) came from Andorra, the only Icelandic came from Denmark, the only Danish came from Iceland, the only Norwegian came from Finland, the only Bosnian from Serbia and Croatia (there's an odd couple), the only Turkish from Azerbaijan, the only German from Bulgaria - the nationality of one of the German performers. None of these votes was "neutral", all were biased."
You forgot one:
The only British top score came from Ireland.
(well it wasn't 12 points, but close enough)
Mark: "Wasn't there a rather nasty war in the region not long ago, based on ethnic hatred?"
To be fair, its only the English who like to bring up past wars a billion times just to have an excuse to distrust and borderline hate the French (Napoleon, 100 years wars) and Germans (WW1 and 2). Apparently other people are slightly more mature in that aspect. :)
23."Can't believe Mark Mardell put Finland in with the Eastern European countries"
In this case it was eastern and western in a geographical sense not a political one. And Finland is in east Europe, well north east Europe.
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great saturday night
from 50 countries ONLY 2 give points to england ?!?
where are the friends ? any ???
ha ahah ahaha
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Ther has been much said re regional voting and I strongly believe that it is the large number of ex pats living in that country that vote for their homeland that pushes things up.
Let us be honest that the large number of ex Soviet states voting helped Russia with theire being lots of ethnic Russians in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan plus Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania meant that they would always have a head start much like previous Baltic and Balkan tactical voting.
Regarding the issue with the former Yugoslav republics there remains a large ethnic Serb population in Bosnia; Montenegro and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania plus Croatia and Slovenia.
I think it would be interesting if we negated all marks given to a country by a country that it neighbours or have a historic relationship with such as Greece and Cyprus and also Denmark and Iceland. Then who would win?
Also whilst I'm sounding off isn't a bit unfair that San Marino's and Andorra's votes counted the same as the UK's, Germany's, France and Spain's. Shouldn't we move to some sort of weighting system by population?
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Of course it's a set up. I didn't even bother watching the contest but turned over when the voting was taking place and was not surprised that I ' guessed ' about 90% of where the top marks went before they were revealed by each country.
Oh and in response to one of the earlier comments about UK submitting a weak song to deliberately not get through to the final, if I read correctly I don't think this can happen as the top few financial contributors automatically qualify for the final and the UK provides one of the largest amounts of funding for the contest. ( Apologies if I am incorrect on this point )
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I don't know all the intricasies of the Eurovision voting system but there seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in translating phone votes across to the traditional 'douze points'.
On the beeb people were asked to phone in with their favourite song. Just the one. So the 12 points goes to the most popular, 10 to the next, etc, etc. So I'm not surprised that the Balkan countries or Nordic countries prefer one of 'their own' songs to the UK entry.
Second choices just don't get a say, which probably also explains why Spain got more points than us - you're more likely to call to support a silly song just for a joke!
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And why doesn't Britain have a big ex-pat community anywhere that could give us the benefit of "political voting"??
Answer, because we are too bone idle to learn European languages, we can't get jobs or settle in those countries. The better educated Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians et all on the other hand can move freely to jobs around Europe because they do!
As for Wogan, his commentary is a good reason for not watching the show on the BBC! Being a German speaker (one of the not so bone idle) I watched the show on ARD via satellite in UK. The Germans did just as badly as we did, but without the sour grapes.
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Good for Terry. Actually, he should have gone further in his distain. Yes, it's only 'a bit of fun', and no, it's never going to be a perfect voting system. However, suppose you were asked to vote for the greatest rock band of all time. Now suppose you were told that the inhabitants of Stereophonics' home village would be voting and that their votes would be worth one million of everyone else's. Would you bother taking part? Of course not. That is essentially the issue facing Western European countries at Eurovision. If the aim of the game is to win or at least 'do well' in the voting, then it has become a completely pointless exercise for Britain, France, Germany, Spain and others.
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Eurovision voting is not political; it is very simple:
1. These days, it's people with their mobiles who vote, not some 'panel' of judges. It is much more difficult to have a political vote with this mechanism in place.
2. Countries and peoples accused of political voting in most of the cases don't like each other (e.g. Balkan states, Russia and ex-USSR republics, etc). There is an element of expat voting but it a really small percentage of votes (in my experience).
3. People do not try to choose the 'best' song by Wogan's, UK, or Royal Academy of Music standards. They vote for what they like and think is the best.
4. What people do vote is: cultural similarities. This is what crosses administrative and ethical barriers. This is why Croats vote for Serbs and Serbs vote for Croats. Because they (in general) like similar music and have similar values. A good example is that Serbia this year voted for Greece. There is no political rule for Serbs to vote Greece, and there are no Greek expats in Serbia which could swing that vote. It is just the type of music which is popular in the region that people voted for. Same goes for Armenian or Russian song.
So you can't really talk about the political vote, it's more about what people like. Unfortunately, it looks that the UK songs have not been very popular recently, but there are other non-West European countries that have shared the same fate so you can't really say there is some conspiracy against Western European countries.
Finally, about financing Eurovision: the big 4 countries go to finals directly as they finance the show. I guess the show can be funded by all participating countries, but in that case I think UK would be worse off as it looks as if most of the times they would not enter the finals.
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MootSights write about how we take ourselves too seriously and don't put on a show like the other acts or perform cheesy pop numbers that they like.
Well explain Scooch then? That was as cheesy, silly and pop fluff as anything else I've seen recently and had a reasonable, if not outstanding, stage show.
But as with all recent acts we've put forward it go nowhere at all.
As a long time Eurovision watcher, I'm not bitter that we don't win as none of our songs recently have been that good (and are not likely to get any better the way things are going) but I do find it absurd that we so consistently come last. Our act this year wasn't the best, but he clearly wasnt the worst either, he deserved a decent mid-ranking position with a range of countries giving him low order marks.
Scootch could make the same argument, they wern't brilliant but played up to the supposed euro-pop cheese bias and ended up in exactly the same place.
I think there are two elements to how the songs do,
1. Their nationality. Whatever anyone says there is clearly a national bias going on. Its not the only factor but its there. If our guy had put the exact same performance in, but as the Russian candidate instead of UK, he would have scored a lot stronger even if he didnt win.
2. The widespread appeal of the song or act (note I dont say quality). This is what takes a popular national song and makes it a winner. There are all sorts of things that can do this, Lordi didnt win becuase everyone liked heavy metal, but because they enjoyed thier act.
Sadly we are stuffed on both accounts. We have no national block (except Ireland) and we aren't attracting decent acts as no sensible artist will touch this poisoned chalice with a barge pole. The Russians had the equivalent of Robbie Williams performing, can you imagine us getting someone of that calibre to set themselves up for humiliation? Bear in mind that the best they can hope for without a national block behind them is a mid-ranking performance.
As for calls for Tel to quit, when (not if) that happens it will spell the doom of the current version of the contest. Viewing figures here in the UK would crash, no one wants to have a Eurovision party without Tel and no decent presenter (e.g. Jonathan Ross could probably pull it off) would want to step into the breach instead. If that happened the BBC might have to drop the whole thing. If we follow Italy then the whole concept of the big four might collapse.
It might not mean the end of the contest, but it will certainly be something different to what it is today.
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Some are asking, would it be the end of Eurovision if the big four pulled out?
The answer is categorically NO. Eurovision would not even notice. Three coutnries already do not take part, I am sure another three or four would not take any difference.
Eurovision is quite simply the only European forum where each country is equal.
Ths means that the political and financial heavyweights, the UK, France, Germany, do not enjoy their usual influence.
However, in Eurovision, Armenia has the same voice as Germany, Montenegro as the UK.
Old Europe does not like it, but I think it is the future.
BTW, I see some Russians such as eurosong22 have started to come on and gloat.
Russia tried the hardest, spending millions on production and promotion, so they deserved to win. They will certainly put on a great show next year. I am booking my hotel now, I understand there is a shortage there. See you in Moscow! Do zvidanye!
