Great analysis as always. One stat you didn't find time to slip in is that this was Australia's best ever televote result, and in fact Australia's only televote win. Voyager's 62% of the maximum possible televote beats Kate's 58% and Dami's 56%. Absolutely astonishing for a prog metal band from Perth. Australia took a big risk with @voyagerau - it could easily have ended like Germany - but it paid off.
“I guess the jury didn’t like the boxing staging” (regarding Armenia 2011). Personally, I would suggest it was her abysmal vocals and Junior Eurovision lyrics that didn’t go down too well
The thing about Romania is that TVR treats the contest like a meh thing and the national selection became a very boring process where no one submits something interesting or original and also TVR has low viewing figures for years. They made a good move in 2020 and 2021 by going internally and going for the big labels, but they overdid it with the performance and they went back to that boring selection. And also public perception in Romania about Eurovision is either people never hard of it, heard of it but don't care or they think it is a meme contest full of "camp and boring songs".
TVP being rewarded for their poor behavior is honestly worse than Käärijä not winning. For those familiar with American Idol, it’s the Sanjaya effect. People sometimes vote for bad acts on purpose just to be contrarian
To be fair, a very minute portion of the voters probably knew about what happened with the national finals. The meme instead might have helped them and given them at lest some ironic votes though, but not radically. Blanka was apparently charting on many radio stations around Poland's neighbors, which I guess is the main factor in her result. The staging was messy but likely memorable for someone seeing it on stage for the first time. And as blant as I personally think the song was, it's also easy to remember. All that being said, I do wish EBU had something to say about untruthful behavior on the part of local broadcasters. It stillf baffles the sh1t out of me; why not just do a deliberate internal selection instead of fooling your own viewers? I bet the distrust will follow them for years to come. And it sure wasn't good enough to justify the outcome despite all of this.
I'm gonna guess what happened was it got a lot of radio airplay and did well with streaming in countries like Lithuania and Ukraine + the diaspora probably isn't fully aware of the situation. I know Rylan threw shade at the situation during the commentary in semi 2 but that didn't stop the UK from giving it a hearty amount of points.
Thanks for the great video as always! Would definitely love to hear/see more videos in the future where you discuss what the other Eurovision countries could do in order to help win! I’d love to see more diversity within the winners circle from countries like Estonia and Malta especially 🎉
One thing that really pleased me was Albania getting 12 points from Rest of World in semi 2, showing that they do have widespread appeal! I gave them all my points!🤩
Andromache the best cypriot entry for me and what an irony that she almost one and only non-qualifier for 10 years, the song itself really the best among another
@@Lelqtii Sometimes the nerves get to people but I think if they were going for two languages Amir Haddad had the right idea have the verses in the native language and the chrous in English that way you can ease your way into singing it and only have to get nail a few catchy hook lines. I agree it's a great shame - the song's lovely and the music video got the tone just right but the staging and vocals weren't it chief.
Andromache was definitely far better than Cyprus' this year's entry, I agree! The only reason it didn't Q were probably the weak vocals, as there were juries last year :(
In regards to opening up the voting earlier, they did do that in 2010 and 2011, but the EBU ditched it because almost all the votes came after all songs were performed anyway so they saw no point in it.
maybe they could retry and push it a bit harder or promote it a bit more before the contest? im sure they could innovate it a little more. also 2010-12 was quite a while ago, so worth retrying possibly
Interesting point about the two TV companies in Belgium taking turns and trying to one up one another. Could TG4 take turns with RTE? Commentary as Gaeilge 😝
nah RTE would never risk giving it up. Its 8 hours of super cheap TV for them and they get almost no heat for sucking so much, so literally nothing will change unfortunately 😭 its a bit like a child with roller skates that they dont want to try on, but they dont want any other child to try them either
Really interesting analysis Tom, some points I wanted to add The opener/closer curse has struck again this year, I think since 2014 at least one (and usually it is one) of the 4 acts which are put as an opener or closer has not qualified and Denmark were the country this year to nq. Interestingly Belgium and Estonia, despite being in the lower ranks of qualifiers did better than the countries who placed higher than them, especially for Australia and Austria, 1st and 2nd in the semi and had some of the worst televote scores in the final. One thing I was wondering and I did notice it after semi 1 and somewhat after semi 2, are smaller countries more disadvantaged by a televote only system? Obviously the song and overall performance needs to be taken into consideration but most of the semi 1 acts who didn't qualify were smaller countries, some of which have continuously struggled in the televote, for semi 2 this is also somewhat the case, especially for Georgia (a country which even in junior Eurovision in recent times has gotten far fewer televote points than other countries despite being among the favourites).
lol i dont think theres any way for me to answer that that wouldnt be an essay-long response 😂 I think theres various different situations with various countries. some countries have very active diaporas, while others have absolutely no disapora help at all. Tbh everyone has qualified at least once at some point, so it does show that even without that, you can still make it through, but its just easier for some compared to others
I've always thought that the perfect solution to the bias towards later entries would be to show reverse recaps mixed in with the normal one (e.g first recap starting from the last to perform and going backwards to the first, 2nd recap regular recap, 3rd recap reverse recap again). They did only reverse recaps in 2002 and 2003, and the winners are from the first half of the final, so maybe mixing both could help a bit
I too really liked Georgia the first time I heard it and considered it one of my very favorites of the year. However, unlike many others (for example Albania to me personally, definitely grew on me the more I heard it and then skyrocketed on stage), the Georgian entry started to become near annoying the more I listened to it. The lyrics were not a problem at firts because I really liked how the whole song sounded and Iruy's voice is very nice. But damn did the lyrics start to bother me, to the point it became comical. Finnish Yle provides subtitles to the lyrics, which is somewhat of a national inside joke since the translations are often purposely funny and unusual. So that sort of ruined whatever was left of it for me, it just became impossible to ignore the absurdity😂 It's a shame though, I still firmly believe it would have been million times better in native language. I still like it and will probably get over the cringe reflex eventually.
yea thats a great point, if they wanted to go for this out-there lyrical concept, just do it in Georgian. especially considering how well non-English songs have done lately
Great analysis as always. I like the idea of opening the voting at the start of the show to try and overcome the second half advantage, it would be interesting to at least see what impact it has one year and then make a decision whether to make it permanent after
Tom and a spreadsheet. A marriage made in heaven! 👏👏 Great info here regarding 1st/2nd half qualifiers and total points won by each half. I found those figures shocking. My personal memory of this semi however is a negative though. Poor old Victor. I found it completely car crash watching. Such raw talent and such a disaster performance. It was horrible to watch but couldn't look away at the same time. 16 is simply not old enough to give your best in this competition. They could at least have added some dancers to give him support on stage. It was tantamount to cruelty. I really hope he survives this experience and goes on to have the career he wants. I wish him well. 🤞🏻🤞🏻
On top of that, I didn’t mention it here, but there’s a TikTok showing when he non qualified and none of the delegation got up to console him, only his father. Some serious sh*t went down in that delegation this year
Great vid, as always Tom! Do you think you'll be reaction to some previous years for the off-season? Would love to have your thoughts on previous editions I know you have a lot of reaction videos already from previous years but it'd be great to have you revisit them!
I love Eurovision and somehow I end up watching and voting in the romanian NF every year. The problem with the public is that TVR lost credibility a long time ago, when TVR puts on a good show and invests money romanians are very interested. That year when Ester Peony won was a very good year, with an international jury and great interval acts, including Loreen, everybody was watching and everybody had the opportunity to see wiwiblogs being the only ones downvoting the public favorite, a 16 year old child, because she was used in a homophobic campaign. After that TVR had fail after fail, backlash after backlash, last year when WRS won it was because he had just signed a contract with a big record label so this year they decided to invest nothing, to give us free public voting, stressing that we will be responsible for the winner, refusing to promote and support the public's winner just to be exempt from yet another scandal and to just be able to say it was the public's choice, we are not responsable and by the way we have no money for next year or by the way here is our internally selected girl/boy our jury wants to promote next year. Because Eurovision has been a huge opportunity for Roxen and WRS, they are very successful artists in Romania and worldwide now, noone knew them before Eurovision, not so much for Theodor who is so talented and has won so many contests and he's been in every singing TV show since he was 12, just because TVR refused to promote him ( I don't want to hear anymore bullying towards this kid, I will probably get people in the comments saying he is gay trash, he's not, he has a girlfriend while WRS last year was openly bisexual and a lot of you did not complain when you started hearing him on the radio).
thank you for the insight Madalina. I was a big fan of Theodor, he is super talented and a really nice guy. I never really understood why Wiwibloggs got all the blame for Ester Peony. Serban Cazan and Tali Eshkoli also gave it 12, William only gave it 1 point less than they did. also it was TVRs decision to have the public only worth 1/7th of the vote - if they made it more, Laura would have won
I felt really sorry for Theodor, he sang so well in SF2, has a great personality, and the chorus of the song is actually quite authentic and catchy - maybe it could’ve been produced better? But I hope he will continue doing his thing and hopefully get a hit song and maybe even return to ESC and do well. I really hope Romania will stay in the contest, there had been so many Romanian entries over the years that I cannot imagine Eurovision without (Let Me Try, Tornero, Llamame, Playing with Fire, Miracle, Yodel It, Goodbye…)
Look Xnay the homophobia. A lot of people did really like On A Sunday who weren't involved with Wiwi Bloggs. Groot for one - he says the one bright spot of the bleep show this year is that On A Sunday is no longer Romania's worst result. Someone else has pointed out that a pair of gay men are entitled to have views on a contestant being homophobic - you asked for their opinion. Glad to hear Roxen's still doing well - they were good and actually the delagation messed them over and gave them chreography they couldn't do and still sing and then didn't support them when they got upset and they did (I'm using the pronouns I am because I've been told Roxen identifies as non binary these days at least). I too feel for Theodore - he was left high and dry but he seems a likeable and positive minded individual who doesn't lack intelligence or a sense of perspective and he has genuine talent as a singer and performer (the rest he can learn or get other people to help him with or do for him) so he's probably had a good time and left Liverpool with a lot of contacts who can help him in the future should he need them.
And this is unique year when we have 3 countries with highest rank in the final than semifinal - Norway, Belgium and Estonia, bejbah its really krejzah
Does anyone remember ESC 2002. EBU already then knew public vote favoured songs in the second part of the running order. What did they do, they reversed the recap from 24 to 1. That was 21 years ago. Did it help?
RE: voting I like the idea of opening the voting at the start of the show, perhaps to keep from a start-of-show bias only open ten of the twenty votes at the start and perhaps the other ten either at the 2/3rds mark or after all the acts?
fabulous analysis tom! it was interesting to see how the televote pretty much agreed on the same 10 songs, and imo, they were definitely the right set of qualifiers. i would have liked to see denmark through too but it just didnt have the impact it needed on the night what really struck me about the nqs is how young most of them are. i hope they arent taking their nqs too hard, and would love to see most of them back again once theyve had some more stage experience/ time to really figure out who they are as artists. and 100% agree that 16 is too young for eurovision, lets hope the ebu raises the minimum age to 18 soon 🤞
Yea that’s a good point about the age actually. You look at someone like Monika linkyte or Gustaph and they literally made no errors with their staging whatsoever, they got 100% out of it. And compare that with some of the younger artists
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My idea for running order would be to play the recap in reverse order ! They did it already in 2003 if I’m not mistaken, and Turkey won as number 4 in the final !
Romanian here TVR is underfunded and corrupt. That’s why Global Records pulled out this year. WRS probably invested in Eurovision on his own with some help from his music label. But tbh his song was a bit of a leftover from GR. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what they usually produce. A bit of context: Global Records is the largest independent music label in Central and Eastern Europe. It was established more or less thanks to INNA and the success some of their composers had in the 2000’s and 2010’s. In 2020 TVR was accused of only giving the ESC ticket to a large music label (yes, you guessed it..Global Records). A lot of independent smaller local composers complained. I guess it was rather unfair and corrupt, but tbh Selecția Națională has become a sh*tshow :(
About SF 2 It was weaker than sf 1. Low key I expected these results. I felt bad for Georgia and Iceland. I knew I’d lose one of my favourites in this semifinal - Estonia, Lithuania / Iceland. I feel like juries would’ve pushed them all through. But we don’t have juries anymore :( Georgia messed up the staging, it was low key expectable. The lyrics didn’t make sense either. I guess some people found that annoying.
ALSO Can Poland just send Sanah??? Stop sending some of these no names. Yes, the memes were funny, but her voice is horrible and that’s cheating! Why are you able to have your voice so low in comparison to the actual track?? 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
Ahhhh thank you for explaining this. Sometimes these weird situations can be explained so clearly when you get the background info from a local 🙏🏻 Do you think TVR will pull out then? Maybe pro TV would take over then?
