Who won the Eurovision Song Contest?
The Eurovision Song Contest is a fine European tradition in which countries from all over Europe send a performer, usually selected by a popular vote, to sing (and dance). The country that wins gets to host the contest next year.
Since the inclusion of the former Eastern Bloc (and the former Yugoslav countries) into the EBU, there has been dissent within the ranks of traditional Eurovision competitors, that these countries vote not on what is the best song, but based on politics and favors to friends.
The EBU recently changed the format of the competition. Earlier countries that did poorly had a few years to think it over before they could enter the contest again. This was changed to have a semi-final for all the countries that did not perform well the year before. From this semi-final 10 countries would be selected, by popular vote, to go on to the final.
The final consists of 10 countries that pre-qualified by performing well the previous year, 10 countries that qualified from the semi-final, and the “Big 4” (France, Germany, Spain, and the UK — a relic from the creation of the EBU).
This year the semi-final was a pretty mixed affair. When it came to the winners, however, only it was pretty one-sided. As the map below shows, the semi-finalists were from all over Europe. The winners, on the other hand, were not. Of the 10 countries that qualified for the final, only Turkey was not a former Eastern Bloc or Yugoslav country.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There were some really good songs that went on to the final, Serbia for one, but there are songs that went through even though they are basically crap. I won’t stand and pound on specific songs, but you can see and hear parts of all the songs yourself from the list of participants in the semi-final and final (note that the list of finalists has been updated with the qualifiers from the semi-final).
What will this one-sided-ness, even if it is only perceived, do to the contest? It will make it even more one-sided as people from Western Europe stop watching, and stop voting.
May 12th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Maybe the best would be to deny votes from countries participating and leave everybody outside vote
I know that’s silly but at the end politics make many people sympatize with their allies and that’s a factor in deciding who really won.. and maybe last year Finland DID deserve it..
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Ovi’s Eurovision Politics
July 30th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
similar people like similar things. Hence the trend of Scandinavian contries voting for each other, slavic contries voting for each other and so on. I think the west is just whining because no one produced a good song this year. Personally, I think that a lot of the slavic and eastern contries produces very fun, enjoyable songs. My personal favorites from the videos ere the Ukranian and the Romanian entry. ( I even went and saw a lot of that Ukranian guy’s videos on YouTube. Hilarious)
As I said, I just think the western contries needs to shape up, and stop whining
Oh, and btw, it is quite fun trying to explain EuroVision to my office mates. We had fun watching crazy East European songs