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the voting for the semi finals were sorted out this year meaning that there was a far broader representation of the countries in Europe than in the previous year.
However I think the problem lay in the fact that for the final every country who entered the contest had a vote. Surely it would have made more sense had the voting only been allowed from the competing nations in the final.
The Uk would have got the dreaded nul points but at least Russia wouldn't have got so many votes, without a lot of its chums having the vote
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Eurovision is a fantastic opportunity to teach your children about geography and politics and listen to the great Wogan in one night.
All you require is an atlas. You ask your children to look at the locations of the countries competing and then ask them to select who they think each countrywill vote for based on geography alone.
You can spice it up for older children by asking them to do a little reseach on the internet about the politics and population make up of each country, to give an even more imformed and worthwhile learning process.
The child that gets most scores right wins. Under no circumstances allow them to listen to the songs as this will confuse them and not help them to corrrectly predict which country would score what and to whom
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If it were just the Eastern Bloc voting for the Eastern Bloc, Wogan might have a point. But the western countries were voting for eastern countries too, almost certainly because they were better songs (I certainly thought so). Yes, ours was the best in recent years, but that's not saying much -- I thought it was inoffensive and utterly forgettable, the latter attribute being a sure loser. Frankly, if we hadn't bought our way through, I think we would have struggled to get through the semi-finals with such a weak song. Maybe that's the cure -- now that the semi-finals are rigged to make sure the cultural block voting is less significant, if we were to go through the semi-finals (and probably get knocked out) we might wake up to the fact that we're losing because we're actually doing badly. Then we might actually get our best songwriters and performers to enter (just like the Eastern Europeans do -- no, it's not cheating!) -- if we can get them to touch what the BBC have set up as a poison chalice.
Oh, and Wogan's sour grapes? I think we heard the real reason early on. He mentioned that it was impossible to get a drink there.
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maybe we just need a decent song and decent act?
i remember when jessica garlik sang for the UK and managed to get to number 3!
good song, good voice and that was only 2001 or 2002?
i mean gemini, nikki french, scooch...JUST PLAIN WRONG!
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I watched Saturday's debacle with my wife who is from Turkey. I am English and we both were able to predict where the top scores would go to depending on what country in Europe had the most of another countries diaspora or through previous assocation.
The Turkish act are probably the most credible Alt-rock act in Turkey, we were both surprised they wanted to take part as they are like Turkey's Artic Monkeys.(I can never see them taking part for the UK!!)
She explained in Turkey they see the competition as a chance to show whats great about the country and they regularly pick the biggest acts as it would be a disgrace not to want to represent your country.
In the UK, our top artists would be on a hiding to nothing and you can clearly say apart from a few exceptions like Abba, Celine Dion, Julio Iglesias, (even Cliff but it never made him internationally famous!) the competition has never consistently made world stars out of any of the winners.
We loved Terry's dry wit commentary laughed alot when he talked through the wedding and Funeral Band interval act.
Everyone has there shelf life, even Terrence, but he is what makes it bearable because how can you take this competition seriously sitting through that azebaijan entry of screaming angel and devil act.
It should be called the Eastern European vison song contest as it is more about popularity than about the song or the show.
Lets pull out along with the other big contributors and see how far it survives!
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The British entry was catchy, well sung and deserved to be in the top 5!
I think Andy did a great job - In fact, I've downloaded the song to show my support for our song and Andy!
I agree there need to be changes - we should either revert to a voting panel or pull out!
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I dont usually sit and watch this eurovision farce, but I thought the UK entry was well worth support. By the end of the programme I was in a really bad mood with myself for giving the programme another chance - more fool me!!
I absolutely loved Andy's song, and I think he looked great, he should have won in my view ( reminded me of Frankie Beverley from Maze!! ).
I WILL NOT WATCH ANOTHER EUROVISION SONG CONTEST AGAIN!!
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I've an interesting idea. Given that the Eurovision has expanded to include so many Eastern Europe countries (who all seem to vote for each other), then why not let England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland submit separate entries rather than a single United Kingdom entry? That will give Western Europe more chance!
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The ESC is to music what Jeux Sans Frontieres was to the Olympics, and as such it's hardly worth having palpitations over the result. The voting "system" isn't designed to deliver any sort of objective result, it's meant to (1) generate revenue, (2) sustain viewer involvement and interest, and (3) give structure to the event by delivering an outcome. Does anyone worry each Saturday which of Paul Merton or Ian Hislop wins HIGNFY? No - the point of the programme is its entertainment value, not the "competition".
Having said all that, if the ESC isn't to collapse under the weight of its audience's petty resentments, it needs to at least appear to give everyone a chance. Here's why it doesn't appear fair:
1. Many candidate countries (the Eastern European nations, but also San Marino, Andorra, Malta) have much smaller populations than the major western competitors, but just as many votes to distribute.
2. With open borders and significant population migration, there is inevitable distortion of the vote by the expat diaspora.
There's no easy fix, but many things that could be tried: dividing the larger countries into regions, dropping the "no home vote" restriction, requiring each voter to vote for three entries, etc.
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Does anyone think that ABBA would have won under this sort of "voting" pattern?
I think they would not have.
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57 is spot on...it's pretty much cultural.
There are far more ex-Yugoslav/USSR countries adding to the Scandinavian/Baltic block (and I speak as someone who's half Norwegian...the best Western performers this year! ;-) ) than there are Western ones, plus those countries have big overlapping ethno-linguistic minorities unlike in the West which is far more homogenous barring the pooer migrants.
Having said that, there are huge numbers of Brits in Iberia and France and French/Germans here...
59 is wrong.
Most of the finance is provided by the UK, France, Germany, Spain...it's a moot point whether the rest would step in and finance it.
Perhaps there should be an EastWest split along the old Iron Curtain?
The show was pretty boring and predictable and TW IS losing the plot so he's less amusing/listenable.
A possible solution would be double majority voting but that would massively favour Turkey and Russia too.
BTW. The US Senate is about as democratic as Eurovision, having a similar representatitve approach as in Rome, every state regardless of population, gets 2 senators...imagine what California makes of that! It tends to favour the smaller more rural states.
In the UK, our version of representative democracy, favours the North/West peripheral fringe, i.e. Labour.
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Perhaps we ought to make our selection competition open to votes from the East, so we get something they like and might actually vote for?
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I agree with digitig. The simple fact is that Eastern European countries share some musical culture which makes it more likely that they vote for each other - not for political reasons, simply because the sings appeal to them. And to be honest it also appeals to Western Europeans because it is a welcome change from the ususal "fast-food" music that wew are exposed to on a daily basis. I didn't follow the voting that closely this year but I am quite sure that the last 2 years almost all Western European countries gave 10-12 points to the winner.
The UK song wasn't bad, but it simply doesn't appeal to an Eastern European public. As for Western European countries not voting for thr UK.... As a German living in the UK let me assure you it ahs no political reasons. The individuals in other countries - at least in Germany - couldn't care less if you are at war in Iraq or not.
As far as I can see the problem is that the song contest in this country is neither taking seriously nor enthusiastically and one of those motvations would be necessary if you wanted to improve. E.g in Germany the act for the song contest is chosen in a show with 12-16 contestants which is as big as the Song contest itself with large screens on the streets of the cities and big parties. Not that it helped this year but I won't excuse it with "political voting" - I think the German song was rather boring....
Since the majority of the european countries are now from a different musical back ground we may simply have to adapt - especially since that kind of music seems to appeal to a lot of west Europeans as well. Saying that, I was under the impression that a lot of East European countries went away from their traditional music - but I ight be wrong, I didn't see the whole contest.
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I heard the start of the Russian entry and thought - why are they singing Chris De Burgh's song Lady In Red? I totally dismissed its chances on the basis of lack of originality.
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The voting system needs to change, that is all. There are no racial issues, or political issues, or 'eastern melos' issues - people in Eastern Europe still buy more western music than their own. Send Michael Buble to Eurovision and he will win it. The (good) performers from other countries are of his calibre. This is why UK cannot win by sending 'rising stars'.