@@ESCTomAs a fellow Romanian, I think it would be a wise decision to pull out for at least one year. Maybe rethink strategies, and invest into more dedicated people. I saw that this year TVR spent 380k euros for the Eurovision participation and I am sorry but what..?? Definitely we did not see this investment into Theodor's staging, so most people know that TVR is actually using Eurovision ti just launder some money. Also, I am not sure if Pro TV or other television could replace TVR because they have to be in the EBU and I think only televisions sponsored by the state can be members, but I might be wrong..
@@ESCTom Doubt that will ever happen. Eurovision is a money sink, it loses several hundred thousand dollars a year. A private TV station would not take the hit. The reason TVR is still doing it is because it's publicly funded, from people's taxes. They do Eurovision every year because a big chunk of the money goes in the pockets of the organizers and the companies of their friends and families. It's an extremely corrupt business. Lots of money get spent, very little is actually put into the act itself, promotion and so on. People pretty much got fed with Eurovision many years ago, due to corruption, favoritism, nepotism and so on (mainly on TVR part, but also ESC). Legitimately great acts in the National Selection, that were also fan favorites, were pushed aside year after year by incompetent and corrupt jurors. Throughout the years, some of the jurors died of old age holding the job, promoting music that they or their friends composed, music that's not relevant for literally decades. Every reformation in the past 10-15 years, was a complete fail, replacing one type of corruption and incompetence, with another. In the end, all the good placements in the international competition, were due to pure luck. Due to the whole situation, any legitimate artist would rather move on the moon than participate in the NS, thinning down the chances of actually sending something good. Even the emergent artists that were decent, after going through NS once, say in interviews that it's unlikely they will ever participate again (who can condemn them? people hate to get shamelessly robbed). This year's national song pool was absolutely terrible, as if they intentionally got together the worst songs possible, so that no matter what the public would vote for, it would end in disaster. This was done of course in order to justify bringing the jury back next year, so that the corruption cycle can repeat itself. May sound like a conspiracy, but it's not even the first time they did this.
Poland 3rd in SF2 and Estonia 10th - what a shame! And in the finals, Poland would also have ranked before Estonia by public votes only. Here you have a good example, what Eurovision would look like without the juries.
Re running order - do you think that the 3 automatic qualifiers performing in full as the first 3 acts? It shifts the ‘competing’ songs further into the show which might neutralise the first few songs having fewer voting viewers?
i dont think that would work. the Auto QFs are the ones paying for the contest. i think throwing them in front of the bus isnt fair. also they have the biggest viewing figures by far so it makes sense to put them a bit later to make sure people tune in for longer. and this year most of them were competitive as well.
@@ESCTom whoops I didn’t make that clear, I meant in the semis only! So whichever 3 that are assigned to a particular SF perform in full to get the party started (also means the big 5 +1 get to show their whole song before the final). Then the competitive part of the SF final starts. I’ve no idea how you do the running order in the final more fairly!!!
Tvr is not popular in romania. There are bigger networks with a lot more people watching compared to tvr. I feel like here is a fight between A1, TVR and ProTV.
About Romania, I have seen a couple of people sugesting ProTV, a private broadcaster could take TVR's place (something that I would hope for the furture since TVR is lacking in every aspect) In 2016 when TVR did not pay its debt to EBU and were disqualified, ProTv offered to step in and this was the EBU's response: "Official Statement on ProTV and the Eurovision Song Contest: "Although ProTV approached us with an offer to broadcast this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, because they are not Members of the European Broadcasting Union and the Eurovision Song Contest is a competition between Members and Associates, we cannot take them up on their offer.”" I have no idea what being a member of the EBU entales - if it is more than taxes owed, or standards for transmission or soemthing else. In 2016 maybe ProTV did not have enough time to become a EBU member.
Ah that’s interesting. So I guess TVR is like the public broadcaster so they get priority. That’s sad considering that Pro Tv sound like the more professional and successful broadcaster
I think your comment about opening the vote as the show starts could work, but I think it should maybe be a measure only for the semi finals? It’s a good idea to combat running order bias though!
yea maybe even only in the SF or something. or try it in JESC and see what happens. I know they tried it before, but i think they need to look into it again if they stay with Televote only
Re suggestions for vids in the off season - I'd love to see you do a video explaning some of the background on San Marino at ESC Tom as I find their participation interesting. For example: how does a tiny broadcaster in a microstate fund it year after year? Why has San Marino stayed in it every year while other microstates have left? Do the artists fund it in part themselves? Are there Sanmarinese ESC fans? What does San Marino need to do in your opinion to start performing well again?
Yea that’s a good idea. I’ll look into that. I’m not sure how far I would get though. I have a feeling they a lot of what happens is a little bit on the underground / behind closed doors
I would love to see a duet between Senhit and Serhat for San Marino 2024 maybe with a beautiful Italian Ballad, but with just the right infusion of their amazing individuality added. Ireland to go back to the Celtic roots (approach Eimear Quinn again, etc. or even Patty Gurdy from Germany!) and the UK to tap into their Scottish/Wales history for song influence. This last one is a bit more random, but I would LOVE to see AQUA represent Denmark just once...
great video as always ❤ i talked to my partner about TVR, (he's romanian). so, TVR is by ratio, the smallest national broadcaster of the ESC countries, and it's very unpopular as a channel in general - by viewership it's about 9 times smaller than ProTV which is the channel that hosts all the popular shows like The Voice or Got Talent. it seems logical that ProTV, the most popular channel that already has competition shows and a big audience, should be in charge of the Eurovision, but TVR basically only has Eurovision going for it and won't give up that contract. IIRC, the partipation fees are scaled for population, Romania is (~19mil) so Romania is presumably paying a high rate for extremely low viewership right now. it doesn't make a ton of sense. i don't know if we'd see an improvement if Pro TV took over, but whatever TVR is doing right now doesn't seem to be sustainable
omg i didnt realise that situation about there being a much bigger more successful channel. ok wow so then presumably that debate that they had last year was all for show? does your partner think that Pro TV would take it if they were offered?
@@trildi There do appear to be a couple of private broadcasters/companies that are EBU members, so it might not be a requirement on its own, however a private one might not fullfill other criteria, and justify the membership fee expense.
I think Luxembourg's TV channel is a commercial channel and the finals and semis both have ad breaks which would suggest some commercial aspects on some broadcasting channels. For reference the BBC the British channel doesn't have ad breaks.
@@trildino a broadcaster doesn’t have to be the national one it just has to be a member of the EBU for Eurovision. SBS in Australia isn’t the national broadcaster though still part of the EBU even if it’s associate.
Hopefully not just qualify for next year, but I hope from now on Latvia & Georgia will become Eurovision powerhouses while still being themselves & sending more risky/out-there songs.
Yea actually it would be cool to have another new powerhouse in Eurovision. Finland recently have stepped up. Belgium had that hot period as well in 2015-17
@@ESCTom I really, truly hope Finland *is* now a new Eurovision powerhouse, statistics point that way at least - someone calculated that Finland is the 4th most successful country in 2020's ESC, in average placing! That's quite well for an eternally underrated & screwed over country in ESC, until now I mean :)
Would be very interesting to see how the placements would vary if you included the potential jury 50/50 split by looking at how the juries voted in the GF. I know it's not the same because we can't know how the juries wouldve voted for the NQ'd countries, but still intereseting. Hope you're enjoying Istanbul!
I share your love for Iceland! Also need to experience them winning ESC as long as I‘m alive… 🥰 I think this year it really was a hyperaktive presentation of a song that just wasn‘t that interesting.
I want to see a Semi-Final where a NQ-country gets points from everyone. Oh god, that would be such a bitter moment. But I think it's possible. Just a sidenote for voting from beginning of the show: They already tried it in 2010 and 11 but discontinued it from 2012 onwards again because Digame registered very few votes before the recaps. And beside Romania, Latvia had also some lyrics in the national language and did not qualify. And I think that Belgium has a big armenian diaspora.
Interested to see you mention Georgia's gibberish because that's something I don't think we considered beforehand. And I mean the actual gibberish, not the English lyrics. When we hear it in a studio cut, it sounds unique and interesting, but I'm wondering how the voters who hadn't heard the song before felt watching someone actually SING it. I wonder if that hurt them.
I have been loving Eurovision for about 13 years now. And I don't watch our danish Melodi grandprix at all. Because it is so meh. It makes sense that we don't wanna win after the budget scandal, but it would be cool to get a song that I wanted Europe to send to the final. I'm considering watching next year, but I doubt it will be very exciting.
im convinced that if there were juries in the semi finals that georgia and iceland wouldve qualified and estonia wouldve placed way higher. Im also convinced that georgia wouldve been top 10 in the grand final if they had qualified (because of juries, kinda like estonia)
oh yea Estonia would have been top 3 if there were juries in the SFs as for Georgia, yea i think she would have done better, because her voice is exceptional, but i think they would have punished the lyric thing just as the public did
Great vid as ever! From memory did they not open voting from the start in 2010 in Oslo? I don’t know if any other years did that and why they stopped it- I guess they saw it made no difference? Didn’t they also play the recap in reverse order in the early 2000s too? Hmmmm yeah some sort of running order awareness campaign during the show might be nice 😂
oooooo im not sure, but that would be very interesting to know if they tried that in 2010. i might go try and watch it and see if the presenters mention it
I really hope Poland’s TVP does a Spain’s RTVE and change their system. If Spain thought “yeah, people were mad when Chanel won because of the jury votes, maybe we should fix that” despite her ending up 3rd, i really really hope Poland has the dignity to do the same.
Lots of delicious number crunching here 🙂; you're really the Eurovision analyst to turn to! Must be said that this was a less interesting semi with, as I've said earlier, quite a lot of songs that I did not particularly care about. Australia was very solid. Slovenia was maybe a tad too effortless if you know what I mean, I also got the feeling that their camera work wasn't engaging us as tv viewers as much as it should. Song and band are just really good though. Estonia was very classy and powerful, happy for her. Armenia also managed to catch my interest more and more, and Belgium was a really lovely and very deserved surprise. Poland... well Blanka did well I'll give her that. 12 points from their neighbours though, and 10 from UK and Iceland which both have pretty big Polish communities. Iceland was to me exhausting to watch. She's great singer but she was so overdoing everything on stage, and the song is really boring af (sorry Diljá). Georgia... I know you love it but there's very little in that song that grabs me. It's so repetitive, the lyrics are empty, her vocal is technically great but monotonous, and the staging was just dull. I've seen clips of her on Instagram dancing on "Echo" where she has two great (and very handsome I might add) male dancers with her. Some choreo might have blown some life into this performance, so it's a pity that Georgian TV apparently didn't have the money to bring them along. I think that in 2010-2011 the phone lines were already open during the entire show, if I remember correctly? And I always thought they dropped that because it turned out that it didn't matter for the qualification rate in the first half.
agree with pretty much all you say there. I think if you'd given "echo" to a delegation with a proven track record on staging & decision making like Ukraine or Sweden, it 100% would have qualified. They would have made some lyric changes and staged it perfectly and probably would have been top 6 in the semi. yea they tried it in 2010-2012 - might be worth them trying again but pushing it a little bit more
To me the big question is how Georgia lost so much traction the last weeks before the SF. All of the others NQ countries were pretty much in the NQ zone through the entire process while Georgia was well within the top 5 area most of the period. I think it was even number 2 on the betting lists at one point. So more than trying to understand why people didn’t like the Georgian entry (I think it was very popular when it came out) I try to make sense of how the wheels were coming off so heavily during those last weeks. It was the only song that were forecasted to qualify that ended up not qualifying, but the ominous factor for Georgia was the downward spiral that couldn’t be stopped for some reason. It was like a Caucasian avalanche, and when I saw the final numbers it was clear how far it fell. Less than 50% of the votes of number 10 is pretty harsh. There’s enough material for an entire analysis of Georgia alone, cause I believe this is quite multi-factorial. I just wonder how it would have done in SF1.
i think realistically it would have done much worse in SF1. Yea, i dont know if you saw my Eurovision scoreboard videos, but Georgia was already losing huge traction before rehearsals even began. I think some of the lyric choices made the song less enjoyable to listen to multiple times.
@@ESCTom Yes I saw that too, and I remember starting to worry for them to NQ like a week or so before the SF. As for the lyrics I remember that being a topic from the first hour that the song was released, so it wasn't like an unknown factor either, but it became very much a focal point for many within the community. One thing I wonder about is whether the quiet parts of the song could have had some more arrangements to it, maybe some strings, choir, organ, echo-ish harpsichord or something, I don't know, cause the verses were quite minimalistically arranged. I also remember some youtuber brought up how much the song consists of mid and high ranges, but not so much low range. If you want to create that explosive dynamics between quiet and intense maybe it's important to have some low range in there as well. I remember seeing someone referring to the song as a "screaming mosquito" which sounds a little harsh, but I kind of get what they mean with that. It's a lot of sharp treble. Iru seems to be doing fine though. I hope she tries again with another song.
