A Swede who lives in Finland and who is lost in Euroland - the wonderful world of Eurovision
There is always some matter to discuss or just a song I want to share
Very welcome - I hope you'll like it here!

Saturday, May 18, 2013

No polite points for the host

Back in the day, there was this idea that the host country automatically recieved a bucket full of complimentary points regardless of what their entry sounded like. Politeness points.

I'm not so sure about that, honestly. Wouldn't the host countries win a whole lot more often, then? In the 57 contests to date, only six occasions saw the host entry win.

In some years, the home ground entries have not exactly been drowned in points. Like in Bergen in 1986, where Norway didn't really make a splash.



Ketil Stokkan - Romeo (Norway 1986) - 12th place of 20

When Ireland first organised Eurovision back in 1971 - and went colour just for the occasion - the panel of expert jurors showed no excessive politeness anyway.



Angela Farrell - One Day Love (Ireland 1971) - 11th place of 18

Latvia had a very promising start at Eurovision and hosted the 2003 ESC in Riga, where their own act were red hot favourites to secure them a second consecutive victory. Those predictions proved a bit on the positive side and in the end, the Latvians only recieved a modest five points, all awarded by neighbour Estonia.



F.L.Y - Hello From Mars (Latvia 2003) - 24th place of 26

Swedish eurovision general was - as you all know - a contestant at the 1992 ESC in Malmö and was the opposite of a hit with the juries. Maybe he sees this year's event - hosted in his city of defeat - as a revenge for the second last place he got back then? Hopefully the 2013 Swedish entrant Robin Stjernberg will have more understanding from Europe this time around.



Christer Björkman - Imorgon är en annan dag (Sweden 1992) - 22nd place of 23

At least he should avoid the fate of the 1958 Dutch entry - the only time in history that the host country ended in the very last place.



Corry Brokken - Heel de wereld (Netherlands 1958) - Equal 9th place of 10

No comments:

Post a Comment