People of the Eastern Europe grew up without any hope to win Eurovision contest since western countries ALWAYS voted for each other. That system guaranteed the success of UK in the past. Still, they took it well, enjoying the evening and taking the best out of it. I do not remember Terry complaining then?
And, the whole World (including Australia and USA) know about Terry Wogan's rude comments (not sarcastic, rude), and that is not helping UK whatsoever. He gets obscene amounts of money for playing UK reputation down.
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Yet again Wogan was a crushing bore and what was it with a one second look at the minor points and who got them.
In my opinion the bloc voting is an important bonding exercise for the new countries of Europe, in a while they'll get bored or embarrassed with it and listen to the event on radio.
At best it is a bit of froth to lighten the tv year and at its worst it is is repetitive swansong for an Irish cynic.
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A few people commented early on about love for Russian 'estrada' in Eastern Europe. I have to say having lived in Russia for 4 of the last 5 years, I think that is the major issue. Britain (taking an example of a Western European country) sent someone no-one had ever heard of singing a song that wasn't outstanding, Russia also sent a not outstanding song, but sent one of the top singers, an international star with an established fanbase across Eastern Europe, who is on repeat on MTV all across the region, accompanied by a cheesy but expensive and professional 'show'. Who is surprised at the fact Russian finished at the top and we finished at the bottom. If we ever send someone with an established international fanbase, I think things might be different. But will we ever take Eurovision seriosuly enough to do that?
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How can (for example) Albania with a population of 2.5 million people yield the same number of votes as Germany (80 million people), the UK (60 million), France (60 million), Poland (38.5 million) etc.
I can't see how the voting system is fair let alone what purpose Eurovision serves - other than to be a parody of itself and a convenient TV "filler" - in which case, there are better things for the Beeb to be spending money on.
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Politics are one thing. Peoples' opinion an other.
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there is no way on earth that this 'contest' deserves the amount of time that people here are giving it.
let ant + dec host it, rig the voting and be done!!
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dazweekes,
the contest is supposed to be a contest between countries and therefore the vote of each country has to have the same weight. And what would be the point of giving more votes to bigger countries anyway since you can't vote for your own country?
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Heres the truth for the naive eurovision-lovers among us. Most British TV public votes are rigged, as we found out last year. In the continent where corruption is considered the norm, it is much easier to take some money from the public for the votes, and then have some men in suits decide the results to best suit the image of their country. No one even questions it or cares.
The reason the baltic countries vote for each other is precisely because of their torrid history. The only time most europeans ever hear about these small eastern countries is the eurovision song contest, so it is a good time to present a united front; pro-european but also pro-russian.
TV and radio is dominated by western music all over europe. Many countries even have quotas in place to protect their national culture (most notably, the French). A band like Muse is huge all over eastern europe, yet sending them as a nomination would prove to be just as fruitless since the votes have nothing to do with the quality of music, but are based on national image decided by a few politicians in their respective country. We could send the Beatles and still come last.
And so on to the reason Eurovision should be taken off telly. If it is not a music contest anymore since the "joke" is totally lost on most nations now, what is its purpose? It is not a celebration of culture, it is a celebration of obsolete national stereotypes. Eurovision does nothing to bring Europe closer, all it does is enforce our differences and gives tiny tiny countries a chance to show their dislike for western governments. Let them have their little party, but i am not renewing my license fee until this trash is off the BBC.
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I like the "no longer" comments.
Was it actually ever about the songs?
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I just do not understand why members of the public in their respective countries would vote for their neighbour. Whatever you say about "block voting" the simple fact is that the public in some countries did not vote for the best song. Why would they do this? If you take away all the dodgy votes, then I think Greece would have won. I am sure the "public" votes in some countries are fixed anyway. After all, if ITV can do it so can anyone.
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What not judge on a pure count basis. It seems wrong that a country of 60million has the same impact as one of a few hundred thousand.
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I had a Eurovision Party, here in the UK. We voted for Latvia, Azerbaijan, Israel, Armenia, Turkey and Iceland. And not an Eastern European amongst us!
The UK song was okay, but pretty bland. We tied with Poland, who were so awful we had it on mute and Germany who, according to my German friend, do badly because no one likes them either. At least we were in good company down the bottom!
We wired up the TV to receive the commentary from Radio 2 this year so sick we are of Wogan's racist verbiage. Alas, Ken Bruce seems keen to emulate the Wogan style.
Mark you seem to have hit the nail on the head, maybe everyone voted for who they liked best, just as we did.
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It's a bit risky to base an opinion about the nature of the voting on your own tastes, since it's rather unlikely that your tastes are actually representative of everyone's.
For example, someone commented that "Bosnia and Herzegovina deserved no points whatsoever but because the Balkan nations carried on voting for each other it ensured that they got a high finish." Bosnia and Herzegovina's song was one of my favourites, and if you look at the voting, it actually picked up points from all over, e.g, France, Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Norway all gave it points. It's also not accurate to say it was the Balkan nations voting for each other - several Balkan nations gave it no points at all (Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Moldova, Romania). What it did get was high points from all the ex-Yugoslavian countries - Croatia (12), Montenegro (10), Serbia (12), and Slovenia (10).
There quite obviously is local voting (it may not be political of course, it could be cultural), but it's not the only factor. Bosnia and Herzegovina certainly did better than they would have done with those votes from their neighbours, but they would still have done reasonably well.
And that's the general situation as well - neighbourly voting gives a country a boost, but they won't win without points from elsewhere.
On that note, it's interesting to note that the eventual winner, Russia, only came third in their semi-final - behind Armenia and Greece.
And of course there's the flipside - countries with less friendly neighbours will suffer in comparison.
So if the UK wants to win, or at least not do as badly, we not only need a really outstanding song, but it would also help to have more neighbours. Solution? Enter as Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland - four songs, and more importantly, four votes, and as each area has their own broadcaster who's a member of the European Broadcaster Union, it could actually be done.
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Well, I am quite glad that Wogan is pulling out of it because his behaviour towards people has been less than gracious on many occasions.
His excuse for 'wit' in many instances has been sarcastic, insulting and plain rude.
I find him offensive and that was since belittling David Icke - a fellow presenter with the BBC (irrespective of whatever it is he believes - it was not the way to treat a guest).
He is in my eyes one of the most ignorant individuals to walk the planet.
I suggest that he is extremely ungrateful, because commentating on Eurovision is plum job, for which he gets a lot of money.
The contest this year was weak, some of the acts even in the prequalifying were not as high a standard as previous years.
The venue although more than spectacular, I felt the stage design acted as barrier between the audience and the performers; the accoustics were not as well thought out as previous years.
The greenroom commentators really should not have taken their cue from MTV presenters as I felt they ruined what could have been a fun behind the scenes look with their bizarre antics.
I had a feeling that Russia would win, but not because of what has been termed a Baltic love-in but because it was a very Westernised almost Americanised song. It was commercial and it did the job.
Georgia was interesting but the accoustics were not fantastic - it had very much a Rob Dougan influence.
Iceland was a summer Europop hit instantly forgotten after a week in Ibiza - but is the kind of thing that will reappear at Eurovision parties for many years to come.
The UK's entry was fine, yes it could have been because of racial issues but maybe it just wasn't a Euro hit.
As far as the novelty acts on the night were concerned, Spain, France, Bosnia and Herzogovina, and Latvia - it may sound an oxymoron but perhaps Eurovision is becoming a little more sophiticated and going back to its roots?
It was a song contest first and foremost.
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I've followed Eurovision right from an early age - most years we hold a 'party' at the house just to enjoy the frivolous nature of it all, dancing about and laughing at costumes - all innocent fun. Terry Wogan has been at the "cultural" centre of it all but this time I think he's wrong. The standard of music and the production seems to be getting better each year whilst the songs submitted by the UK lack the zest and originality to attract enough attention to win. We're coming last not because of any Eastern plot but simply because our music isn't good enough to be top. No offence to Andy Abraham but his music is for old ladies watching the kids jump about - no edge, no passion.
