Well I’ve just got back from a party (is it a party when there’s four people?) and I think that if it wasn’t the best Eurovision ever it was certainly up there with the best. Great songs in the main, great hosts in Petra and Mans and THAT voting system.
Now as the bets I had on this years Eurovision panned out suggest my knowledge of music not really in tune with with Europe’s. However on format points I’m much more comfortable, and I’m predicting that there are a lot of relieved faces at SVT and the EBU that it worked out precisely the way it did, with a very happy Ukraine and a fell-at-the-final hurdle Australia. It provided the shock moment the new system was hoping to provide, although of course it could have been different – if Australia ran away with the televote the same way they ran away with the jury vote everyone would have gone “well what was the point of that then?”
Last year we did a thing where we looked at the Eurovision algorithm, explaining the modern method for trying to hide the result as long as possible, but there will always be a point where the winners have to pull away. The idea behind the change this year was to modify the systems to make it as exciting as possible. Previously jury rankings and televote rankings were combined and averaged to make a country’s top ten set of votes. Now we have effectively two competitions played separately and the aggregate scores combined. It’s still 50/50, but it’s a slightly different 50/50.
The jury competition involved music professionals judging on performance, quality and originality of song. The televote contest has people voting on a wider range of things – performance, song, who their friends are, where they’re originally from and, if the party I went to is anything to go by, who they’d most like to have sex with. The EBU has tried quite hard to hide who got what from each country in the televote but with a bit of Excel knowhow you can find out by sorting through the Excel spreadsheet. This year a fairly wide disparity between jury and televote in certain cases.
Did it work? Evidently. One thing about watching at a party is that you actually watch it rather than spend all your time on Twitter as I did with the semi-final I watched. However I couldn’t resist the odd peek. Perhaps predictably everyone was pretty down on it right up until the shock Australia coming fourth in the televote moment then suddenly everyone (well, most people) started digging it. People don’t like change, as the various versions of the Pointless final will attest, but if it works people will find peace with it sooner or later.
Many people suggested they didn’t understand it and I think up to a point it’s fair enough (if you tried to describe it to someone quite simply you’d probably have a job) although you do have to remember the average viewer is really quite thick and resistant.
One of the benefits of the new system is that even if there *is* a runaway winner it would still be open until the second to last figure comes in to confirm it. This seems like a more fun thing to happen then knowing who the winner is ten sets of results out and then going through the motions anyway. Not letting on how many points are left in contention is a smart move.
One final point, for me going into this one of the more controversial aspects was reducing the jury spokesperson to just revealing the twelve points award. In the end, whilst having to read 1-10 was quite a lot to take in, this actually worked fairly well, helped by some unusual 12 point awards from some of the juries. Everything was done and dusted in around 45 minutes.
In theory they could reveal the jury vote in the same way as the televote, although I expect this would be a step too far. There are certain traditions I don’t think you can do away with and one of those is travelling round the countries, not to mention that the build-up is an important part of the effect of the new system. However, if they can do away with all the announcements in French (not just the voting, it looks like all night) perhaps nothing is sacred after all.
Edit: It turns out Petra did do the jury douze points in French, although I’m still disappointed they didn’t do the televoting with French numbers.
This probably needs another paragraph but I’m tired and drunk so that will have to do for now.
Edit: This has a better ending now.
I have literally returned with the revelation that they didn’t seem to bother with doing the votes in French this year.
