The worst thing about the new voting sequence is that it reminds me a bit of the system used in 1971-1973 in the sense that many big numbers fly across the screen in short time. It was far from easy to keep track on where in the ranking countries landed if they were out of the top ten in the televote.
The best thing about the new voting sequence was of course the excitement. Just as you thought Australia had won by a landslide the whole thing was turned upside down and everything changed with the second last set of votes and almost changed again in the last round. Excellent entertainment.
Ukraine ended in second place with both juries and televotes. Some people are upset and mean they didn't deserve the victory because of that. It is like arguing Bucks Fizz did not deserve to win in 1981 as they only got two sets of 12 points. The song that receives the highest amount of points wins. End of.
I did mention Ukraine as a potential winner the other day but was still a bit surprised. Sadly the winner is unlikely to become a commercial hit in a traditional sense, but it is a good thing in a year dominated by theatrics, moving sets and projections that an entry focusing entirely on music and singing won.
I would honestly have been pleased with Australia or Russia winning as well. I was really happy for Bulgaria and France for great placings and for Austria doing so well in the televote.
Sad that my darling from Italy only managed a 16th place in the end. Thought she would receive far more love from the juries. Also Spain and United Kingdom deserved more than these fiascos.
And Germany - last for the second consecutive year. ARD really must take a long hard think how to improve quality control in their national final and find entries that break through to international audiences. How to achieve that is a question for tomorrow, however.
The results:
01) Ukraine / 1944 / Jamala 534 points
02) Australia / Sound of Silence / Dami Im 511
03) Russia / You're The Only One / Sergey Lazarev 491
04) Bulgaria / If Love Was A Crime / Poli Genova 307
05) Sweden / If I Were Sorry / Frans 261
06) France 257, 07) Armenia 249, 08) Poland 229, 09) Lithuania 200, 10) Belgium 181, 11) Netherlands 153, 12) Malta 153, 13) Austria 151, 14) Israel 135, 15) Latvia 132, 16) Italy 124, 17) Azerbaijan 117, 18) Serbia 115, 19) Hungary 108, 20) Georgia 104, 21) Cyprus 96, 22) Spain 77, 23) Croatia 73, 24) United Kingdom 62, 25) Czech republic 41, 26) Germany 11.
Jamala / 1944 (Ukraine 2016)
For the EBU the result gives lot to worry about: Ukraine had trouble arranging the 2005 contest and next year Eurovision may be too much for the war torn country to handle. Australia is out ot the race by default and Russis is too controversial country to give the arranging, not least because the winning country would not want to participate such a contest. So BBC or ARD to the rescue? Or should SVT have a third go within four years as an arranger?
ReplyDeleteWe got many mails from ESC fans from Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Germany who told us that this was the last ESC ever they would watch on TV. Many ESC fans are convinced that Austria, Spain, Switzerland and Germany should leave ESC. According to our Betty MacDonald fan club ESC fans in 40 countries we had this TOP 5: 1. Russia 2. Germany 3. France 4. Poland and 5. Sweden. Jamie-Lee is a very good singer and Ghost is a good song. So I among many other ESC fans from all over the world can't understand this result. By the way the winner song got 9th place in our TOP 10.
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