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I watched in Turkey - and my Turkish friends liked the Armenian songs - they talked about it having 'anatolian melodies'. Now Turkey and Armenia hate each other, and don't even have diplomatic relations - but Turkey gave Armenia 12 points a few years back - its not politics - its just that people in diferent parts of Europe have diferent tastes and musical styles. So Georgia may hate Russia, but they will love the Russian song....same with the former Yugoslavia.
The only way is to balance out the voting system to balance out the different regions.
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You might like to know that Dima Bilan, the Russian winnger, is from Tatarstan, one of Russia's Muslim regions. I understand that in Russia it is still not clear if Bilan is a Muslim or not.
Still, It's a good headline. Did a Muslim win Eurovision? Is this a sucess for Euroislam?
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Patriotic voting is the core of the problem of the Eurovision Song Contest. The collapse of the Soviet Union has left tens of thousands of Russians stranded in the successor states of the USSR; now they dutifully supply the vote of their host nations to the mother country. The Serbian minorities in the other states of the former Yugoslavia do the same (remember who won last year?).
If you're a Turk living in Turkey, you cannot vote for the Turkish entry. If you are one of the thousands of Turkish guestworkers in Germany, you can, and do, regularly deliver the German vote every year.
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Poor Terry, he did seem rather bitter. Perhaps he hadn't had enough to drink - or his disappointment that Ireland could only come up with Dustin the Turkey got the better of him.
I suspect the perceived bias against Spain/UK/France/Germany may be down to their privileged status every year - imagine if the same teams got to the World Cup finals every year without qualifying, simply because they'd shelled out for it.
Or, it could be that Germany's entry was awful, France's was too leftfield for Eurovision, the UK's was good (compared to the nonsense we've produced in the past) but misguided, and Spain's...well...I've never voted before but I voted twice for Spain...but I think it was lost on the rest of the sane world.
If Terry really wants to quit, Harry Hill would be great as a replacement - but I don't think the UK should withdraw simply because it never wins (apart from all those times when it won) - just seems like sour grapes to me.
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It would be a shame if we pulled out of the competition when 11 million people still watch it here. This proves it's popularity and it is good fun.
The voting system clearly lends itself to the eastern europeans, due to their huge migration levels. The real price of this voting problem is that their is now a real danger that the best songs will stop winning and once this is an accepted fact fewer quality acts will bother entering. This in turn will erode the prestige of winning the competition and ultimately cause the demise of the whole thing.
However, we have a bigger problem here. We keep sending rubbish songs. Our selection process is deeply flawed. We had a final here in which Andy Abrahams lost his head to head and was saved by none other than Wogan, who mysteriously was given a wild card to save one beaten act. Terry saved Andy. And we do love an underdog here and expected the rest of Europe to fall in with the plan. I think Father Abrahams had more chance of winning with his Smurf song than Andy Abrahams. Last year it was Scootch and the year before that, Gemini or something. All crap. Surely, we can find a good looking Polish or Russian girl in a short skirt to represent us. We will be get 10 points from half of the countries and 12 if the song is any good.
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maybe people in UK need to realize that the world does not revolve around them. People will not just vote for UK cos there are in a competition. Its like saying all foreigners living in UK should vote UK and forget about their countries.
After the media was criticizing why russia had to host the champions league final and constantly trying to fault their preparation and pitch at the Moscow stadium; i dont think the russians will be voting UK.
Such things will also put other countries from voting or supporting UK in competitions.
I bet the Euro 2008 organizers are glad no British teams made it and there will be less violence.
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Eurovision this year was excellent
To be honest who really watches it anymore to find out who wins? Its all about the performances, the silly (or downright ridiculous) songs, the clothes-changing presenters, the insane intermission...etcetcetc
Then there's also Terry Wogan, the institution without whom Eurovision would not have half of its appeal. Like it or not he polarises people views (and has a fabulous turn of phrase at times) - bit like Clarkson for Top Gear.
Without Wogan, I fear Eurovision on the Beeb might be dead...
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Vautrec - there was a Eastern European woman who entered but lost out to Terry's wild card.
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I haven't heard anybody state what is plain to see. A lot of people in the rest of Europe are racist. This sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but if you have actually met many people from the baltic states along with Russia and indeed some western european people you wouldn't believe how much a lot of these people hate black people. This is not some crazy outburst but is based on all the people I have met on my travels. I cannot believe it when I am talking to someone in Russia and they seem really nice and then they admit that they don't want black people in their country. Poor old Andy Abraham didn't stand a chance.
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Bloc voting doesn't totally stand up to scrutiny when the hatreds that have divided Europe for years are factored in. Ex pat populations obviously play a part but I think cultural sympathies are what swing things.
We need to get with the programme. Our song this year was dull, old fashioned; a simple pap (sic) song. The staging was 70s Saturday Night Fever Disco and, overall, about as exciting as Aled Jones duetting with Nana Mouskouri. (That would get the Welsh/Greek vote, mind you).
The audience wants spectacle, a story and dramatic presentation; they don't seem to care too much about musicality, lyrics or tunefulness.
We need an Andrew Lloyd Webber non-song (and now my keyboard has exploded); highly staged, melody-free rubbish with childish lyrics and a ridiculous storyline, performed by some androgyne character with a peculiar voice. The sort of thing he's been getting away with for years.
Come on Andy; your country – and Terry Wogan – need you. You know you can do it and you are our only hope.
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"It still requires them to vote in disproportionately huge numbers to really work"
Not really. At least not in the case of the Balkan states. Estonia's population is ethnically 40% Russian and Latvia and Lithuania each 30% Russian. Assuming the remainder of the population's vote is split between 3 or 4 different entries even a below average vote from the ethnic Russians is enough to swing the 12 points the Russian way.
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I think too many Eurovision songs are now sung in English. Let's redress the balance next year by sending a Welsh Folk Singer as our entry. It's not going to do any worse is it?
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The assumption that all former Soviet Union republics are voting for each other because of great love and wish to support is silly - they cant stand each other. Dont know if anyone have noticed but Baltic countries were hardly giving any points to Russia for the last few years. Thinking this way, how could you explain that Russia didnt come first every year? Especially 2 years ago when same contestant Dima didnt make it with much better song and truly winning performance! It is also highly unlikely that majority of votes only come from expats, there are much more natives voting for their favourites, which are not nececcerily their neighbours.
Being russian myself living in the UK and constantly voting for the songs I really like (never russian apart from once 2 years ago!) I am very surprised with amount of brits being so angry with Eurovision! Russian football sucks but it does not stop millions of russians love and admire english football. Russians were often unfairly judged at Olympics (depending on where they were held) but didnt stop us from appreciating sucess of others. British people were always supportive to success and achievents of others and never envy, I always loved this quality and learned to look at things in the same way.
Why not to look at Eurovision contest as at few hours of nice cheesy simple catchy songs which you listen to if you enjoy them and switch the channel if you dont? Is it all about voting now? Voting only locates the next contest to the certain country thats all. I personally would prefer to go to the Muse concert instead and actually spent Saturday at Gatecrasher listening to songs I like! Follow the suit!
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luckynewman - you are missing the point, Russia was not hosting it this year.
The UK's entry was not the best song, and that is regardless of the singer's ethnicity.
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Addendum - You know that Pushkin, one of Russia's greatest romantic poets had African ancestry?
Ok it was several generations back - so I think solely basing Andy Abraham's lack of success simply on his skin colour is simply convenience and sour grapes rather than any admission to his 'adequate' performance.
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The Russian song (sic) was undoubtedly the best song - well excepting the catchy little tune from Spain - on the night, wasn't it? The U.K. entry was too well constructed, sung, performed et al. What is all the fuss about, a little flatulence - or the real stuff - gas? Maybe it is time to - split -from the rest. What - along with Germany, Italy, France - the U.K. could enjoy a resurgence of - well - Europeness for the first time. Something sadly missed in the 60's. Possibly a new EEC - a self of belonging, closeness and possibly recognition of a tune or two. Then again - where would we get our gas from - the North Sea?