Can somebody explain to me the "don't wanna win" thing for Denmark... One of the RICHEST countries in the world??? I also think the Luxembourgish broadcaster kept bringing up money as an issue for their ongoing absence when, again, it's a fucking rich country 😂
well as far as I know, the broadcaster has their own separate funding in most cases, so its not really the country that pays for it, its the broadcaster. the government could give them some money, but the broadcaster takes the biggest financial hit
@@ESCTom ohhh. That sounds more reasonable. The greek public, allegedly, had to pay around half a million for Victor's trainwreck of a performance and people are NOT happy!
I'm not entirely surprised by how well Poland did. The majority of the viewers probably didn't know about the controversies with the selection, and they saw a very attractive woman singing a happy pop song, which is easy to listen to and isn't too artistic, and they even managed to edit the performance with backing vocals to sound in tune. I was sad for Georgia and Iceland. I think both countries would have benefited from using their native language this year, especially Georgia. The risk of singing in a language everyone understands is that bad lyrics sound really bad, even if the song itself is good. I don't get why Georgia is not getting qualified. I've been a fan of theirs ever since they first joined in 2007 (I still go back to Visionary Dream every now and then). They often send something less obviously eurovision, and that is often a good thing in my books. With Iceland, as mesmerized as I was with Diljá's physical abilities, maybe less would have been more. I'd really love to see Iceland win the ESC, too, because they've sent amazing songs for so many years they'd really deserve a win. I wonder if we've started to focus too much on the betting odds with Eurovision. It was declared so early in the year, who was a potential winner, and once we got the lists of who would perform in which semifinal, we kinda accepted this was the weaker semifinal - and maybe partially caused the lack of interest in it. Are the results of the ESC becoming more and more a self-fulfilling prophecy? Does it matter more to be a part of the stronger semifinal, than where you are in the performing order? 🤔
i think the odds are getting better because theres so much social media, so you can literally get thousands of opinions on the songs, and then you can see streaming numbers etc, so theres just do much relevant data around this is why it is such a shame 2020 didnt happen, cos even with all that information, it still wasnt clear who would win. and funnily enough, it seems like it would have been ICeland
The self-fulfilling prophecy was very apparent this year. We went into Eurovision week knowing it was a battle between Loreen and Käärijä. Everyone knew that Loreen would win the jury so people altered the way they voted to try and combat this, which is why Germany came last and Australia did so much worse in the televotes for the final, because they lost their votes to Finland. If the odds weren’t there, I think there would’ve been a much less intense rivalry between Sweden and Finland. No one else ever stood a chance
@@_dont_mind_me Right? I was (obviously) rooting for Finland, but I didn't really like how the contest was had more outside of the stage, even if it clearly benefited Käärijä and Finland, too. I'm not a fan of rivalries to begin with, and I love the ESC for the music and the community, not for who wins - but it is a bit of a downer how things go these days.
@@Leena79 there was so much quality this year that got pushed aside as people focused only on the top two. And it is quite ironic that people complain about the low televote for Spain, Germany, France, Austria etc. when it was their focus on the Finland televote that caused it in the first place. I think if the Sweden-Finland battle hadn’t been so exacerbated by the odds and the fandom, people’s reactions wouldn’t have been so extreme after the show, with hate being thrown left right and centre and many people turning 180 on their opinion of Loreen’s song and performance or diluting Käärijä down to a clown show. I hope people remember that, while there should be some tweaks to how the juries work, most years do not end up like this and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with how esc currently functions.
about Belgium - I genuinely think they might "accidentally" win in the next few years. they're always underestimated and don't do too shabby I'm really trying to be more open minded about Blanka and separate her as a person from TVP's antics. My biggest struggle with it is she comes off as a spoiled rich girl and was liking nasty comments about Jann (that could've been her team though) and overall their qualification and televote success comes off as rewarding bad behavior. At the same time, she did still improve and the Eurovision performance was MILES better than the NF one and I appreciate someone turning lemons into lemonade regardless of the situation.
yea im largely in the same place as you. i blame TVP way more than her. she's def a rich kid. unfortunately in real life, rich people get more opportunities every single day, its more a symptom of the world than a new evil. and i think most ambitious young singers would accept a free ticket to Eurovision if they were offered. she clearly practiced a lot for the performance, and i actually thought it was one of the more enjoyable ones.
@@ESCTom I think she seems very sheltered though it is the way of the world but it doesn't make it easier to take. I had a similar background but not meeting the normal beauty standards and being neurally atypical meant I got picked on and that gave me some empathy for other people who get picked on because they're different Blanka doesn't have that her experiences seem to be leading her to believe she can do anything because she deserves it rather than the reality she's just lucky that she's come into the game with certain advantages.
Maybe a stupid question but I'm curious as you keep congratulating the Belgian team on their successes in qualifying. But aren't there two separate teams, one from RTBF on even years and another from the Flemish broadcaster VRT on odd years?
It's so crazy to me that's Poland did what they did considering there are so many Eurovision acts that have historically been nepotism-based selections that were just announced. For God's sake, Poland literally did this a couple years ago with The Ride. If you don't have the desire for a true democracy, be it because you're afraid that commercial act will win or because you just have some idea in mind already... Just internally select the song and call it a day. I suppose Poland was ascribing to the all publicity is good publicity School of thought, and to be fair, Blanka really did embrace the negative press and used it to her advantage, I think
Here in Belgium you see a Polish license plate in every street, so yeah there is certainly diaspora voting here. And we don't know that much about music quality so that an extra reason they got points from us, sadly.
If Iru saying the exact same song in Georgian, even with the staging, I think it could have snuck through. The staging did not help, though, and overall the song really underperformed. I just don't understand how Georgia is so good at JESC but don't quite seem to get it as far as staging goes for ESC.
One easy fix about the first half/second half problem would be simply to open the televote soon without waiting for that 15 minutes window at the end of the show.
@@ESCTomI think the reason why we don’t have it anymore was in the hacking of the vote rather than in inefficiency of that for the acts of the first half. It did make a difference, especially with Bosnia and Herzegovina in the final of 2011.
I think Iceland and Georgia's chances were scuppered by the fact that we had 5 or so entries that fit the 'screaming woman' archetype. Though having said that I don't think either of them would have qualified in semi 1 either lol. Really hoping Georgia doesn't withdraw
i think they should do the same thing they do in junior eurovision where they only draw first and last to perform and the rest of it is picked by the producers maybe it would be less fair but at least you're not given worse odds before you even pick the entry
Hi Tom❤ yeah agree this was the weaker semi final but Australia and Austria did so well here but the televote was quite poor in the final that was a surprise for me. Maybe if Italy was voting in this semi San Marino would have gotten a few points but to be honest wouldn't have made much difference. Well last year San Marino had Achille Lauro who had also participated at San Remo but really wasnt a good choice either. I have nothing against San Marino and I am Italian but in the end it's nearly always another Italian entry partecipating for them so Italy actually have 2 entries every year. 😂😂
Denmark not qualifying wasn't a shock, but I agree with you that it feels as Denmark might be heading where Ireland is. I think there's a few different reasons as to why (as I see it) First of all, despite it being 10 years since we won last, the discourse around Eurovision here is that we don't want to win again because it went around 77 million over budget causing a minor scandal. Afterwards it wasn't so surprising because their initial budget didn't even include money for electricity or cleaning among other things, so obviously they went over budget. There's a lot to this scandal and I personally don't know all of it, but it's definitely one of the reasons why many in the general public might not want to host again any time soon. Secondly, even if people don’t want to pay for another Eurovision, they still have the audacity to be angry at anybody else. After this year’s show a lot of the comments I saw online were of people making fun of the contest, the songs etc. There were even some cruel comments about Reiley. I mean it’s fair not to like a song, but when a 60-year-old is trash talking a 20 something year old on the internet and talk about how the competition has become ridiculous, I find it hard to take seriously. That’s kindergarten behaviour at its best and not constructive at all. Which is the problem. I find many are starting to adopt a “Europe doesn’t like our songs anymore” stance, instead of realising that DR is just not trying to compete anymore. Which has me at the last point. Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. What a disaster this year was. First, there were only 8 songs, none of them (in my opinion) were even close to compete in this year’s finale. The show was held by two people who either really didn’t like each other and had a failed attempt at humor. And the points system made no sense. It was like watching a train wreck, but people on the train didn’t even know they were on one. The mediocracy of the competition and the almost embarrassingly amateur show they presented us, shows that they really just don’t even care to send something that could place top 10. No one watching that understood what was going on, not even us who speaks tha damn language. At the end of the day, it’s becoming more and more evident that DR really don’t want to win. They might give excuses, like there aren’t that many songs submitted for the contest, which is true compared to other countries, but It sure doesn’t help that they aren’t really taking it that seriously. At least, that’s how it comes across. Denmark have become boring, predictable, and unforgettable in the last few years. One thing I honestly think DR should do is bank on authenticity in the future, by this I mean more Danish songs. Despite Fyr og Flamme not going through, they would have if it wasn’t because of that pesky jury, and we might see them gone in the semi finals if that applies to future competition as it did this year. I know people generally despise the Danish language, and that’s why we should do it. That’s a real “we don’t care, because this is us” and THAT is one of the biggest ‘trend’, in the lack of a better word, in the last few years. As you mentioned, almost all of the non-English songs qualified to the final this year despite the consensus used to be that you can’t win with a non-English song. Sorry for the TL:DR post, I, like you Tom, don’t really have any friends who want to listen to my Eurovision rants and I needed this of my chest. So, thanks for coming to my awful Ted Talk., ok.bye.
It's a shame because Denmark for me as a fan of danish music - is absolutely trendsetter, producing very progressive very stylish music in various genres, DR should invite artists, as Cansao or Benidorm do, and give a field to experimental acts, not only cheesy pop songs with low cultural impact
Someone said elsewhere your NF suffers from brain drain with people preferring to compete in Sweden's instead. I think Yes the song that would have completed in 2020 was written by the same two who wrote Heroes for Sweden.
thank you for the message explaining the situation 🙏🏻 i loved your TED talk 😂 was 77 a typo? surely it couldnt have been 77 million, thats crazy. maybe 17 or 7? omg i actually remember watching DMGP and tweeting asking Danish people to explain to me WTF was going on cos it was sooooooo random and didnt make any sense visually yea your whole description really just sounds like Denmark is becoming Ireland, in almost every way.
If the interest from the Faroe Islands really is there, I think DR should host a Faroese-only final next year and then submit the entry as the Danish broadcaster but under the Faroese flag.
@@kinaskatinaszalia That's really surprising considering he got one of the country's best results in the final. Was that semi really stacked then and the same one that Greta Salome didn't make it out of?
Could the differences in qualification between 1st and 2nd half be partly due to "weaker" entries being purposively put on less favourable spots? Just wondering.
it shouldnt be, because 1st and 2nd halves are drawn randomly during the allocation draw, so based off that, it should be 50/50 if there are no other influencing factors
8:00 This time is turned out true, SF1 did better in finals then SF2. But i remember in 2021 when fans said the same: ''SF1 is better than SF2'', but in finals SF2 had better results. 19:00 I don't think any change in running order will help. Someone has to perform earlier and some latter.
Am I the only person who really did not like Ppppower as a song? Dilja is great I agree and I'd love her to come back just with a song that doesn't get on my nerves.
No, you're not the only person (by far), seeing it NQ'ed ;) Yes, it was a very poor song, I thought so from the start, but thought I was in the minority. Seems not
I think Georgia took the wrong lesson away from Stefania being really popular with the Eurovision crowd and doing well. She had a song that was so well produced it could have fit onto the Dua Lipa album, one of the best selling albums with the most high-charting singles in this 21st century. It wasn't that she was just young and connected. Considering they did just as well with Amanda, I found it a bit surprising that they decided to take a gamble like they did.
If Romania had a better staging director, I'm pretty sure this would be their first genuine non-qualifier ever. Roxen, Esther Peony, and The Humans especially, were all artists quite close to qualification, and I think each had pretty lackluster to outright harmful staging pacakges. If those songs are staged better and end up qualifying, I also think it would have encouraged Romania to give more of an effort this year, because from everything we've heard there was literally zero staging budget available to Theodor. I don't think there's any Universe in which that song qualifies, but the staging that he had was depressing, frankly.