2009-2012 voting format (top 10s only):
Ukraine 304
Australia 288
Russia 273
Bulgaria 153
Sweden 138
France 134
Armenia 124
Poland 118
Lithuania 106
Belgium 86
Austria 68
Latvia 66
Serbia 64
Azerbaijan 61
Malta 59
Italy 55
Hungary 52
The Netherlands 50
Israel 49
Georgia 46
Cyprus 42
Croatia 33
United Kingdom 28
Spain 25
Czech Republic 10
Germany 4
2013-2015 format (full 1-26 rankings):
Australia 320
Ukraine 279
Russia 240
Bulgaria 182
France 166
Sweden 156
Armenia 141
Lithuania 102
Belgium 89
The Netherlands 76
Latvia 75
Italy 69
Austria 69
Hungary 62
Serbia 61
Azerbaijan 55
Georgia 55
Cyprus 52
Poland 49
Spain 34
Israel 27
United Kingdom 27
Croatia 23
Malta 18
Germany 8
Czech Republic 1
Interesting to note that Poland’s ridiculous televote was pretty much all diaspora – all of their big points came from western Europe, yet Australia was one of six countries that didn’t give them anything. (Russia got votes from everyone, with the smallest a 3 from the Dutch; Ukraine got nothing from Iceland; Australia missed out on Albania, France, Italy, and Montenegro.)
Just to be clear for readers, the original Top 10s system had each county’s jury and televote both award 1-12 points which were aggregated and re-ranked to determine each country’s votes. Ties broken by televote.
The more recent system was a bit more like Strictly – the jury ranks all entrants, the televote ranks all entrants, the rankings are combined.
Here’s something interesting: Ukraine gave Russia 12 in the televote, and Russia gave Ukraine 10. They were 22nd and 24th in each other’s juries. (Part of the former may be that Crimea’s still on the Ukrainian phone network, like how San Marino’s televotes are counted as part of Italy, but still.)
Is it just the poor quality of BBC iPlayer or does In It To Win It’s Dale look ill?
Interestingly I thought he looked better than the previous series he did and wondered more about what was going on with his hair.
I had no idea In It To Win It was going to be on until the announcer introduced it, so that’s something.
He certainly looks better, but he doesn’t seem to have the same energy and on screen presence that he once had (Just look at the Supermarket Sweep repeats on Challenge for an example of that!).
I think he smokes a lot which certainly won’t help, but does he actually do anything these days apart from IITWI and the odd radio stand in? Seems he just does it because it is still a popular Lotto show and it wouldn’t really work without him…
iPlayer it is then. I check the schedules on my Freeview box a week in advance (though not yet those for the 22nd), so I’ve known for a week. I also use UKGameshows.com’s Thursday TV Guide. That said, the scheduling for the last couple of series has been piecemeal…
I must admit that I am glad they changed the system like that, but I question why they reveal the tevelote in by revealing the lowest [b]televote[/b] score then going up (and having the final heads up a kinda predictable Ukraine vs Russia) instead of revealing the televote result from the lowest [b]judge[/b] result then going up (and having a more intriguing Ukraine vs Australia. The epic catch up after Celine Dion’s Eurovision)
Actually, that’s brilliant. You’d have no idea how many points were left still but you wouldn’t know for certain how many points anyone would get, rather than knowing the next country will get at least the same amount as the last announcement.
I like the suggestion a lot and would consider it an improvement. Technically it becomes trivial when it gets down to the last two, because you know how many points there remain to be distributed (total number of countries times number of points per country) and so can subtract the second-placed country’s score from that to get the first-placed country’s score, but that would take the sort of effort that you’d probably only put into it if you were betting on the result in-play – and, if you are, good luck to you. I liked being able to tell that Australia had lost to (at least) Ukraine when we knew that Ukraine had scored at least three hundred points before their precise score had been announced.
The Ladbrokes Politics desk noted that Australia were 1/50 to win at one point last night, and said that they “liked” the new voting system.
Yes, that’s how I had interpreted it was going to be done and I think it would have worked better – you wouldn’t know the winner until the final result rather than 2 or 3 from the end. I’m really not a fan of this though – I much prefer the slow drama of a win building over an hour than an EastEnders style “duff duff” moment in the final minute of the voting.