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Nobody is saying the UK entry deserved to win, it did not. Ukraine, Greece and Armenia were the best for me (pure coinsidence of course that all 3 were performed by attractive women).
However, the problem is that the UK entry was significantly better than the votes it got. How on earth did Spain get more votes. It was one of the worst performances I have ever seen and even drew boos from the crowd, something you do not see very often. The UK just wants fair voting.
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Turkey voting for Armenia had EVERYTHING to do with politics!...it was to make Armenia hush hush about the genocide!
macedona and greece gave high points to albania because tere are large comunities in those countries.
personally i wanted armenia or greece to win....
Scooch was RUBBISH last year. any was good but a dissapontment
Leona Lewis would do a great job for United Kingdom next year....
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22 - fathertedrules: I can take a joke, don't worry! I wanted to vote for the Irlande Douze Points number by the turkey, but that wasn't possible.
If it was all about national pride, everyone would be singing in their own languages, not in English as the majority did. Belgium went so far as to make up a language to sing in so as not to alienate anyone. Didn't see them in the final though...
In the end, the ESC is just a bit of fun.
Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. Let's just laugh, eh?
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Greetings from Perth - Australia where we also watched the Song contest. As we have no personal interest in who wins we watch purely for the masochistic pleasure. This year was the worst yet. How is it possible that from so many countries there was not one single half decent song?
I can't wait for the next one.
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At least nobody is blaming the EU for the poor showing by the British entry.
It is time to adopt a Champion's League approach. Let's have Abramovich performing the next UK entry, with a backing-band made up of all the nationalities.
An alternative is to adopt a system where the songs (theoretically the object of the exercise) are written in one country, but allocated by ballot to performers from other countries. That ought to split partisan bias in half.
Otherwise, the contest has become too heavy a millstone for UK licence-fee payers; it costs far more than the value derived from it. Let us just simply hand it over to ITV; those who want it are perfectly able to pay for it themselves.
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i was surprised how many countries sand in english and not in there own language.Just shos how great the english language is now.
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Everyone has missed one point here ....Dima Bilan is a huge star in Russia and in all the old Soviet states ..that means Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and several others ..with all those nations voting for Russia because of who Dima Bilan is, then on one else stood a chance. It is like if we entered Madonna or Robbie Williams or Leona Lewis!!. However it is true that with so many Eastern countries now taking part the West does not stand a chance ever again unless the EBU do as they did in the semi final and let FINALISTS ONLY vote ..that would cut down the eastern bias ...it is the only hope left for the contest which Russia and Ukraine now seem to be dominating.
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russian victory is assured with entries of new neighbours to add to their voting bloc
2006 - 2nd place (armenia debuts)
2007 - 3rd place (georgia debuts)
2008 - 1st place (azarbaijan debuts)
so they have added another 36 points to their voting block the last three years to push them over the top
9 ex soviet republics x 12 pts each
they already have 108 points going in to 2009.. add to that diaspora voting will keep them near the top
yugoslavia is no better with kosovo joining in 2009 brining the yugoslav bloc to 7 countries to rival the soviet bloc
its sad that points are not awarded on quality and merit, but who you know and how many friends you have
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great EUROsong night once again
there was no positive word about nothing
TERRY hate all around, even himself
rubbish is ready for pension
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Why should we be sad - roll on next year. We will never win but I prefer to come a gloriouis last than be resigned to finishing mid table. Was quite dissapointed when Ireland voted for us, was hoping to get nil points.
Don't think we should worry too much about this, as has been pointed out above this year was probably a record for those foresaking their own language and sang in English - this appears to have become the language of Europe - who is the real victor
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The system does need to change. There is a very large ex-pat element to the voting, there are a lot of small countries with a strong historical, ethnic or cultural commonality and there are also problems with SMS and block telephone voting (these have not been discussed in this blog).
It is hard to find and answer, but other ideas need to be explored. I suggest that voting for two countries could be a step towards a solution. Another route might be to make use of the internet and allow voters to order all the acts.
I was very irritated by Terry Wogan talking over the Serbian band that were playing before the results were announced. I would have preferred to listen to them than have to listen to Terry Wogan; he sounded embarrassed by the music and obviously understood little of it. If the BBC are going to broadcast the music, they may as well let us listen to it.
I am continually irritated by commentators (particularly when they talk over the ends of programmes). In these days of interactivity, can we please have a button that switches commentators off?
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At least with the Eurovision, the voters determine who wins. In the EU, the political elite divides the worth-while jobs amongst themselves.
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As an East European I find Terry Wogan's comments extremely insulting and cannot possibly believe that an institution such as the BBC could possible stand behind them. You may very well pretend that it's all harmless fun but had Wogan's remarks been addressed to nations of non-European extraction, head would have rolled a long time ago.
What is even more frustrating is that his attitude seems to be shared by the majority of British viewers and becomes emblematic of this country's (mis)understanding of its Continental neighbours. To many Brits Eurovision becomes synonymous to Antoine de Caunes's Eurotrash and the latter equals the EU.
The only sensible solution under the circumstances would be for Britian to withdraw from the contest and to leave it to the countries which take it seriously and make an actual effort to participate in it. I'm sure that with such an international following the Eurovision will survive without Britain's money or that of any of the other big four. And best of all the fans of the show will finally breathe a sigh of relief once the spoil sports have gone :)
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I absolutely agree.
It's all supposed to be fun!
And let's not forget that Europe is made up of Europeans, good or bad. They vote for the songs they like, and that's that.
I was sad to have to listen to Wogan talking over the Serbian band playing during the voting, they seemed to convey a true spirit, good energy - from an amazingly unlucky nation!
Commentators should acquaint themselves with info about the country they are reporting from at least. Serbia was never in the Soviet bloc, Yugoslavia was the founder of the independence movement.
I will leave the insults to Wogan's conscience...
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The rumour is that Dima won, not with his song, instead with his (bare) chest. Having a prominent sports figure onstage didn't hurt any. All told, I think the Russians will put on a great show next year.
The UK should stop sending garbage that is clearly dated, and share some of your culture.
When is the last time one of the big 4 gave an audience something to smile about ?
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Some of us just plain like the song- we like the message, the uplifting lyrics, the expression of hope in a scary world. Of course, a bare chest never hurts... but not everyone is politically motivated: there are many of us that make our music a big part of our lives and love it when we hear something we can sing to and identify with.
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My my - this is a lively thread. And I bet the program got pretty good ratings in spite of the whingings.
I do think Terry is a bit tired of his participation in it, and he let it show. Time to move on I think. He made Eurovision what it is, but without the wry charm it all sounds tired.
I actually thought this was the best year for quality of entertainment of the acts. The variety was excellent. Like arathrael I really liked Bosnia and Herzegovina - I remember the punk bands of the late 70's.
I do find the voting patterns curious, but I find that intriguing in its own right. Is it that the voting relationships indicate an inferiority complex where countries are so keen on votes themselves they are "trading"votes to give themselves a chance? I suspect it is either that or they really are reflecting their music tastes in their voting patterns. I cannot conceive that their populations would willingly collaborate covertly or be sufficiently organised to collaborate overtly to swing the results.
I'm really keen to maintain the competition to see how such patterns change over time, as I truely believe they will.
I am more concerned that (eg) Andorra gets the same 12 points to award as we do. I'm all for encouraging participation but I really wonder how many phone calls it took to get one point from (eg) Andorra versus the number of calls to get one vote from us. Maybe the participating countries need to be tiered so the maximum (eg) Andorra can award is 6 votes.
Keep up the good work Mark!
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Mark:
An excellent blog.....
Not every year, the same country(ies) will win...