I agree with everything about the NQs. Really disappointed with the result of Georgia but when the song was published I knew the lyrics wasn’t right for the song. I always want countries to send a song in their native language, it’s just my personal preference. However for Georgia it was different, the melody was amazing and unique, they really should’ve made it in Georgian and that way the staging lacking something wouldn’t matter. They are in the right direction tho(majority of the countries this year actually)
Loving the analysis as always, some thoughts on the NQs: I was really shocked about Greece's result, on paper they couldn't have asked for a more favorable semi in terms of neighbours/friends + a very weak standard, and it still got only 14 points, absolutely brutal, and sorry to say, but it's what they deserved, that song was a total dog and the performance made it even worse. Georgia and particularly Denmark absolutely killed their chances with those performances, I agree that the Georgians could have corrected it, but apparently Reiley was simply hopeless without the DMGP "magic". I guess it says a lot about the interest level in Romania and the quality of their entry this year, when not even their diaspora in Spain can't be arsed to cough up a single point, and with the ratings TVR gets, I'm shocked they haven't withdrawn yet. Makes me feel slightly sorry for San Marino that they couldn't get anything to avoid being officially last (because of being later in the running order than Romania), but that song just wasn't ever going to attract any neutral voter. I thought Iceland would complete the bottom 3, but the incompetence of the rest pushed them all the way up to 11th, good for Diljá, at least her performance felt real, even if I didn't like it.
my understanding of TVR is that its simialr to ireland in that they dont want to give it up because its cheap TV and apparently they dont have much else yea Greece was messy this year, all that suing controversy, they need a cleaner process next year
What pissing me off that's how Ukraine (my country) always gives Albania zero, viewers and juries, some sort of ignoring, Albina came freaking last in televoting, why?! just don't understand, it seems to me there is no sense to vote for Albania in future because there is no way for her receive some points
i really don't know, many people visit Albania here, it seems we have pretty normal relations, i've even made a research now to prove 2004: 0 to Albania from Ukraine, 5 from Albania to Ukraine 2005: 0 & 0 mutually 2006: skip 2007: Maybe we found an answer! 0 to Verka Serduchka from Tirana! That's crime! :) 2008: 0 to Olta Boka from ukrainian side, but 8 to Ani Lorak 2009: another 0 to iconic Kejsi Tola, ukrainians are you insane?! 2010: 0 & 0 mutually 2011: 3 to Mika Newton 2012: ZERO to Rona Nishliu from Kyiv, madness! 2013: skip 2014: Albania gives 3 to Maria Yaremchuk - silence in response 2015: skip 2016: 6 to Jamala, in sf 10, and 0 in sf to Eneda 2017: skip 2018: ZERO to Bushpepa, here we go again and 0 to Melovin 2019: skip 2021: 4 to Go_a, 0 in response 2022: 20 from Albania in sf, 0 to Ronela again 2023: 0 & 0 So yeah, it's regular, 0 points to Albania for almost 20 years, that's joke, you have new topic for video :D
It's funny you think there is a competition between our Belgian broadcasters because we don't see it like that. Nobody want's to win here, neither of the broadcasters. I need a belgian win in my lifetime. Can't wait for a repeat of the hosting nightmare that was 1987 😅 We do tend to say that RTBF is the "stronger" broadcaster. The best result from VRT is 6th in 2010 (and 1959 if you want to be technical) while RTBF has their win in 1986, two 2nd place and quite a few 4th places. Years were the other broadcaster sends an entry are significantly less watched in the other part of the country which really kills the hype for Eurovision. We don't tend to relate to the others entries. In 2022 it was a little different since Jérémie was bilingual so he was able to do interviews both in dutch and french which helped with the hype. I would love for it to be a more united or at least to keep the hype going.
In 2016 and 2023 the Flemish broadcaster did really well with the organisation and the songs from 2018 and 2020 are wonderful, especially Release Me, a masterpiece. This year, regarding the results, VRT also picked the right choice finally but I wonder if this was a good one for representing the nation. Gala Dragot was THE choice for federate more this divided country, as like as Chérine. RTBF risks more with the acts I should admit, so they can stimulate the creativity. And Loïc Nottet and Blanche were so deserving the victories...
oh yea i like that idea of sending more bilingual artists as well, unifying Belgium a bit. its sad that there is that division in the country in regards to viewing figures
I know you are gutted for Giorgia but I honestly could not get over the lyrics. No matter how talented Iru is it was just rough to listen to and take this seriously. They just had to change the lyrics. Simple revamp
yea and its weird that they didnt do that did they not know? - they should have been following the feedback more did they not care? how could you not care that so many people have a problem with it
Decision making is key in qualification it's not really even about the songs. Iceland, Georgia and Greece had good enough songs to make it but made one too many wrong choices and skrewed themselves out of the final. Estonia on the other hand, had utter nonsense for lyrics but all the right choices made on stage and exceptional vocals and boom top 10
Yep good call about estonia. They really got a lot of things very right with that staging. Belgium too. And Albania. All the borderliners who made better decisions got through
@LifeSaver996 "Iceland, Georgia and Greece had good enough songs to make it" - no, they didn't. Very poor songs all, except maybe Georgia, but its lyrics were entirely gibberish. In which alternative world do you live in, that you call Estonia's lyrics "nonsense" but think Georgia's weren't?!? 😂 Estonia's lyrics were a poetic masterpiece compared to Georgia's, they were like someone had run lyrics through google translator and left it at that...
"Boom Boom Chakka Chakka, your love is like a like a" 😂 Cheesy as hell but i LOVED that song haha! I'm still baffled by the non qualification for Georgia. I did love it when I first heard it, but it literally tailed off for me and she nose dived in my ranking. I wonder if this was the same for the majority, and by the time the Semi's came, people just weren't bothered by it anymore. I was gutted for Iceland. I really really want them to win some day soon. My favourite Eurovision song to this day is 'Minn Hinsti Dans' by Paul Oscar. I hope they can come back with something as groundbreaking and futuristic.
I really don't like the explanation that Denmark wants to avoid winning at all cost, it sounds like a cop out to me. The whole hosting situation was nearly a decade ago, and I find it stupid to say that of course we could win if we wanted to, we just coose to suck repeatedly. I believe that DR is just massively misguided in what they want DMGP and Eurovision to be, and they put no time or resources into it at all. DMGP this year seemed like it was put up on the day without rehearsal, there is nearly no promotion to create hype, and the songs are not getting radio play, even though that is apparently their main concern before eurovision results. It's a lot of incompetence, not malice imo.
Gustaph getting 7th place in the final is the kind of scenario that makes me disagree with having a 100% televote eurovision. 7th place in the final was very well deserved but he only got there through the jury vote. Brilliant idea about the longer recaps for the first few songs. Why is Iceland winning a big ask ??? There is a massive Armenian community in Brussels by the by (and maybe the rest of Belgium too)….don’t want to diminish Brunette’s achievement of course but you did ask if someone can find a connection 😊
Yes well Austria and Australia got a bad televote but here they were at the top probably majority of viewers only vote in the final anyway or don't even watch the semi final but we will never know.
@@johnny11415 Austria were royally screwed over with the running order, and Australia is pretty much a mystery why their televote was so poor in the final.
My theory on why televotes like Australia change so much between Semi's and Final is that in Semi's we vote for a variety of personal favorites, while in the final we focus on those we especially want to see either win or score a good spot. At least this is how I voted, several acts that got my votes in the Semi's did not get votes in the Final. Oh, and I did not vote for Kaarija in the Semi but did in the Final, so it was not my fault they did not win.
Might be, but the main reason probably is that this semi was *so much weaker* than semi 1, so even acts who did very well in this semi's results (like Austria and Suatralia) did not do that well in the final, with much more competition.
I know it might be a bit of an overreaction, but I really have become more in favor of a truly random running order considering the fact that this year seems like the showrunners ignored what happens in the semifinal as far as results and kind of screwed over some countries that did well in the semis. Austria should never have been the opener for the show, and the fact that they did so poorly in the final despite a top two finish in the semis is almost 100% because of the showrunners. That's wildly unfair to me.
honestly i think it would be a total disaster. it would be absolute pot luck who could win. If Loreen and Käärijä pulled 1st and 2nd slot - neither of them mightnt have won and the whole show would have been so much less exciting. i know this system has flaws, but i still think its currently one of the better systems available
If anything, I think Austria and Australia's televote results in the final show only that Semi 2 was *much* weaker when up against Semi 1 and the automatic finalists. Most of the countries from Semi 2 that did best in the final televote - Poland, Albania, Cyprus, Armenia and Lithuania - largely had their diasporas and friends to thank for it. Only Belgium 'truly earned' its place in the final televote ranking. I don't want the completely random running order to return; instead I'd rather the EBU divided the running order of the semis into quarters and the final into fifths. That would still make it random-ish but with some wiggle room for the producers to cobble together a varied order of songs and performances.
Juries back please it will stop the second half bias. Looked at the uk charts today and 12/37 songs are in the top 100 uk singles charts with 4 of them being in the top 10. Also can we have your 2019 intro back?🥺👉👈
lol omg i dont even know where that intro is anymore 😂 i was watching a few youtube content creation guides and they all say intros are a big no-no - people just exit the video 😭
I'm a proud Blanka stan. She was my favorite from the day polish songs were announced and ended up being 1st in my ranking. It's so satisfying to know Solo was in top 10 of the public.😁
The last time Sweden hosted Latvia and Georgia qualified so hopefully history will repeat itself next year.
They also did more convincingly the last time Sweden won.
And it did!
Great analysis as always. One stat you didn't find time to slip in is that this was Australia's best ever televote result, and in fact Australia's only televote win. Voyager's 62% of the maximum possible televote beats Kate's 58% and Dami's 56%. Absolutely astonishing for a prog metal band from Perth. Australia took a big risk with @voyagerau - it could easily have ended like Germany - but it paid off.
“I guess the jury didn’t like the boxing staging” (regarding Armenia 2011). Personally, I would suggest it was her abysmal vocals and Junior Eurovision lyrics that didn’t go down too well
The thing about Romania is that TVR treats the contest like a meh thing and the national selection became a very boring process where no one submits something interesting or original and also TVR has low viewing figures for years. They made a good move in 2020 and 2021 by going internally and going for the big labels, but they overdid it with the performance and they went back to that boring selection. And also public perception in Romania about Eurovision is either people never hard of it, heard of it but don't care or they think it is a meme contest full of "camp and boring songs".
TVP being rewarded for their poor behavior is honestly worse than Käärijä not winning. For those familiar with American Idol, it’s the Sanjaya effect. People sometimes vote for bad acts on purpose just to be contrarian
To be fair, a very minute portion of the voters probably knew about what happened with the national finals. The meme instead might have helped them and given them at lest some ironic votes though, but not radically. Blanka was apparently charting on many radio stations around Poland's neighbors, which I guess is the main factor in her result. The staging was messy but likely memorable for someone seeing it on stage for the first time. And as blant as I personally think the song was, it's also easy to remember. All that being said, I do wish EBU had something to say about untruthful behavior on the part of local broadcasters. It stillf baffles the sh1t out of me; why not just do a deliberate internal selection instead of fooling your own viewers? I bet the distrust will follow them for years to come. And it sure wasn't good enough to justify the outcome despite all of this.
@@AammaKblanka Is no.56 in the uk which is actually really good because uk charts are so hard to break into
I'm gonna guess what happened was it got a lot of radio airplay and did well with streaming in countries like Lithuania and Ukraine + the diaspora probably isn't fully aware of the situation. I know Rylan threw shade at the situation during the commentary in semi 2 but that didn't stop the UK from giving it a hearty amount of points.
You mean like Käärijä. That song is similar to Electric callboy and LMFAO shot, shot, shot, shot.
@@hurmur9528 wow that is something i've never seen anyone say before! S h o ck i n g. Salt must flow i guess.
Albania getting 12 pts from Rest of The World in SF2 really cheered me up❤️🖤❤️ As well as Armenia getting 8 pts from ROTW in the GF❤️🧡💙
Thanks for the great video as always!
Would definitely love to hear/see more videos in the future where you discuss what the other Eurovision countries could do in order to help win!
I’d love to see more diversity within the winners circle from countries like Estonia and Malta especially 🎉
Yeah I'm definitely going to do a video about that. Looking out why they haven't won already and what they could do to win
One thing that really pleased me was Albania getting 12 points from Rest of World in semi 2, showing that they do have widespread appeal! I gave them all my points!🤩
There are a lot of Albanians abroad as well
Now that we know Kosovo was amongst the highest voting countries, makes sense that Albania won the ROW vote in the semi
Andromache the best cypriot entry for me and what an irony that she almost one and only non-qualifier for 10 years, the song itself really the best among another
she qualified with the televote as well, so she would have made it under this years rules
The vocals on the night were really lacking, which is such a shame, Ela is one of my favourite Eurovision songs of all time
Song was great, but she did not sound great at all at the semi, and she really looked like she was on the stage against her will.
@@Lelqtii Sometimes the nerves get to people but I think if they were going for two languages Amir Haddad had the right idea have the verses in the native language and the chrous in English that way you can ease your way into singing it and only have to get nail a few catchy hook lines. I agree it's a great shame - the song's lovely and the music video got the tone just right but the staging and vocals weren't it chief.