And whilst Russia are moaning about a song which really wasn’t as good as the staging I would like to see a return to televoting only, even if just for the final. In most cases the winner of the televote does win the contest – I think it’s only once before this year the result differed. The juries are clearly far more corrupt than the voting public.
I think this way worked very well, and really the only problem was having so much stalling for time at the end (I think some would be fine, but they went overboard). Doing the votes in jury placement order would be too much of a deus ex machina, and would rob us of the fun of something like Poland’s ridiculous diaspora vote.
My other half came up with an interesting suggestion last night which, whilst it’s far too drastic I think and would take away a lot of the charm of the show, was certainly interesting to think about.
What would happen if they didn’t announce which song was from which country until the phone lines have closed?
You’d know which song your own country’s entry was, and it wouldn’t necessarily have to be kept a strict secret as I’m sure the majority of the viewers wouldn’t be that desperate to research beforehand. Just refer to the songs by number until the end of the voting window, then have a little sequence with the artists in the green room with their flags, etc. and go into the results as usual.
It would take away a lot of the patriotism from the first half which wouldn’t be a good thing to lose, but it could drastically alter the result.
But the songs are already put into the host country’s charts before the ceremony, and it would be trivial to deduce a lot of them.
That said, there may be some mileage in anonymity for where the votes came from…
I agree that it would be trivial to deduce who’s song is who’s, but I’d be more interested in seeing whether that would actually happen. I suspect a significant portion of the voters may not actually bother if the information isn’t presented as it is now from the very beginning.
I was under the impression that the new style result reveal of the televote was partially to achieve just that, masking the fact that a lot of countries give votes to neighbours by lumping every country’s votes together in the one pool. Unless that was the point you were making!
So according to this article, Australia would won under the old system:
https://oikotimes.com/2016/05/15/it-would-have-been-australia-winning-with-the-2015-voting-system/
With 41 points gap. Sure this is better then last year Sweden’s win,ye?
I imagine that when I wake up from this night sleep, I will be reading news of people complaining Australia > Ukraine.
Does anyone understand about Ukraine’s sonh? I enjoyed the music rhythm but the pronunciation is kinda hard to catch. Why the song survived but “We don’t want Put In” didn’t?
It’s about the Crimean War and songs about historical events are fine, that there might be a subtext about current events is a fortunate coincidence I’m sure.
The surface explanation: “1944” is about Jamala’s grandmother. Along with millions of other Crimean Tatars, she was sent to Uzbekistan for “collaborating with the nazis”.
Crimea had been invaded in 1941, and – according to Stalin – the local population hadn’t put up enough resistance to the nazis. This wasn’t strictly true; Stalin wished to use Crimea as a base from which to attack Turkey, and Stalin believed that the Tatars would side with their fellow Muslims in Turkey.
Almost half the Tatar population died during the deportation. The USSR government prevented them from passing on their cultural heritage, or from returning to Crimea until the USSR itself collapsed in 1991.
Late last year, Ukraine formally recognised the deportation as a genocide. Russia does not agree with the description.
The metaphor: “1944” is about humanity’s failure, about prejudice and nastiness. It’s about how some people in power try to marginalise others. It’s about how the powerful can exploit religion, nationalism, race, other differences. How they create out-groups, split the world into Us and Them.
The extended metaphor: Crimea plus a song against prejudice plus Ukraine. Some televoters may have “sent a message” to the Russian government.
“1944” would not have won if it wasn’t technically excellent. Jamala has a tremendous vocal range, the staging tells her story, the song uses every beat to maximum effect.
Unlike “The sound of silence”, it was something that appealed to the viewer at home. Dami Im’s entry was a bit too remote, the touch-screen interface she seemed to use split her from the viewer.
Source: http://blog.oup.com/2016/01/crimean-tatars-genocide/
So Russia is threatening to exit Eurovision.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/15/eurovision-2016-furious-russia-demands-boycott-of-ukraine-over-j/
and claiming Lazarev as the champion.