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Well if the West didnt play such an active part in breaking up all the eastern european countries, they wouldnt have this issue!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This has reflected poorly on this country. It has been shown to be snobbish and patronising,and will do even worse in the future as a result. Russia and most East and Central European countries send one of their best acts, whatever you may think of their qualities, we send someone who didn't even win a feeble talent contest. Then we complain that we get next to no marks.Frankly it is the behaviour of a 4-year-old whineing that things are not fair. As for Wogan, perhaps he could turn his condescending "wit" to something else.As license payers we certainly pay him a lot for his presence. About 5 times as much as teh BBC contributes to put on the contest, in fact.
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The reason expats don't vote for the UK entry is because they watch on the BBC via cable and satelite transmissions rather than on the local networks. This is because half the fun is Terry Wogan's commentary. When the voting commences the BBC advise you cannot vote for the UK entry. If instead it read - If you want to vote for the UK entry and you live in Spain dial xxxxx, Germany xxxx, etc, or the local phone numbers were published in advance I am sure UK would at least do better, though the UK do need to enter songs that have a chance in the first place.
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ATNotts said:
"The Germans did just as badly as we did, but without the sour grapes."
That's just not true, the German newspapers were full of "nobody likes us" and "lets pull out" sentiment:
"Are we too stupid to win or is it simply that we're not liked?" asked the Sunday edition of the Bild newspaper one day after the contest in Belgrade, Serbia.
"We delivered a great performance but the viewers didn't recognise it," said Bulgarian-born German singer Lucy Diakowska.
"It was the insult at Belgrade -- what a disaster," said Thomas Hermanns, who hosted a German after-show fest in Hamburg.
"It's just unbelievable and so, so, so stupid," said NDR television's Eurovision analyst Jan Feddersen. "No Angels" were the most successful girl group in continental Europe in 2003.
"Other countries got support from their neighbours. Germany didn't get any support at all from its neighbours."
Die Welt agreed with Wogan and blamed the voting system.
"As in past years the 'eastern European Mafia' at the Song Contest is stirring our blood," Die Welt wrote. "Russia won thanks to considerable help from its neighbours. The Russian song wasn't bad but it wasn't any better than the rest."
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somebody mentioned Kosovo joining Eurovision....
Lol if Kosova joined Eurovision guess what 12 points will go striaght to albania!!!!....because Kosovans and Albanians see each other as the same, they call each other BROTHERS!!!!!.....
Serbia is another country that would get loads of pooints from Kosovo because of the mass of Serbs that live in Kosovo.
including...Greece, Croatia, Bosnia, Turkey...would get points from Kosova...but mostly...Albania...
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Dutchhoward, interesting point not made before. However, it does give a very poor impression of British expats in Spain. If the UKrainian fruit pickers in Spain can work out what number they need to dail to vote for Ukraine, then why can't the British find out?
Do they need their hand held by the BBC? Perhaps.
The Ukrainians actively seek out he number they need to call, or send an SMS, multiplie times. This is because they consider it their patriotic duty to vote for Ukraine (honest). The compeititon is taken very seriously in Ukraine, and one of their most famour pop starts in sent, with help from Filip Kirkorov, arguably the biggest male pop star ever in the Post Soviet Space.
The British do not take it Eurovision seriously, and do not feel patriotically bound to vote for the UK. Hence no votes.
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That guy ... , Terry Wogan, is he really the best person BBC can put on the show? It is so incredible and sad to hear this person.
If you do not like Eurovision, just pull out of it. (The same applies to EU, if you do not like EU just pull out of it.) Just stop crying.
Anyway, I agree that Eurovision is total crap now, as it was 30 years ago (when Terry was probably a happy and young man enjoying in silly Eurovision then prevailing sound). What changed are the names of main players and now Eurovision is probably just a bit better.
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There are some popular jokes here in Russia after we won in UEFA, World Ice Hockey Championship and in Eurovision:
1) "Vote for Bilan or he'll come third time on Eurovision!", well done! Europe can relax now;
2) On Euro 2008 matches with Russia, Plushchenko will skate in a central circle;
3) IT'S TIME TO START WWIII while it lucks out!!!!
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I think that Terry Wogan was spot on, Saturday night, I don't think he was meant to offend anyone, and what he said about the contest no longer being about music, was quite correct
Also, I believe Andy Abraham deserves a little more credit as well, fair enough, he wasnt worthy of winning it, but I certainly think he was worthy of the top 10.
Eventhough there is some strong evidence of expats voting for home, I think its obvious that voting in Eurovision now seems to be about voting for your neighbours/best friends, and the fact that the EBU hasn't done anything about it, is quite worrying.
I think the only thing UK can do now, is to start playing the same game, it's time to make friends, fair enough, we have Ireland, who we must thank for sparing our blushes, but we need to make other relations with other countries.
I believe that Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for closer ties between UK and France, maybe we could use that to our advantage....
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badevma said:
"If you do not like Eurovision, just pull out of it. (The same applies to EU, if you do not like EU just pull out of it.)"
If only we had the choice! If the British public could vote on these questions we would pull out of both organisations.
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richardlith said:
"If the UKrainian fruit pickers in Spain can work out what number they need to dail to vote for Ukraine, then why can't the British find out?
....The Ukrainians actively seek out he number they need to call, or send an SMS, multiplie times. This is because they consider it their patriotic duty to vote for Ukraine (honest). "
No, it's probably beause Ukrainians don't have a Ukrainian or Russian language satellite service available in Spain, so they have to make the effort to watch the show on Spanish TV, which gives out the numbers. The Brits over there are spoilt by being able to watch the BBC coverage in English. Once you're already watching the BBC service on satellite you're not going bother to find out how to vote in Spain are you?
I think you are right about patriotism though, Brits have had theirs knocked out of them by political correctness.
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National minorities across Europe and cultural links are decisive in Eurovision voting. Many participants in this blog have corroborated it through plenty of examples.
Spain gave 12 points to Romania. Why? Spain is the main destination in Europe for Romanians. There are between 500.000 and 1 million Romanians living in Spain (No one knows exactly how many), the same amount more and less than Britons, but in opposite situations.
British retired expats in the Costas couldn't care less about Eurovision. For young immigrants Romanians, on the contrary, is an opportunity to show some pride to their tormented country.
After reading all your posts I conclude is fair enough: East Europeans need to be seen something else than immigrants, who are often unjustly associated with crime (see Italy).
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Post #127
I was referring specifically to the ARD commentator, and didn't bother to watch the Eurovision Party that followed.
It doesn't surprise me that the newspapers were critical, who could help but be, but on the night the ARD commentator was a bit less sour than Wogan normally is - and seems to have been this year from all the reports.
It's interesting that despite being so successful across Europe, "No Angels" made no impact whatsoever in the UK. By contrast, UK acts regularly make it big in Germany. It's a funny old world!
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Brits should stop complaining about the competition and take a minute to consider why they are always coming out at the bottom. If the UK wants to get higher scores, actions would include:
1. Taking it seriously and sending better songs/ artists supported by proper production; and more importantly
2. Trying to reduce the perception amongst Europeans that Brits think they are better than everyone else, arrogant and snobbish (e.g. Wogan's style is not helping, and neither is the attitude towars the common currency etc)
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Can someone tell me whether any Eurovision song has ever made it to Top 10?
or even Top 20?
And how many songs from Continental Europe are on any of those lists?
How 'bout Bottom 40?
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Re 138, off the top of my head Abba with Waterloo - great song, also think puppet on a string did quite well and the Bucks Fizz one - not such a good song! Also that group that looked like extras from Lord of the Rings did well
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Re my post 139 just read your post again and it referred to continental europe so ignore puppet on a string and Buck's Fizz- probably best to ignore them full stop
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tonyhloucas said:
"2. Trying to reduce the perception amongst Europeans that Brits think they are better than everyone else, arrogant and snobbish (e.g. Wogan's style is not helping, and neither is the attitude towars the common currency etc)"
I'm really getting tired of this myth about British arrogance (which borders on reverse racism sometimes). If ever there was a nation that ran itself down and had a confidence crisis, it is the Britain. Really, we had a great past, but we have a very low opinion of ourselves now.