Andromache was definitely far better than Cyprus' this year's entry, I agree! The only reason it didn't Q were probably the weak vocals, as there were juries last year :(
In regards to opening up the voting earlier, they did do that in 2010 and 2011, but the EBU ditched it because almost all the votes came after all songs were performed anyway so they saw no point in it.
maybe they could retry and push it a bit harder or promote it a bit more before the contest? im sure they could innovate it a little more. also 2010-12 was quite a while ago, so worth retrying possibly
Always appreciate the spreadsheets!
Tom please wear tank tops more 🔥
Australia is due for a win. Let’s manifest Dami Im for 2024.
Please no. (I didn't like her the first time...)
Interesting point about the two TV companies in Belgium taking turns and trying to one up one another. Could TG4 take turns with RTE? Commentary as Gaeilge 😝
nah RTE would never risk giving it up. Its 8 hours of super cheap TV for them and they get almost no heat for sucking so much, so literally nothing will change unfortunately 😭
its a bit like a child with roller skates that they dont want to try on, but they dont want any other child to try them either
I wish TG4 would take it permanently, because that way we'd have our entries as Gaeilge 😆
Really interesting analysis Tom, some points I wanted to add
The opener/closer curse has struck again this year, I think since 2014 at least one (and usually it is one) of the 4 acts which are put as an opener or closer has not qualified and Denmark were the country this year to nq.
Interestingly Belgium and Estonia, despite being in the lower ranks of qualifiers did better than the countries who placed higher than them, especially for Australia and Austria, 1st and 2nd in the semi and had some of the worst televote scores in the final.
One thing I was wondering and I did notice it after semi 1 and somewhat after semi 2, are smaller countries more disadvantaged by a televote only system?
Obviously the song and overall performance needs to be taken into consideration but most of the semi 1 acts who didn't qualify were smaller countries, some of which have continuously struggled in the televote, for semi 2 this is also somewhat the case, especially for Georgia (a country which even in junior Eurovision in recent times has gotten far fewer televote points than other countries despite being among the favourites).
Georgia also has almost no diaspora to rely on. So I do think smaller countries will struggle in the future for sure.
lol i dont think theres any way for me to answer that that wouldnt be an essay-long response 😂
I think theres various different situations with various countries. some countries have very active diaporas, while others have absolutely no disapora help at all. Tbh everyone has qualified at least once at some point, so it does show that even without that, you can still make it through, but its just easier for some compared to others
Interesting analysisses of the semi-finals. Nice to see.
I've always thought that the perfect solution to the bias towards later entries would be to show reverse recaps mixed in with the normal one (e.g first recap starting from the last to perform and going backwards to the first, 2nd recap regular recap, 3rd recap reverse recap again). They did only reverse recaps in 2002 and 2003, and the winners are from the first half of the final, so maybe mixing both could help a bit
I too really liked Georgia the first time I heard it and considered it one of my very favorites of the year. However, unlike many others (for example Albania to me personally, definitely grew on me the more I heard it and then skyrocketed on stage), the Georgian entry started to become near annoying the more I listened to it. The lyrics were not a problem at firts because I really liked how the whole song sounded and Iruy's voice is very nice. But damn did the lyrics start to bother me, to the point it became comical. Finnish Yle provides subtitles to the lyrics, which is somewhat of a national inside joke since the translations are often purposely funny and unusual. So that sort of ruined whatever was left of it for me, it just became impossible to ignore the absurdity😂 It's a shame though, I still firmly believe it would have been million times better in native language. I still like it and will probably get over the cringe reflex eventually.
yea thats a great point, if they wanted to go for this out-there lyrical concept, just do it in Georgian. especially considering how well non-English songs have done lately
THING IS KNOWN
I think it's the Albanian diaspora or something but I'm shoked to see them get 12 points from ROW
Great analysis as always. I like the idea of opening the voting at the start of the show to try and overcome the second half advantage, it would be interesting to at least see what impact it has one year and then make a decision whether to make it permanent after
apparently it didnt work that well between 2010-2012, but maybe they could retry it and push it more
Tom and a spreadsheet. A marriage made in heaven!
👏👏
Great info here regarding 1st/2nd half qualifiers and total points won by each half. I found those figures shocking.
My personal memory of this semi however is a negative though. Poor old Victor. I found it completely car crash watching. Such raw talent and such a disaster performance. It was horrible to watch but couldn't look away at the same time. 16 is simply not old enough to give your best in this competition. They could at least have added some dancers to give him support on stage. It was tantamount to cruelty. I really hope he survives this experience and goes on to have the career he wants. I wish him well.
🤞🏻🤞🏻
On top of that, I didn’t mention it here, but there’s a TikTok showing when he non qualified and none of the delegation got up to console him, only his father. Some serious sh*t went down in that delegation this year
@@ESCTom thats just horrible. He is technically a child. Some people in that delegation should have a serious look at themselves in the mirror!!
Belgium has quite some Armenian diaspora. In the televote era, we always gave high scores to Armenia and Turkey.
And Polish and Albanian too I heard.
Great vid, as always Tom! Do you think you'll be reaction to some previous years for the off-season? Would love to have your thoughts on previous editions
I know you have a lot of reaction videos already from previous years but it'd be great to have you revisit them!
Yea totally. I’m going to see how things go. I’d love to find a regular series that’s easy to do and doesn’t have too many copyright issues 😅
I'm glad people turned around on Gustaph.
Not really people, but juries...
I love Eurovision and somehow I end up watching and voting in the romanian NF every year. The problem with the public is that TVR lost credibility a long time ago, when TVR puts on a good show and invests money romanians are very interested. That year when Ester Peony won was a very good year, with an international jury and great interval acts, including Loreen, everybody was watching and everybody had the opportunity to see wiwiblogs being the only ones downvoting the public favorite, a 16 year old child, because she was used in a homophobic campaign. After that TVR had fail after fail, backlash after backlash, last year when WRS won it was because he had just signed a contract with a big record label so this year they decided to invest nothing, to give us free public voting, stressing that we will be responsible for the winner, refusing to promote and support the public's winner just to be exempt from yet another scandal and to just be able to say it was the public's choice, we are not responsable and by the way we have no money for next year or by the way here is our internally selected girl/boy our jury wants to promote next year. Because Eurovision has been a huge opportunity for Roxen and WRS, they are very successful artists in Romania and worldwide now, noone knew them before Eurovision, not so much for Theodor who is so talented and has won so many contests and he's been in every singing TV show since he was 12, just because TVR refused to promote him ( I don't want to hear anymore bullying towards this kid, I will probably get people in the comments saying he is gay trash, he's not, he has a girlfriend while WRS last year was openly bisexual and a lot of you did not complain when you started hearing him on the radio).
thank you for the insight Madalina. I was a big fan of Theodor, he is super talented and a really nice guy.
I never really understood why Wiwibloggs got all the blame for Ester Peony. Serban Cazan and Tali Eshkoli also gave it 12, William only gave it 1 point less than they did. also it was TVRs decision to have the public only worth 1/7th of the vote - if they made it more, Laura would have won
There were a lot of romanian news attacking them so people remember the story like the way the news în romania explained it.
I felt really sorry for Theodor, he sang so well in SF2, has a great personality, and the chorus of the song is actually quite authentic and catchy - maybe it could’ve been produced better? But I hope he will continue doing his thing and hopefully get a hit song and maybe even return to ESC and do well. I really hope Romania will stay in the contest, there had been so many Romanian entries over the years that I cannot imagine Eurovision without (Let Me Try, Tornero, Llamame, Playing with Fire, Miracle, Yodel It, Goodbye…)
Goodbye isn't good but the rest are or at least fun. It's sad when a former good competitor just loses its way.
Look Xnay the homophobia.
A lot of people did really like On A Sunday who weren't involved with Wiwi Bloggs. Groot for one - he says the one bright spot of the bleep show this year is that On A Sunday is no longer Romania's worst result. Someone else has pointed out that a pair of gay men are entitled to have views on a contestant being homophobic - you asked for their opinion.
Glad to hear Roxen's still doing well - they were good and actually the delagation messed them over and gave them chreography they couldn't do and still sing and then didn't support them when they got upset and they did (I'm using the pronouns I am because I've been told Roxen identifies as non binary these days at least).
I too feel for Theodore - he was left high and dry but he seems a likeable and positive minded individual who doesn't lack intelligence or a sense of perspective and he has genuine talent as a singer and performer (the rest he can learn or get other people to help him with or do for him) so he's probably had a good time and left Liverpool with a lot of contacts who can help him in the future should he need them.
And this is unique year when we have 3 countries with highest rank in the final than semifinal - Norway, Belgium and Estonia, bejbah its really krejzah
Does anyone remember ESC 2002.
EBU already then knew public vote favoured songs in the second part of the running order.
What did they do, they reversed the recap from 24 to 1.
That was 21 years ago. Did it help?
It helped Turkey in 2003 a little bit maybe
My thoughts exactly
RE: voting
I like the idea of opening the voting at the start of the show, perhaps to keep from a start-of-show bias only open ten of the twenty votes at the start and perhaps the other ten either at the 2/3rds mark or after all the acts?
Yeah They did before - between 2010 and 2012 and apparently it didn’t make enough of a difference. But maybe it’s worth trying it again now
Belgium has sent quite a few R&B songs in the past, (last year even!) so I wonder if it's just because Belgium really likes R&B music.
fabulous analysis tom! it was interesting to see how the televote pretty much agreed on the same 10 songs, and imo, they were definitely the right set of qualifiers. i would have liked to see denmark through too but it just didnt have the impact it needed on the night
what really struck me about the nqs is how young most of them are. i hope they arent taking their nqs too hard, and would love to see most of them back again once theyve had some more stage experience/ time to really figure out who they are as artists. and 100% agree that 16 is too young for eurovision, lets hope the ebu raises the minimum age to 18 soon 🤞
Yea that’s a good point about the age actually. You look at someone like Monika linkyte or Gustaph and they literally made no errors with their staging whatsoever, they got 100% out of it. And compare that with some of the younger artists
My idea for running order would be to play the recap in reverse order !
They did it already in 2003 if I’m not mistaken, and Turkey won as number 4 in the final !
Romanian here
TVR is underfunded and corrupt. That’s why Global Records pulled out this year. WRS probably invested in Eurovision on his own with some help from his music label. But tbh his song was a bit of a leftover from GR. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what they usually produce.
A bit of context: Global Records is the largest independent music label in Central and Eastern Europe. It was established more or less thanks to INNA and the success some of their composers had in the 2000’s and 2010’s.
In 2020 TVR was accused of only giving the ESC ticket to a large music label (yes, you guessed it..Global Records). A lot of independent smaller local composers complained. I guess it was rather unfair and corrupt, but tbh Selecția Națională has become a sh*tshow :(
About SF 2
It was weaker than sf 1. Low key I expected these results. I felt bad for Georgia and Iceland. I knew I’d lose one of my favourites in this semifinal - Estonia, Lithuania / Iceland. I feel like juries would’ve pushed them all through. But we don’t have juries anymore :(
Georgia messed up the staging, it was low key expectable. The lyrics didn’t make sense either. I guess some people found that annoying.
ALSO
Can Poland just send Sanah???
Stop sending some of these no names. Yes, the memes were funny, but her voice is horrible and that’s cheating! Why are you able to have your voice so low in comparison to the actual track?? 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
Ahhhh thank you for explaining this. Sometimes these weird situations can be explained so clearly when you get the background info from a local 🙏🏻
Do you think TVR will pull out then? Maybe pro TV would take over then?
@@ESCTomAs a fellow Romanian, I think it would be a wise decision to pull out for at least one year. Maybe rethink strategies, and invest into more dedicated people. I saw that this year TVR spent 380k euros for the Eurovision participation and I am sorry but what..?? Definitely we did not see this investment into Theodor's staging, so most people know that TVR is actually using Eurovision ti just launder some money. Also, I am not sure if Pro TV or other television could replace TVR because they have to be in the EBU and I think only televisions sponsored by the state can be members, but I might be wrong..
@@ESCTom Doubt that will ever happen. Eurovision is a money sink, it loses several hundred thousand dollars a year. A private TV station would not take the hit. The reason TVR is still doing it is because it's publicly funded, from people's taxes. They do Eurovision every year because a big chunk of the money goes in the pockets of the organizers and the companies of their friends and families. It's an extremely corrupt business. Lots of money get spent, very little is actually put into the act itself, promotion and so on.
People pretty much got fed with Eurovision many years ago, due to corruption, favoritism, nepotism and so on (mainly on TVR part, but also ESC). Legitimately great acts in the National Selection, that were also fan favorites, were pushed aside year after year by incompetent and corrupt jurors. Throughout the years, some of the jurors died of old age holding the job, promoting music that they or their friends composed, music that's not relevant for literally decades. Every reformation in the past 10-15 years, was a complete fail, replacing one type of corruption and incompetence, with another. In the end, all the good placements in the international competition, were due to pure luck.
