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Eurovision 2007


Mikel

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Is this Svante Stockselius character a retard? I think he must be. Does he really think that we are that stupid, that we didn't see for ourselves what happened on May 12th. This guy can't be for real.

I do not have to go through the voting to know that nearly every country that voted had some bias in their votes and to deny that the biggest problem was in Eastern Europe is ridiuclous. Just one glance at the East/West divide on the scorebaords tells you that.

I cannot believe that they have gone out on a limb and defended the bias by shifting the blame onto Scandanavia to deflect attention. The very fact that they did this tells me they are running scared and dont know what to do. Of course there is also a problem in scandanavia and nobody is denying that. However, the question that was put to him was not about Scandanavia. Does the fact that bias goes on all over Europe make it ok? Are they so defensive of Eastern Europe being attacked that they will blindly defend and refuse to accept the situation?

This makes me so angry now because they obviously dont give a damn about the fairness of the compeititon. Are they that nervous about upsetting people that they are willing to have the compeitition ruined after so many years?

Perhaps they need somebody to actually go through the voting with them and explain the geographical pattern of each vote. I sat and watched the voting and shouted out the 12 points for almost every country before it was announced.....and that is not an exaggeration.

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This is just an analysis of only the 12 points given in the final. I think this says it all. If you look even deeper into semi-final and the 10 points and 8 points it gets no better.

Belarus - 12 Points to Russia(neighbour)

Bulgaria - 12 Points to Greece(neighbour)

Estonia - 12 Points to Russia(neighbour)

Georgia - 12 Points to Armenia(neighbour)

Iceland - 12 Points to Finland(scandinavian Alliance)

Latvia - 12 Points to Ukraine(near Neighbour)

Denmark - 12 Points to Sweden(neighbour)

Moldova - 12 Points to Romania(neighbour)

Norway - 12 Points to Sweden(neighbour)

Armenia - 12 Points to Russia(near neighbour)

Bosnia - 12 Points to Serbia(neighbour)

Sweden - 12 Points to Finland(neighbour)

Russia - 12 Points to Belarus(neighbour)

Romania - 12 Points to Moldova(neighbour)

Poland - 12 Points to Ukraine(neighbour)

Montenegro - 12 Points to Serbia(neighbour)

Hungary - 12 Points to Serbia(neighbour)

Greece - 12 Points to Bulgaria(neighbour)

Georgia - 12 Points to Armenia(neighbour)

Macedonia - 12 Points to Serbia(neighbour)

Cyprus - 12 Points to Greece(neighbour)

Croatia - 12 Points to Serbia(neighbour)

Serbia - 12 Points to Hungary(neighbour)

Ukraine - 12 Points to Belarus(neighbour)

Turkey - 12 Points to Armenia(neighbour)

Armenia - 12 Points to Russia(neighbour)

When you examine the countries that did not award their 12 points to a neighbour. Most of them either awarded an 8 or 10 to a neighbour or had a reason for giving their top vote to a particular country(Eg.Germany 12 Points to Turkey due to large Turkish population in Germany).

I think we can therfore say that bias voting is rife in Eurovision. There were only a handful of countries that voted completely without any proveable bias in any way. And even in those cases there may be a link such as UK voting for Turkey due to a UK performer in the act.

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Let's see the previous top 10 of the final since the start of the semifinal in 2004

2006

01 FINLAND 292

02 RUSSIA 248

03 BOSNIA AND ... 229

04 ROMANIA 172

05 SWEDEN 170

06 LITHUANIA 162

07 UKRAINE 145

08 ARMENIA 129

09 GREECE 128

10 IRELAND 93

2005

01 GREECE 230

02 MALTA 192

03 ROMANIA 158

04 ISRAEL 154

05 LATVIA 153

06 MOLDOVA 148

07 SERBIA AND ... 137

08 SWITZERLAND 128

09 DENMARK 125

09 NORWAY 125

2004

01 UKRAINE 280

02 SERBIA AND ... 263

03 GREECE 252

04 TURKEY 195

05 CYPRUS 170

05 SWEDEN 170

07 ALBANIA 106

08 GERMANY 93

09 BOSNIA AND ... 91

10 SPAIN 87

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Is this Svante Stockselius character a retard? I think he must be. Does he really think that we are that stupid, that we didn't see for ourselves what happened on May 12th. This guy can't be for real.

I do not have to go through the voting to know that nearly every country that voted had some bias in their votes and to deny that the biggest problem was in Eastern Europe is ridiuclous. Just one glance at the East/West divide on the scorebaords tells you that.