The Spanish entry was clearly far worse (deliberately?) than ours, but it finished nine places higher. Does that opinion make me arrogant? I think Germany feels the same.
BTW, Wogan isn't a Brit, he's Irish.
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replying to post 138
Love Shine a Light, by katrina and the Waves, made it to number 2 in 1997
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It is interesting to read the various self-pitying posts from Brits who now consider the Eurovision to be some sort of Political conspiracy.
Let me run through a number of non-political reasons why Britain scored so poorly:
Firstly, as previously mentioned Britain entered a "soul" entry which is really out of step with the music of mainland Europe - it may have been a good song to us but other peoples have different tastes.
Secondly, Eurovision is also about stage performance. Britain went out of its its way to appear ordinary among the 25 entries in the final. No thoughts seemed to have been given to choreography. Maybe its because its not cool to try too hard? Compare the British choreography to that of Armenia, Russia or Greece and its obvious why Britain fares so badly.
Thirdly, Britain did no lobbying. If people go on Youtube and search for armenia's song "qele, qele" you will see that the performer has toured virtually every European country as there are an abundance of clips of her singing her song in numerous places in Germany, Belgium, France, the UK etc. How many performances did Andy Abraham give around Europe?? There is a sense that countries like Armenia just want to win more.
Fourthly, the winning country used some of its major stars in their show. One of their most well-known classical musicians, a famous pop-star and a successful Olympian skater. We may not know these people as stars but half of Europe does. The equivalent would be that we entered Victoria Beckham singing accompanied by David Beckham doing a stage performance. Instead we send a failed talent contest performer with no stage presence and then cry foul when he fails.
All a bit funny.
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Hello Gravener. Do you remember Scooch or whatever it was called? We played the continental game of ultra campness and choreography. It made no difference. Yes it was a horrible song, but it was in good company. The same song performed by any East European country would have done very well.
I don't really equate self-pity with wanting a level playing field. I think we tried everything and failed. Time to leave them to it. It's just not funny any more. License payer's money is being wasted on this drivel.
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BTW, gravener, you say that Russia used major stars. Well Germany used an act that was very famous, and one of the most successful of the last decade, on the continent. It made no difference. Germany is just as hated as we are. (whatever you do, don't mention the war)
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I'm glad that Marks son (aged 6!) knows what Gay is let alone being judgemental or supportive. If my son had made an observation about the sexuality of anyone he saw on TV, or indeed anywhere, at that age then I would want to know who he had been talking to. I would be interested to know if it is usual for 6 year olds to have such understanding.
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Hello horaceontelbarrs. I wouldn't put it past trendy liberal educationalists in the UK teaching children all about alternative lifestyles. There's just no innocence any more.
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Hi Brian,
It's funny that you mention Germany - a country of 80 million people. After its debacle in Europe they're also debating their poor result but instead of accusing their European neighbours of bias they're discussing how to make their acts better. They're not ashamed of admiiting that their quartet had a good song but a lousy performance.
It's funny that various British chauvinists in this thread are arguing that Britain should be split into Welsh, Scottish, English entries to even the playing field. But what about Germany then??? They have a larger population than us. Have you considered how to level the playing field for them? How would you divide up Germany? I would guess that you are probably not concerned about this as most British chauvinists cannot see anything beyond the British shores or have any willingness to understand the cultures of other countries. It's much funnier having an old Euro-sceptic such as Terry Wogan sitting behind his microphone making cheap jibes at "inferior" Europeans. It would be funny how narrowminded some Brits are if it wasn't so sad that it affects our relations with the rest of Europe.
Brian,
I don think Europeans are stupid. Fact was Scooch was a an act based on the talents of second-rate has-been pop singers. Do Eastern European countries enter such has-beens??? No, they try to submit their best artists - not just to win but to show the rest of Europe the best that they have.
People in Britain think that Eurovision is a joke and that the people voting are hopelessly biased or have no taste.
There is a split in Europe between countries who think Eurovision is camp and should be laughed at - these countries increasingly enter joke-performances such as Ireland, France and Spain. On the other side you have countries who see Eurovision as a vehicle of self-promotion such as the Eastern European countries.
It is funny that old Terry didn't complain so much in the early 90s when it could be equally argued that the whole show was rigged. Ireland seemed to win each year. Why? Because only Malta, Britain and Ireland could sing in English and so the rest of Europe voted for the song they could recognise. This was also when voting on the phone was just introduced.
The Eurovision managers overcame the unfair advantage Britain and Ireland had by allowing all countries to sing in English. Maybe, to please old Sir Terry and his band of Eurosceptics we should reintroduce the rule on only singing in native languages. Then Britain can once again enjoy an advantage and we can think that we're good even by entering second-rate artists.
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Gravener, the way you use phrases like 'the British think this' or 'the people of Britain think that' show you are actually guilty of all the prejudice you accuse the British of. Sorry to say this, but you are more prejudiced and generalise more than most of the Brits I know.
As for Britain having an unfair advantage in the past because they sang in English, well this was more than balanced by resentment from the rest of Europe over the success of our music industry.
I think your thinly disguised contempt for the British is just another example of the kind of attitude prevalent in Europe that guarantees we could never succeed in this contest.
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Also Gravener, your comments on the Germans are WRONG. See my earlier post 127 for a few quotes to illustrate how they ARE accusing their neighbours of bias.
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The more this thread goes on the more evident it is that that the contributors who cry that Eurovision is rigged and that Britain should pull out are also the ones who want Britain out of Europe altogether.
Eurovision certainly is polictical, but mostly because the Eurosecptics of Britain now have a new hero: Sir Terry Wogan.
Please let this un-funny, prejudiced dinosaur retire and lets have Jonathan Ross be the new presenter. He can be funny about other cultures without being chauvinistic - just look at the documentary series he made about Japanese alternative culture some time ago.
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Gravener, when you said "let this un-funny, prejudiced dinosaur retire" I thought you meant Eurovision.
Please read my post 127 to see why your comments on Germany are so wrong.
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America is NOT the bully! Russia is the bully! they even just proved it during eurovosion, and secondly they proved it when kosovo was trying to become independent they were telling the kosovars to not speak during meetings, for kosovo not to have their say!
i'm sorry but i TOTALLY agree with Terry Wogan, its all about politics, but also about nieghbouring, orgins and racism and ignorance all play a role in eurovision.
Slav coutries all have things in common especially the culture, religion, and tradition, lol serbs bosnians and croatians all orginnally originate from russia from history, they are only 2000 years old. compared to Greeks and Albanians who are even older...
I myself am Eastern European and i TOTALLY agree with Terry Wogan, and I don't find him offensive at all.
Terry Wogan is 100% RIGHT!
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I find it rather sad that Mark Mardell's 6 year old son already knows the construct of sexuality and being gay.
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149. "I'm really getting tired of this myth about British arrogance (which borders on reverse racism sometimes). If ever there was a nation that ran itself down and had a confidence crisis, it is the Britain. Really, we had a great past, but we have a very low opinion of ourselves now."
British arrogance is not a myth, its a fact. Yes the British do lack confidence, well its more the English who lacks confidence, being the dominant culture and all. The Scots on the other hand have an inferiority complex towards the English.
But tell me brian8591 how do the English handle their confidence crisis?
Oh right, by bringing up the past a gazillion times: especially World War II, by making fun of everyone especially the French and German (being the biggest cultural rivals), calling the rest of Europe "continentals", by claiming 'British' is culturally 'different' from the rest of Europe and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Or to sum it up, they hide their lack of confidence by being arrogant.
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Ever since I was a little girl I watched Eurovision - even remember Bucks Fizz winning!
I agree, Terry Wogan is the best part of watching it nowadays. It's become too big and generally the counties vote for either their neighbours or where they think they might get most benefit.