Due to the whole situation, any legitimate artist would rather move on the moon than participate in the NS, thinning down the chances of actually sending something good. Even the emergent artists that were decent, after going through NS once, say in interviews that it's unlikely they will ever participate again (who can condemn them? people hate to get shamelessly robbed).
This year's national song pool was absolutely terrible, as if they intentionally got together the worst songs possible, so that no matter what the public would vote for, it would end in disaster. This was done of course in order to justify bringing the jury back next year, so that the corruption cycle can repeat itself. May sound like a conspiracy, but it's not even the first time they did this.
Poland 3rd in SF2 and Estonia 10th - what a shame! And in the finals, Poland would also have ranked before Estonia by public votes only. Here you have a good example, what Eurovision would look like without the juries.
Re running order - do you think that the 3 automatic qualifiers performing in full as the first 3 acts? It shifts the ‘competing’ songs further into the show which might neutralise the first few songs having fewer voting viewers?
i dont think that would work. the Auto QFs are the ones paying for the contest. i think throwing them in front of the bus isnt fair. also they have the biggest viewing figures by far so it makes sense to put them a bit later to make sure people tune in for longer. and this year most of them were competitive as well.
@@ESCTom whoops I didn’t make that clear, I meant in the semis only! So whichever 3 that are assigned to a particular SF perform in full to get the party started (also means the big 5 +1 get to show their whole song before the final). Then the competitive part of the SF final starts.
I’ve no idea how you do the running order in the final more fairly!!!
Tvr is not popular in romania. There are bigger networks with a lot more people watching compared to tvr. I feel like here is a fight between A1, TVR and ProTV.
About Romania, I have seen a couple of people sugesting ProTV, a private broadcaster could take TVR's place (something that I would hope for the furture since TVR is lacking in every aspect)
In 2016 when TVR did not pay its debt to EBU and were disqualified, ProTv offered to step in and this was the EBU's response:
"Official Statement on ProTV and the Eurovision Song Contest:
"Although ProTV approached us with an offer to broadcast this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, because they are not Members of the European Broadcasting Union and the Eurovision Song Contest is a competition between Members and Associates, we cannot take them up on their offer.”"
I have no idea what being a member of the EBU entales - if it is more than taxes owed, or standards for transmission or soemthing else. In 2016 maybe ProTV did not have enough time to become a EBU member.
Ah that’s interesting. So I guess TVR is like the public broadcaster so they get priority. That’s sad considering that Pro Tv sound like the more professional and successful broadcaster
I think your comment about opening the vote as the show starts could work, but I think it should maybe be a measure only for the semi finals? It’s a good idea to combat running order bias though!
yea maybe even only in the SF or something. or try it in JESC and see what happens. I know they tried it before, but i think they need to look into it again if they stay with Televote only
Re suggestions for vids in the off season - I'd love to see you do a video explaning some of the background on San Marino at ESC Tom as I find their participation interesting. For example: how does a tiny broadcaster in a microstate fund it year after year? Why has San Marino stayed in it every year while other microstates have left? Do the artists fund it in part themselves? Are there Sanmarinese ESC fans? What does San Marino need to do in your opinion to start performing well again?
Yea that’s a good idea. I’ll look into that. I’m not sure how far I would get though. I have a feeling they a lot of what happens is a little bit on the underground / behind closed doors
@@ESCTom it's really odd isn't it. The NF seems so dodgy too.
I would love to see a duet between Senhit and Serhat for San Marino 2024 maybe with a beautiful Italian Ballad, but with just the right infusion of their amazing individuality added. Ireland to go back to the Celtic roots (approach Eimear Quinn again, etc. or even Patty Gurdy from Germany!) and the UK to tap into their Scottish/Wales history for song influence. This last one is a bit more random, but I would LOVE to see AQUA represent Denmark just once...
great video as always ❤ i talked to my partner about TVR, (he's romanian). so, TVR is by ratio, the smallest national broadcaster of the ESC countries, and it's very unpopular as a channel in general - by viewership it's about 9 times smaller than ProTV which is the channel that hosts all the popular shows like The Voice or Got Talent. it seems logical that ProTV, the most popular channel that already has competition shows and a big audience, should be in charge of the Eurovision, but TVR basically only has Eurovision going for it and won't give up that contract. IIRC, the partipation fees are scaled for population, Romania is (~19mil) so Romania is presumably paying a high rate for extremely low viewership right now. it doesn't make a ton of sense. i don't know if we'd see an improvement if Pro TV took over, but whatever TVR is doing right now doesn't seem to be sustainable
omg i didnt realise that situation about there being a much bigger more successful channel. ok wow so then presumably that debate that they had last year was all for show? does your partner think that Pro TV would take it if they were offered?
@@ESCTom Isn't it the case that only national broadcasters can be EBU members? Pro TV is private.
@@trildi There do appear to be a couple of private broadcasters/companies that are EBU members, so it might not be a requirement on its own, however a private one might not fullfill other criteria, and justify the membership fee expense.
I think Luxembourg's TV channel is a commercial channel and the finals and semis both have ad breaks which would suggest some commercial aspects on some broadcasting channels. For reference the BBC the British channel doesn't have ad breaks.
@@trildino a broadcaster doesn’t have to be the national one it just has to be a member of the EBU for Eurovision. SBS in Australia isn’t the national broadcaster though still part of the EBU even if it’s associate.
Hopefully not just qualify for next year, but I hope from now on Latvia & Georgia will become Eurovision powerhouses while still being themselves & sending more risky/out-there songs.
Yea actually it would be cool to have another new powerhouse in Eurovision. Finland recently have stepped up. Belgium had that hot period as well in 2015-17
@@ESCTom I really, truly hope Finland *is* now a new Eurovision powerhouse, statistics point that way at least - someone calculated that Finland is the 4th most successful country in 2020's ESC, in average placing! That's quite well for an eternally underrated & screwed over country in ESC, until now I mean :)
Would be very interesting to see how the placements would vary if you included the potential jury 50/50 split by looking at how the juries voted in the GF. I know it's not the same because we can't know how the juries wouldve voted for the NQ'd countries, but still intereseting. Hope you're enjoying Istanbul!
I share your love for Iceland! Also need to experience them winning ESC as long as I‘m alive… 🥰
I think this year it really was a hyperaktive presentation of a song that just wasn‘t that interesting.
I want to see a Semi-Final where a NQ-country gets points from everyone. Oh god, that would be such a bitter moment. But I think it's possible.
Just a sidenote for voting from beginning of the show: They already tried it in 2010 and 11 but discontinued it from 2012 onwards again because Digame registered very few votes before the recaps.
And beside Romania, Latvia had also some lyrics in the national language and did not qualify. And I think that Belgium has a big armenian diaspora.
Interested to see you mention Georgia's gibberish because that's something I don't think we considered beforehand. And I mean the actual gibberish, not the English lyrics. When we hear it in a studio cut, it sounds unique and interesting, but I'm wondering how the voters who hadn't heard the song before felt watching someone actually SING it. I wonder if that hurt them.
Armenia has performed 2nd in the semi 3 times (2010, 2015 and 2022) and all of those times we've come 6th in the televote.
I have been loving Eurovision for about 13 years now. And I don't watch our danish Melodi grandprix at all. Because it is so meh. It makes sense that we don't wanna win after the budget scandal, but it would be cool to get a song that I wanted Europe to send to the final. I'm considering watching next year, but I doubt it will be very exciting.
yea unfortunately 2021 did actually qualify quite comfortably in the televote, but the jury ranked it down 😭
im convinced that if there were juries in the semi finals that georgia and iceland wouldve qualified and estonia wouldve placed way higher. Im also convinced that georgia wouldve been top 10 in the grand final if they had qualified (because of juries, kinda like estonia)
oh yea Estonia would have been top 3 if there were juries in the SFs
as for Georgia, yea i think she would have done better, because her voice is exceptional, but i think they would have punished the lyric thing just as the public did
What happened in 2015 with Denmark?
After the 2013 competition there was a huge scandal to do with the competition going way over cost
@@ESCTom Oh, okay. Thanks for the explanation. Haven't been in the bubble for a long time so...
Great vid as ever! From memory did they not open voting from the start in 2010 in Oslo? I don’t know if any other years did that and why they stopped it- I guess they saw it made no difference? Didn’t they also play the recap in reverse order in the early 2000s too? Hmmmm yeah some sort of running order awareness campaign during the show might be nice 😂
oooooo im not sure, but that would be very interesting to know if they tried that in 2010. i might go try and watch it and see if the presenters mention it
yep i just checked, youre right. although it did mean Azerbaijan came 5th from the opening slot.
@@ESCTom yeah so I wonder why they stopped it? Azerbaijan was a big favourite before the contest from memory.
Wait what happend with Denmark in 2013?
They won
I really hope Poland’s TVP does a Spain’s RTVE and change their system. If Spain thought “yeah, people were mad when Chanel won because of the jury votes, maybe we should fix that” despite her ending up 3rd, i really really hope Poland has the dignity to do the same.
Lots of delicious number crunching here 🙂; you're really the Eurovision analyst to turn to!
Must be said that this was a less interesting semi with, as I've said earlier, quite a lot of songs that I did not particularly care about.
Australia was very solid.
Slovenia was maybe a tad too effortless if you know what I mean, I also got the feeling that their camera work wasn't engaging us as tv viewers as much as it should. Song and band are just really good though.
Estonia was very classy and powerful, happy for her.
Armenia also managed to catch my interest more and more, and Belgium was a really lovely and very deserved surprise.
Poland... well Blanka did well I'll give her that. 12 points from their neighbours though, and 10 from UK and Iceland which both have pretty big Polish communities.
Iceland was to me exhausting to watch. She's great singer but she was so overdoing everything on stage, and the song is really boring af (sorry Diljá).
Georgia... I know you love it but there's very little in that song that grabs me. It's so repetitive, the lyrics are empty, her vocal is technically great but monotonous, and the staging was just dull. I've seen clips of her on Instagram dancing on "Echo" where she has two great (and very handsome I might add) male dancers with her. Some choreo might have blown some life into this performance, so it's a pity that Georgian TV apparently didn't have the money to bring them along.
I think that in 2010-2011 the phone lines were already open during the entire show, if I remember correctly? And I always thought they dropped that because it turned out that it didn't matter for the qualification rate in the first half.
agree with pretty much all you say there.
I think if you'd given "echo" to a delegation with a proven track record on staging & decision making like Ukraine or Sweden, it 100% would have qualified. They would have made some lyric changes and staged it perfectly and probably would have been top 6 in the semi.
yea they tried it in 2010-2012 - might be worth them trying again but pushing it a little bit more
I think there’s a lot of Armenians around Belgium/France area, they’ve given lots of points to Armenia in the past (from tele especially)
To me the big question is how Georgia lost so much traction the last weeks before the SF. All of the others NQ countries were pretty much in the NQ zone through the entire process while Georgia was well within the top 5 area most of the period. I think it was even number 2 on the betting lists at one point. So more than trying to understand why people didn’t like the Georgian entry (I think it was very popular when it came out) I try to make sense of how the wheels were coming off so heavily during those last weeks. It was the only song that were forecasted to qualify that ended up not qualifying, but the ominous factor for Georgia was the downward spiral that couldn’t be stopped for some reason. It was like a Caucasian avalanche, and when I saw the final numbers it was clear how far it fell. Less than 50% of the votes of number 10 is pretty harsh. There’s enough material for an entire analysis of Georgia alone, cause I believe this is quite multi-factorial. I just wonder how it would have done in SF1.
i think realistically it would have done much worse in SF1.
Yea, i dont know if you saw my Eurovision scoreboard videos, but Georgia was already losing huge traction before rehearsals even began. I think some of the lyric choices made the song less enjoyable to listen to multiple times.
@@ESCTom Yes I saw that too, and I remember starting to worry for them to NQ like a week or so before the SF. As for the lyrics I remember that being a topic from the first hour that the song was released, so it wasn't like an unknown factor either, but it became very much a focal point for many within the community. One thing I wonder about is whether the quiet parts of the song could have had some more arrangements to it, maybe some strings, choir, organ, echo-ish harpsichord or something, I don't know, cause the verses were quite minimalistically arranged. I also remember some youtuber brought up how much the song consists of mid and high ranges, but not so much low range. If you want to create that explosive dynamics between quiet and intense maybe it's important to have some low range in there as well. I remember seeing someone referring to the song as a "screaming mosquito" which sounds a little harsh, but I kind of get what they mean with that. It's a lot of sharp treble. Iru seems to be doing fine though. I hope she tries again with another song.