Meh, the only thing cool about Lazarev’s is the special effect. The song itself is not really a masterpiece. I will take Bulgaria’s song instead any second.
But Russia gave 10 points to Ukraine at the televote…
For What It’s Worth is scheduled to start next Monday and continue until the week beginning 20th June; these episodes are going out at 2:15 rather than 3pm, so it can’t have done that well last time. If anyone wondered why 23 episodes were ordered rather than 25, I reckon two are being lost to coverage of the EU referendum.
I think 2.15pm is just their new quiz slot. 2.15 or 3 shouldn’t be seen as a promotion or demotion particularly.
Yeah I wouldn’t read too much into the slot change to be honest, all their quizzes are going out there at the moment.
It actually did somewhat better than their other afternoon quizzes. Series average for series one was 1.02m. By comparison series one of Think Tank averaged 0.86m. Series one of The Code has averaged 0.78m to date.
Thanks Paul. I’m quietly pleased about that I think.
Because I am capable of Bad Things, I fired up a VPN and pretended to be Australian to watch the crucial ten minutes or so of the Australian SBS commentary to see if they melted down when they snatched second place from the jaws of victory. If you want to do the same, you can skip to about 3:13.00 through.
Don’t bother. They’re disappointingly non-jingoistic, sadly realistic about the situation (though either not properly understanding the system, or briefed to pretend they’re not) and much less partisan than I had hoped. Nothing more bitter than an ever-so-slightly strained tone of voice while congratulating Ukraine.
Julia the lady commentator is a full on Eurovision tragic (she was Bronya/Boyka in the original Eurobeat musical, the same role Mel Giedroyc played in the UK version) and Sam is a non-fan who’s mostly there to be bitter about the whole thing and sexually harass the female contestants backstage. They were bizarrely “off” throughout all three shows this year, I thought.
I wish the US version’s commentary was available though – from what I was reading on Twitter, it seemed as though they were halfway through the televote reveal before they even realised you couldn’t vote for your own country.
I can confirm that Twitter was correct about the American commentators not realizing that you couldn’t vote for your own country until halfway through the televote reveal. Everything seemed very thrown-together (the announcement that Eurovision would air in the US didn’t even happen until the Monday of the week before the semifinals), and the commentators seemed to have no clue about anything when they weren’t reading the competitors’ biographies out of their briefing books over the pre-performance video footage.
The whole cheap and cheerful, nothing taken too seriously, we’re just here to have fun and sexually harass Mans and Douwe Bob from the far end of a satellite downlink approach worked well with the very camp ethos of the gay and lesbian-focused Logo network, but it would have been nice to have at least one person on microphone who had seen it before.
To be fair.. The Danish commentator doesnt read biograpies of the competitors neither.. All he does is focusing on everything which slightly touches the scandinavian countries and praises alle scandinavian songs.. While also being busy complaining about bloc-votes when his biased commentary is part of the problem…. He was also VERY anti-russia.. He has an sms-line open to take in texts from viewers and after the song he took time in the pre-performence video for the next song to read ONLY negative russian texts for viewers to keep the bad spirit.
I hate how we cant just listen to the freaking music. Decide if we like it or not. AND FREAKING TELL ME ABOUT THE ARTIST I AM ABOUT TO HEAR INSTEAD OF TALKING UP NORDIC COUNTRIES AND CHEER FOR THEM SO BIASED!
By the way: The Danish ESC coverage had about 750,000 viewers while imho the aim for a succesful entertainment show in DK is 1,000,000 viewers. X Factor, Strictly and Got Talent always have about 1.5 million viewers.
I was shocked by those numbers for the ESC since the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix (the selection of the Danish act) was a good success with 1.3 million viewers this year iirc.
I dont know about semi-final viewnumbers.. But Denmark with Denmark not in the final I think it lost a lot of viewers because somehow we put a lot of national pride in it and “when we are not in it why watch” I think that was the mentality.