One thing I don't agree with is one ofthe comments about counties not much liking Britain because Terry Wogan's comments are generally what is the conept of Britain in Europe. If this is the case then why do so many immigrants from across europe and beyond continually enter our country, either legally or illegally and espect to have handouts?
I think we'd now be better off just pulling out of the contest all together as it's not really a song contest anymore - we know this as the voting started to go so down hill for us when we went to 'conflict' with Iraq. It's political - most definitely!
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Gravener - your comment:
"People in Britain think that Eurovision is a joke and that the people voting are hopelessly biased or have no taste."
Being British myself, I never used to think it was a joke, but when you see the 'songs' that are in the contest nowadays you realise it is most definitely a 'joke' and or that there is 'no taste'. I can't say we've put a good song in to the competition for a good 10 years if not longer.
It just seems the worse the song the more chance it has to win!
Terry makes it worthwhile! Definitely the UK should consider it a waste of time and pull out - its a waste of good air time on the TV.
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friendlywhatthe,
I actually think this year's Eurovision is better than many previous ones - especially the ones of the 80s with bog-standard pop-formulas such as Bucks Fizz. But the likes of second rate performers such as Bucks Fizz just aren't good enough any more. Maybe the UK isn't good enough for Eurovision any more too since we insist on entering second-rate artists or we are unable to convince any quality or well-known performers to enter.
Eurovision will survive without the UK. Despite the myths expounded bu the many British chauvinists in this thread Eurovision is not dependent on funding from the UK. It is bigger than it has ever been and gets bigger sponsorships than ever before.
So what if the UK decides its too "good" for Eurovision. No one will care. It will just be a pathetic reflection of the hold Little Englanders still hold over the mind of the populace. Those of us who are less bigted towards Europeans can continue to enjoy the contest via internet broadcasts while the old Beeb tries to find "quality" replacements such as "Britain has the best talent" where moguls such as Simon Cowell can run the show and make sure nothing is rigged (hahahaha).
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Like any decent question, the answer to why horrible songs from the East win Eurovision is not one-dimensional. While I agree with the power of national minorities to influence voting, there's more to it than that:
* Shared taste. Serbia may be loathed by all it's neighbors, but it listens to the same Turbo-Ethno-Pop as the rest of the Bulkans. If the US and Canada were to be involved, I'm sure Britain and Ireland would get votes from across the Atlantic because of the cultural congruencies and shared history that have led to a shared taste in music.
* Similar languages. It's only natural to vote for songs that you understand. English language songs do well in the West because most everyone has taken English. In the east, Slavs can generally understand each other even when speaking different languages and many have taken Russian in school. For example, it doesn't matter if you speak Serbian, anyone who speaks a Slavic language knew what "Modlitva" was about.
* Celebrity power. While Bilan might only be known for his Eurovision appearances in the UK, most Eastern Europeans have been inundated with his gyrating body and insipid lyrics for at least the last six years if not longer. They all know him. If the UK wanted to compete on the same level, they'd have to stop sending undiscovered acts and start sending musicians of International stature. For example, even though his style is not at all Eurovision-y, James Blunt could easily win because of his widespread fame.
I'm sure there are even more factors.
However, let's face it, SMS text voting is like waving a giant white flag at hackers world wide. Any amateur hacker can send more text messages than all of Iceland combined and an experienced hacker with a nationalistic bent and a botnet at his/her disposal could easily have every country in Europe awarding Russia douze point. Taking into consideration the attack on Estonia two years ago and the Russian disappointment with Bilan's previous showing, I fully expected Bilan to win whether any actual people voted for him or not.
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immigrants really matter:
Switzerland gave 12 points to Serbia two years in a row now as there are a lot srbs live there!
However more or less the victory is fair because Dima is popular in many countries.
Is UK performer popular in many countries?
Ukraine has only ONE '12-point' (the same as Spain) but still it is second (Armenia has EIGHT '12-points', Greece has SIX '12-points'). Ukrainian performer was just good even though she was almost unknown to ex-USSR or other viewers outside Ukraine.
Ukraine was predicted to win by English commentators both this and previous year. So Ukraine is 'dominating' (as someone said here) fairly.
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No way can I imagine the various nations' Tv companies going back to the old-style jury system. Just think how much money they'd lose out on from the 0900 £1 a call system that seems to be so commonplace on everything these days,
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I'm astonished at the controversy created by such a deeply crappy show.
Get a life, Eurovision and music are not on the same planet let alone continent.
Why don't us western Europeans leave it to the guys from the East that are slowly but surely exploring the heights of the beatles, the stones, pink floyd, the who. Let them get on with their Britney Spears lookalikes and Repro Metallica, plus the manaskouriesque ballads that keep respectable people from having a decent sleep (volume too high?).
What a load of s----
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Living in Belgium, I am able to see the Eurovision coverage on Dutch, French and Belgian channels. And they are every bit as sarcastic about the contest as Terry Wogan! (Just one example - the French man commentating on the semi-final praised the Czech singer "as beautiful, just beautiful - which is a good thing because she can't sing"). So, please, BBC, continue to give Terry free rein, the 'contest' would not be the same without him...
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Wogan's sarcasm would be more convincing if he could for once include Israel, Ireland and the UK.
I see him as a typical British xenophobe: well-mannered, but still full of disrespect for other nations that do not suit his little view of the world.
And how come that the UK-Irish block vote is never mentioned by those who get terribly worked up on the Eastern Europeans?
As even the BBC had figured out, this is about European demographics (some of which are quite stable, some are changing very dynamically) AND (bad) music taste.
If you have minorities (i.e. economic migrants) in many countries (like the Turks, Serbs, Greeks of Russians) you can count on a good deal of sympathy voting. If you have a song that is universally popular (like Lordi's) you may break through the sympathy vote.
France, Germany and the UK could only win with a brilliant song as their exported nationals are too affluent to bother with the ESC.
If the UK wants to win it has to do 2 things:
Activate the British ex-pats and produce a song that it a bit better than a remake of one of the weaker Rick Astley songs.
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Having been through most of the posts here, can I suggest a voting system that takes account of population size and GDP?
This would do away with most of the block voting, but runs the serious danger that Germany wins every time. Wogan would probably commit suicide.........
Seriously: Europe is made up of many small nations and the ESC is their day!
Down with former imperial powers who claim victory based on past glory. The future is with the minnows!
The last para could probably be added as a comment to each and every of Mark's blog entries. ;-)
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Why on earth are we bothering ourselves with this Eurovision nonsense? For years now we have only ever watched the voting and listened to Terry Wogan's comments.
It's all gone so corrupt nowadays that even the most simple-minded viewer can now tell who many of the countries will vote for.
Mark Mardell's daft theories are way off the mark. Trying to defend the Eurovision Song Contest really is pointless.
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Re 1: You're absolutely right. Expats, especially economic migrants who leave their country because of work, tend to be more patriotic than the average. My Italian girlfriend, who is a football hater, has suddenly become a football watcher (only when Italy's national team plays and only when we are in England) and even partied in English streets, with a handful of expats, after Italy's win in 2006. Mercifully, Italy does not participate in the Eurovision.
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This is part of the illusion...
If we can't run a fair Eurovision (which is neither important nor particularly entertaining).
What do you think the Constitution will be like?
Eurovision is not what it used to be.
This is the least of your concerns.
They have a corrupt appointed executive; but their jurisdiction is not important.
This Eurovision has been part of the distraction from the major events in world politics that are going on right this instant.
Forget Eurovision: think bigger.
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Eurovision is an interesting social experiment. It tells you how reasonable and objective people's opinions and votes are when it comes to pan-European matters.
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What is going to change at Eurovision? So this sort of problems will not happend again.
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Is there any chance that Robert magbee may become the next President of the E.U. ? As they the E.U same to work on the same princilable , You have a vote if you loss you say ,Its the voters which are wrong and you will keep on having vote untill you win. E.U democracy Don`t you Just love it ?
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Mark:
The row over Eurovision could be salvaged if, certain things were to be done...
-Dennis Junior--
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