Can somebody explain to me the "don't wanna win" thing for Denmark... One of the RICHEST countries in the world??? I also think the Luxembourgish broadcaster kept bringing up money as an issue for their ongoing absence when, again, it's a fucking rich country 😂
well as far as I know, the broadcaster has their own separate funding in most cases, so its not really the country that pays for it, its the broadcaster. the government could give them some money, but the broadcaster takes the biggest financial hit
@@ESCTom ohhh. That sounds more reasonable. The greek public, allegedly, had to pay around half a million for Victor's trainwreck of a performance and people are NOT happy!
I'm not entirely surprised by how well Poland did. The majority of the viewers probably didn't know about the controversies with the selection, and they saw a very attractive woman singing a happy pop song, which is easy to listen to and isn't too artistic, and they even managed to edit the performance with backing vocals to sound in tune.
I was sad for Georgia and Iceland. I think both countries would have benefited from using their native language this year, especially Georgia. The risk of singing in a language everyone understands is that bad lyrics sound really bad, even if the song itself is good.
I don't get why Georgia is not getting qualified. I've been a fan of theirs ever since they first joined in 2007 (I still go back to Visionary Dream every now and then). They often send something less obviously eurovision, and that is often a good thing in my books.
With Iceland, as mesmerized as I was with Diljá's physical abilities, maybe less would have been more. I'd really love to see Iceland win the ESC, too, because they've sent amazing songs for so many years they'd really deserve a win.
I wonder if we've started to focus too much on the betting odds with Eurovision. It was declared so early in the year, who was a potential winner, and once we got the lists of who would perform in which semifinal, we kinda accepted this was the weaker semifinal - and maybe partially caused the lack of interest in it. Are the results of the ESC becoming more and more a self-fulfilling prophecy? Does it matter more to be a part of the stronger semifinal, than where you are in the performing order? 🤔
i think the odds are getting better because theres so much social media, so you can literally get thousands of opinions on the songs, and then you can see streaming numbers etc, so theres just do much relevant data around
this is why it is such a shame 2020 didnt happen, cos even with all that information, it still wasnt clear who would win. and funnily enough, it seems like it would have been ICeland
The self-fulfilling prophecy was very apparent this year. We went into Eurovision week knowing it was a battle between Loreen and Käärijä. Everyone knew that Loreen would win the jury so people altered the way they voted to try and combat this, which is why Germany came last and Australia did so much worse in the televotes for the final, because they lost their votes to Finland. If the odds weren’t there, I think there would’ve been a much less intense rivalry between Sweden and Finland. No one else ever stood a chance
@@_dont_mind_me Right? I was (obviously) rooting for Finland, but I didn't really like how the contest was had more outside of the stage, even if it clearly benefited Käärijä and Finland, too. I'm not a fan of rivalries to begin with, and I love the ESC for the music and the community, not for who wins - but it is a bit of a downer how things go these days.
@@Leena79 there was so much quality this year that got pushed aside as people focused only on the top two. And it is quite ironic that people complain about the low televote for Spain, Germany, France, Austria etc. when it was their focus on the Finland televote that caused it in the first place.
I think if the Sweden-Finland battle hadn’t been so exacerbated by the odds and the fandom, people’s reactions wouldn’t have been so extreme after the show, with hate being thrown left right and centre and many people turning 180 on their opinion of Loreen’s song and performance or diluting Käärijä down to a clown show. I hope people remember that, while there should be some tweaks to how the juries work, most years do not end up like this and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with how esc currently functions.
about Belgium - I genuinely think they might "accidentally" win in the next few years. they're always underestimated and don't do too shabby
I'm really trying to be more open minded about Blanka and separate her as a person from TVP's antics. My biggest struggle with it is she comes off as a spoiled rich girl and was liking nasty comments about Jann (that could've been her team though) and overall their qualification and televote success comes off as rewarding bad behavior. At the same time, she did still improve and the Eurovision performance was MILES better than the NF one and I appreciate someone turning lemons into lemonade regardless of the situation.
yea im largely in the same place as you. i blame TVP way more than her. she's def a rich kid. unfortunately in real life, rich people get more opportunities every single day, its more a symptom of the world than a new evil. and i think most ambitious young singers would accept a free ticket to Eurovision if they were offered.
she clearly practiced a lot for the performance, and i actually thought it was one of the more enjoyable ones.
@@ESCTom I think she seems very sheltered though it is the way of the world but it doesn't make it easier to take. I had a similar background but not meeting the normal beauty standards and being neurally atypical meant I got picked on and that gave me some empathy for other people who get picked on because they're different Blanka doesn't have that her experiences seem to be leading her to believe she can do anything because she deserves it rather than the reality she's just lucky that she's come into the game with certain advantages.
@@EmoBearRights she's probably a very nice girl. I just hope Eurovision was a growing experience for her in some way
I think ESC Should require 18+, We already have JESC,
I voted for San Marino and didnt get them a Point.
Maybe a stupid question but I'm curious as you keep congratulating the Belgian team on their successes in qualifying. But aren't there two separate teams, one from RTBF on even years and another from the Flemish broadcaster VRT on odd years?
haha yea i remembered that later on in the video when i talked about how them competing with each other is probably why theyre doing so well 😂
Oops sorry, you mentioned Belgium again at the end, sorry for the question
hi tom. can we do live programme?
I’ll look into it. I need to get some software and practice how to use it
@@ESCTom we can do my channel. I can send a link to you. If you have camera and mic u can join :)
It's so crazy to me that's Poland did what they did considering there are so many Eurovision acts that have historically been nepotism-based selections that were just announced. For God's sake, Poland literally did this a couple years ago with The Ride. If you don't have the desire for a true democracy, be it because you're afraid that commercial act will win or because you just have some idea in mind already... Just internally select the song and call it a day.
I suppose Poland was ascribing to the all publicity is good publicity School of thought, and to be fair, Blanka really did embrace the negative press and used it to her advantage, I think
I also think that they weren’t expecting Jann to take off as much as he did. They only changed the rules once they saw he was gaining huge popularity
Here in Belgium you see a Polish license plate in every street, so yeah there is certainly diaspora voting here. And we don't know that much about music quality so that an extra reason they got points from us, sadly.
If Iru saying the exact same song in Georgian, even with the staging, I think it could have snuck through. The staging did not help, though, and overall the song really underperformed. I just don't understand how Georgia is so good at JESC but don't quite seem to get it as far as staging goes for ESC.
One easy fix about the first half/second half problem would be simply to open the televote soon without waiting for that 15 minutes window at the end of the show.
well apprently they tried that in 2010-2012 and it didnt make a difference, but maybe its time to try it again
@@ESCTomI think the reason why we don’t have it anymore was in the hacking of the vote rather than in inefficiency of that for the acts of the first half. It did make a difference, especially with Bosnia and Herzegovina in the final of 2011.
Really weird thing in the grand final, San Marino televote gave Finland 12 points but jury placed Finland last. 😀
lol yea thats quite an extreme differential
San Marino never has a valid televote, so those scored were aggregated.
I think Iceland and Georgia's chances were scuppered by the fact that we had 5 or so entries that fit the 'screaming woman' archetype. Though having said that I don't think either of them would have qualified in semi 1 either lol. Really hoping Georgia doesn't withdraw
i havent heard any speculation about Georgia withdrawing so hopefully thats a good sign
i think they should do the same thing they do in junior eurovision where they only draw first and last to perform and the rest of it is picked by the producers
maybe it would be less fair but at least you're not given worse odds before you even pick the entry
i didnt realise that they did that in JESC, thanks for that information
Great video. Could you just explain your comment about Denmark winning in 2013? Did Denmark not want to win?💀🤣
there was a funding scandal after hosting as their contest went way over the estimated costs
14:06 What happened in 2013 with the broadcaster?
They had a lot of financial issues after going over budget while hosting
Hi Tom❤ yeah agree this was the weaker semi final but Australia and Austria did so well here but the televote was quite poor in the final that was a surprise for me. Maybe if Italy was voting in this semi San Marino would have gotten a few points but to be honest wouldn't have made much difference. Well last year San Marino had Achille Lauro who had also participated at San Remo but really wasnt a good choice either. I have nothing against San Marino and I am Italian but in the end it's nearly always another Italian entry partecipating for them so Italy actually have 2 entries every year. 😂😂
its a shame that it seems that San MArino cant just pick one of the songs from Sanremo that didnt win
what happened in 2013? why don't Denmark want to win? can someone explain to me? I missed something
They don’t want to win again after winning in 2013 from what I’ve heard
Denmark not qualifying wasn't a shock, but I agree with you that it feels as Denmark might be heading where Ireland is. I think there's a few different reasons as to why (as I see it)
First of all, despite it being 10 years since we won last, the discourse around Eurovision here is that we don't want to win again because it went around 77 million over budget causing a minor scandal. Afterwards it wasn't so surprising because their initial budget didn't even include money for electricity or cleaning among other things, so obviously they went over budget. There's a lot to this scandal and I personally don't know all of it, but it's definitely one of the reasons why many in the general public might not want to host again any time soon.
Secondly, even if people don’t want to pay for another Eurovision, they still have the audacity to be angry at anybody else. After this year’s show a lot of the comments I saw online were of people making fun of the contest, the songs etc. There were even some cruel comments about Reiley. I mean it’s fair not to like a song, but when a 60-year-old is trash talking a 20 something year old on the internet and talk about how the competition has become ridiculous, I find it hard to take seriously. That’s kindergarten behaviour at its best and not constructive at all. Which is the problem. I find many are starting to adopt a “Europe doesn’t like our songs anymore” stance, instead of realising that DR is just not trying to compete anymore.
Which has me at the last point. Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. What a disaster this year was. First, there were only 8 songs, none of them (in my opinion) were even close to compete in this year’s finale. The show was held by two people who either really didn’t like each other and had a failed attempt at humor. And the points system made no sense. It was like watching a train wreck, but people on the train didn’t even know they were on one. The mediocracy of the competition and the almost embarrassingly amateur show they presented us, shows that they really just don’t even care to send something that could place top 10. No one watching that understood what was going on, not even us who speaks tha damn language.
At the end of the day, it’s becoming more and more evident that DR really don’t want to win. They might give excuses, like there aren’t that many songs submitted for the contest, which is true compared to other countries, but It sure doesn’t help that they aren’t really taking it that seriously. At least, that’s how it comes across. Denmark have become boring, predictable, and unforgettable in the last few years. One thing I honestly think DR should do is bank on authenticity in the future, by this I mean more Danish songs. Despite Fyr og Flamme not going through, they would have if it wasn’t because of that pesky jury, and we might see them gone in the semi finals if that applies to future competition as it did this year. I know people generally despise the Danish language, and that’s why we should do it. That’s a real “we don’t care, because this is us” and THAT is one of the biggest ‘trend’, in the lack of a better word, in the last few years. As you mentioned, almost all of the non-English songs qualified to the final this year despite the consensus used to be that you can’t win with a non-English song.
Sorry for the TL:DR post, I, like you Tom, don’t really have any friends who want to listen to my Eurovision rants and I needed this of my chest. So, thanks for coming to my awful Ted Talk., ok.bye.
It's a shame because Denmark for me as a fan of danish music - is absolutely trendsetter, producing very progressive very stylish music in various genres, DR should invite artists, as Cansao or Benidorm do, and give a field to experimental acts, not only cheesy pop songs with low cultural impact
Someone said elsewhere your NF suffers from brain drain with people preferring to compete in Sweden's instead. I think Yes the song that would have completed in 2020 was written by the same two who wrote Heroes for Sweden.
thank you for the message explaining the situation 🙏🏻 i loved your TED talk 😂
was 77 a typo? surely it couldnt have been 77 million, thats crazy. maybe 17 or 7?
omg i actually remember watching DMGP and tweeting asking Danish people to explain to me WTF was going on cos it was sooooooo random and didnt make any sense visually
yea your whole description really just sounds like Denmark is becoming Ireland, in almost every way.
btw i LOVED Fuld Effekt last year, that would have been SO good and interesting!
If the interest from the Faroe Islands really is there, I think DR should host a Faroese-only final next year and then submit the entry as the Danish broadcaster but under the Faroese flag.
What happened with Denmark winning in 2013?
there was a funding scandal after hosting as their contest went way over cost
Yesss Tom, I also really need Iceland to win, tht would be so amazing|
As long as it's not with a song like Power I do too.
Lithuania was 4th in the semi-final in 2021 as well
Where were they in the 2016 final? The second Donny song.
@@EmoBearRights 9th place
@@kinaskatinaszalia That's really surprising considering he got one of the country's best results in the final. Was that semi really stacked then and the same one that Greta Salome didn't make it out of?
@@EmoBearRights He was 4th in the semi, 9th in the final
Could the differences in qualification between 1st and 2nd half be partly due to "weaker" entries being purposively put on less favourable spots? Just wondering.
it shouldnt be, because 1st and 2nd halves are drawn randomly during the allocation draw, so based off that, it should be 50/50 if there are no other influencing factors
8:00 This time is turned out true, SF1 did better in finals then SF2. But i remember in 2021 when fans said the same: ''SF1 is better than SF2'', but in finals SF2 had better results.
19:00 I don't think any change in running order will help. Someone has to perform earlier and some latter.
Do you think Ireland would have qualified if they were in this semi? The UK vote may have helped?
Also what happened in Denmark? Why don't they want to win again?😅
i think they would have gotten more points but probably come 11th or 12th
Am I the only person who really did not like Ppppower as a song? Dilja is great I agree and I'd love her to come back just with a song that doesn't get on my nerves.
Nah I didn’t like the song either. I often don’t enjoy drunk and bass beats
No, you're not the only person (by far), seeing it NQ'ed ;) Yes, it was a very poor song, I thought so from the start, but thought I was in the minority. Seems not
I think Georgia took the wrong lesson away from Stefania being really popular with the Eurovision crowd and doing well. She had a song that was so well produced it could have fit onto the Dua Lipa album, one of the best selling albums with the most high-charting singles in this 21st century. It wasn't that she was just young and connected. Considering they did just as well with Amanda, I found it a bit surprising that they decided to take a gamble like they did.
I don't see any connection between Georgia this year and Stefania...? Please explain 😅
I voted for Romania to withdraw in that poll last summer lol, felt they shouldve been out after the jury rigging last year
its actually seems similar to our situation, where it appears theres a better broadcaster, but the crappy broadcaster wont let it go
@@ESCTom I have many things to say about RTE but I dont think theyd stoop to jury rigging kealy isnt that desperate YET
If Romania had a better staging director, I'm pretty sure this would be their first genuine non-qualifier ever. Roxen, Esther Peony, and The Humans especially, were all artists quite close to qualification, and I think each had pretty lackluster to outright harmful staging pacakges. If those songs are staged better and end up qualifying, I also think it would have encouraged Romania to give more of an effort this year, because from everything we've heard there was literally zero staging budget available to Theodor. I don't think there's any Universe in which that song qualifies, but the staging that he had was depressing, frankly.
You can easily make Iceland win by bringing alcohol to the elves. They should just beware of any boat parties before the final 😂
😂
btw Double Trouble is one of my most played Eurovision songs ever
@@ESCTom I often have JaJa Ding Dong stuck in my head :)) The whole soundtrack is amazing tho. I sometimes forget they aren't real Eurovision songs 😂
@@byankachan "Husavik, My Hometown" is so much better, that actually sounds like a real Eurovision song ;D
I think Poland also got a boost from the new Ukrainian diaspora. Ukraine's televote gave 12p to Poland in both the semi and the final.
I agree with everything about the NQs. Really disappointed with the result of Georgia but when the song was published I knew the lyrics wasn’t right for the song. I always want countries to send a song in their native language, it’s just my personal preference. However for Georgia it was different, the melody was amazing and unique, they really should’ve made it in Georgian and that way the staging lacking something wouldn’t matter. They are in the right direction tho(majority of the countries this year actually)
Loving the analysis as always, some thoughts on the NQs:
I was really shocked about Greece's result, on paper they couldn't have asked for a more favorable semi in terms of neighbours/friends + a very weak standard, and it still got only 14 points, absolutely brutal, and sorry to say, but it's what they deserved, that song was a total dog and the performance made it even worse.
Georgia and particularly Denmark absolutely killed their chances with those performances, I agree that the Georgians could have corrected it, but apparently Reiley was simply hopeless without the DMGP "magic".
I guess it says a lot about the interest level in Romania and the quality of their entry this year, when not even their diaspora in Spain can't be arsed to cough up a single point, and with the ratings TVR gets, I'm shocked they haven't withdrawn yet.
Makes me feel slightly sorry for San Marino that they couldn't get anything to avoid being officially last (because of being later in the running order than Romania), but that song just wasn't ever going to attract any neutral voter.
I thought Iceland would complete the bottom 3, but the incompetence of the rest pushed them all the way up to 11th, good for Diljá, at least her performance felt real, even if I didn't like it.
my understanding of TVR is that its simialr to ireland in that they dont want to give it up because its cheap TV and apparently they dont have much else
yea Greece was messy this year, all that suing controversy, they need a cleaner process next year
What pissing me off that's how Ukraine (my country) always gives Albania zero, viewers and juries, some sort of ignoring, Albina came freaking last in televoting, why?! just don't understand, it seems to me there is no sense to vote for Albania in future because there is no way for her receive some points
oh is that a regular thing? do you think that theres a reason for it?
i really don't know, many people visit Albania here, it seems we have pretty normal relations, i've even made a research now to prove
2004: 0 to Albania from Ukraine, 5 from Albania to Ukraine
2005: 0 & 0 mutually
2006: skip
2007: Maybe we found an answer! 0 to Verka Serduchka from Tirana! That's crime! :)
2008: 0 to Olta Boka from ukrainian side, but 8 to Ani Lorak
2009: another 0 to iconic Kejsi Tola, ukrainians are you insane?!
2010: 0 & 0 mutually
2011: 3 to Mika Newton
2012: ZERO to Rona Nishliu from Kyiv, madness!
2013: skip
2014: Albania gives 3 to Maria Yaremchuk - silence in response
2015: skip
2016: 6 to Jamala, in sf 10, and 0 in sf to Eneda
2017: skip
2018: ZERO to Bushpepa, here we go again and 0 to Melovin
2019: skip
2021: 4 to Go_a, 0 in response
2022: 20 from Albania in sf, 0 to Ronela again
2023: 0 & 0
So yeah, it's regular, 0 points to Albania for almost 20 years, that's joke, you have new topic for video :D
@@ESCTom i'm sorry, 1 point to Anjeza in 2004 in the semifinal
It's funny you think there is a competition between our Belgian broadcasters because we don't see it like that. Nobody want's to win here, neither of the broadcasters. I need a belgian win in my lifetime. Can't wait for a repeat of the hosting nightmare that was 1987 😅
We do tend to say that RTBF is the "stronger" broadcaster. The best result from VRT is 6th in 2010 (and 1959 if you want to be technical) while RTBF has their win in 1986, two 2nd place and quite a few 4th places. Years were the other broadcaster sends an entry are significantly less watched in the other part of the country which really kills the hype for Eurovision. We don't tend to relate to the others entries. In 2022 it was a little different since Jérémie was bilingual so he was able to do interviews both in dutch and french which helped with the hype. I would love for it to be a more united or at least to keep the hype going.
In 2016 and 2023 the Flemish broadcaster did really well with the organisation and the songs from 2018 and 2020 are wonderful, especially Release Me, a masterpiece. This year, regarding the results, VRT also picked the right choice finally but I wonder if this was a good one for representing the nation. Gala Dragot was THE choice for federate more this divided country, as like as Chérine.
RTBF risks more with the acts I should admit, so they can stimulate the creativity. And Loïc Nottet and Blanche were so deserving the victories...
oh yea i like that idea of sending more bilingual artists as well, unifying Belgium a bit. its sad that there is that division in the country in regards to viewing figures
I know you are gutted for Giorgia but I honestly could not get over the lyrics. No matter how talented Iru is it was just rough to listen to and take this seriously. They just had to change the lyrics. Simple revamp
yea and its weird that they didnt do that
did they not know? - they should have been following the feedback more
did they not care? how could you not care that so many people have a problem with it
"Aggregated" ?
they take a mix of countries with similar voting patterns and "make up" a televote from that
Decision making is key in qualification it's not really even about the songs. Iceland, Georgia and Greece had good enough songs to make it but made one too many wrong choices and skrewed themselves out of the final. Estonia on the other hand, had utter nonsense for lyrics but all the right choices made on stage and exceptional vocals and boom top 10
Yep good call about estonia. They really got a lot of things very right with that staging. Belgium too. And Albania. All the borderliners who made better decisions got through
@LifeSaver996 "Iceland, Georgia and Greece had good enough songs to make it" - no, they didn't. Very poor songs all, except maybe Georgia, but its lyrics were entirely gibberish. In which alternative world do you live in, that you call Estonia's lyrics "nonsense" but think Georgia's weren't?!? 😂 Estonia's lyrics were a poetic masterpiece compared to Georgia's, they were like someone had run lyrics through google translator and left it at that...
"Boom Boom Chakka Chakka, your love is like a like a" 😂 Cheesy as hell but i LOVED that song haha!
I'm still baffled by the non qualification for Georgia. I did love it when I first heard it, but it literally tailed off for me and she nose dived in my ranking. I wonder if this was the same for the majority, and by the time the Semi's came, people just weren't bothered by it anymore.
I was gutted for Iceland. I really really want them to win some day soon. My favourite Eurovision song to this day is 'Minn Hinsti Dans' by Paul Oscar. I hope they can come back with something as groundbreaking and futuristic.
Omg MHD is amazing. If they’d had televote back in 97, then he would have been top 10 for sure.
Boom boom lovers unite! 💥 💥 🥊
I really don't like the explanation that Denmark wants to avoid winning at all cost, it sounds like a cop out to me. The whole hosting situation was nearly a decade ago, and I find it stupid to say that of course we could win if we wanted to, we just coose to suck repeatedly. I believe that DR is just massively misguided in what they want DMGP and Eurovision to be, and they put no time or resources into it at all. DMGP this year seemed like it was put up on the day without rehearsal, there is nearly no promotion to create hype, and the songs are not getting radio play, even though that is apparently their main concern before eurovision results. It's a lot of incompetence, not malice imo.
Gustaph getting 7th place in the final is the kind of scenario that makes me disagree with having a 100% televote eurovision. 7th place in the final was very well deserved but he only got there through the jury vote. Brilliant idea about the longer recaps for the first few songs. Why is Iceland winning a big ask ??? There is a massive Armenian community in Brussels by the by (and maybe the rest of Belgium too)….don’t want to diminish Brunette’s achievement of course but you did ask if someone can find a connection 😊
its just a bigger ask than Latvia and Georgia qualifying 😂
Yes well Austria and Australia got a bad televote but here they were at the top probably majority of viewers only vote in the final anyway or don't even watch the semi final but we will never know.
@@johnny11415 Austria were royally screwed over with the running order, and Australia is pretty much a mystery why their televote was so poor in the final.
@@seansean8980 I think Kaarija took most of the 'rock' points.. Germany also didn't get enough love in the final...
My theory on why televotes like Australia change so much between Semi's and Final is that in Semi's we vote for a variety of personal favorites, while in the final we focus on those we especially want to see either win or score a good spot. At least this is how I voted, several acts that got my votes in the Semi's did not get votes in the Final. Oh, and I did not vote for Kaarija in the Semi but did in the Final, so it was not my fault they did not win.
yea im definitely going to cover this in my final video, particular focusing on Austria and Australia
Might be, but the main reason probably is that this semi was *so much weaker* than semi 1, so even acts who did very well in this semi's results (like Austria and Suatralia) did not do that well in the final, with much more competition.
I know it might be a bit of an overreaction, but I really have become more in favor of a truly random running order considering the fact that this year seems like the showrunners ignored what happens in the semifinal as far as results and kind of screwed over some countries that did well in the semis. Austria should never have been the opener for the show, and the fact that they did so poorly in the final despite a top two finish in the semis is almost 100% because of the showrunners. That's wildly unfair to me.
honestly i think it would be a total disaster. it would be absolute pot luck who could win. If Loreen and Käärijä pulled 1st and 2nd slot - neither of them mightnt have won and the whole show would have been so much less exciting.
i know this system has flaws, but i still think its currently one of the better systems available
If anything, I think Austria and Australia's televote results in the final show only that Semi 2 was *much* weaker when up against Semi 1 and the automatic finalists. Most of the countries from Semi 2 that did best in the final televote - Poland, Albania, Cyprus, Armenia and Lithuania - largely had their diasporas and friends to thank for it. Only Belgium 'truly earned' its place in the final televote ranking.
I don't want the completely random running order to return; instead I'd rather the EBU divided the running order of the semis into quarters and the final into fifths. That would still make it random-ish but with some wiggle room for the producers to cobble together a varied order of songs and performances.
Juries back please it will stop the second half bias. Looked at the uk charts today and 12/37 songs are in the top 100 uk singles charts with 4 of them being in the top 10.
Also can we have your 2019 intro back?🥺👉👈
lol omg i dont even know where that intro is anymore 😂
i was watching a few youtube content creation guides and they all say intros are a big no-no - people just exit the video 😭
I'm a proud Blanka stan. She was my favorite from the day polish songs were announced and ended up being 1st in my ranking. It's so satisfying to know Solo was in top 10 of the public.😁
Belgium have alot of Arme ians