I cannot believe that they have gone out on a limb and defended the bias by shifting the blame onto Scandanavia to deflect attention. The very fact that they did this tells me they are running scared and dont know what to do. Of course there is also a problem in scandanavia and nobody is denying that. However, the question that was put to him was not about Scandanavia. Does the fact that bias goes on all over Europe make it ok? Are they so defensive of Eastern Europe being attacked that they will blindly defend and refuse to accept the situation?

This makes me so angry now because they obviously dont give a damn about the fairness of the compeititon. Are they that nervous about upsetting people that they are willing to have the compeitition ruined after so many years?

Perhaps they need somebody to actually go through the voting with them and explain the geographical pattern of each vote. I sat and watched the voting and shouted out the 12 points for almost every country before it was announced.....and that is not an exaggeration.

Actually, I don't think it's about Svante or the public being right. What is clear is that EBU has a problem in that the public (rightly or wrongly) think there is a problem. To me, the are just trying to brush it under the carpet and hope it goes away. That will be their biggest mistake. Politicians make this mistake time and time again. Forget the public voice and then they suffer. They will use things like the UK having a high viewering figure... So what! The UK loves the Eurovision because of its crap songs etc. They love the kitchiness of it all and the 'political' voting amuses them. They have parties, enjoy Terry 'Living Eurovision Legend' Wogan's sarcastic comments and come up with their own as well... To them it's pure entertainment, not a high class song contest. The higher viewing figures, to me, just speak volumes that things are getting worse... The UK voted for Scooch and not Cyndi to represent them, cos to them that is Eurovision, cheap pop. So what it came last and nobody likes it, every other song in the contest has the same value - novelty!

It's sad that people think we have always sent good songs until recently. Wrong, we've always sent what we call Europop that sometimes do well in our charts (again for novelty value). We do not see Eurovision as serious music and in that respect we are like Italy. I'm getting sick of some of the countries that participate telling us we should put serious artists through like they do... For God's sake, does nobody else get it? Eurovision is career suicide to many UK artists and they wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. I suspect many other 'older' countries of Eurovision have the same problem.

I'm getting sick of the East West debate. It's not one Eastern block 'cheating'. Nobody is cheating. If that was the case Scandinavia and Cyprus and Greece have been cheating for years. There are many different 'blocks' - Balkans, Baltic, Scandinavia etc. What we must all agree on is that it's not OK to do that and the public vote is pointless - diaspora voting is ruining it (for me this is the biggest problem as it has always annoyed me that so many Irish live in the UK and are able to vote for Ireland). People like to vote for their favourite songs? Well ok, let them carry on, but have a jury that counts for 50%. Hopefully, that will counter some of the voting irregularities.

Another thing that is unbalanced is the promotion of the song and the artist(s) that sing them around only certain regions. Clearly this is going on all around areas like the Balkans etc, as they are familiar with these artists and they can. Let's go back to not knowing what other countries entries are like until the night. I know this is difficult with the advent of Youtube etc, but surely less people seeing the videos or hearing some of these songs will help rid us of favouritism? The semi final is an advantage as well to those participating in it.

I'm not sure that countries who are not in the final should vote. The West is heavily outweighed here... There should be an East and West semi final. With only east and west voting for their respective contests. Then the top songs from each should go through with only those participating in the final able to vote in it.

I'm sure most people on here have already said a lot of what I've written here. Its just that I'm getting fed up of people lumping all the newer countries into one eastern block and pratically re-establishing the Cold War. Many of them are just doing what they have been seeing all these years from Scandinavia etc. And yes I am aware that it didn't really make much difference back then, but everybody is following suit. They aren't the ones to blame - it's the system.

Phew! It's off my chest now - Rant over...

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Well, I'm sure that a lot of what we are saying here won't make much difference. However, before many traditional countries start leaving and the contest goes down the pan, we have an opportunity here to appease people and make some changes for the better. Surely for the EBU losing a little money is better than losing everything?

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It's always been my point of view that the problem is not the fault of any particular region. You only have to look at the votes to see that every region is guilty of bias voting to some extent. I just had an issue with Svante Stockselius trying to say that the problem is more widespread with Scandinavia. This is totally the wrong arguement to make. He is defending Eastern Europe and blaming Scandinavia when he should actually be denouncing ALL bias voting in the contest.

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I can't be bothered now. My new found passion is youtube. Scooch have launched a competion on youtube for the best miming to their song (a way of getting their song to be a hit maybe?). It's hilarious.

Just one example

I don't think you will see me for a while. I'll be preoccupied with this... lol :lol:

You never know. Maybe scooch will have the last laugh!

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Great show this year, Serbia truly deserved winning the competition. I'm a bit disappointed with the second place of the Ukraine and their song which was... well let's just say that there were better songs than this one. I missed Switzerland and Austria in the final, but the show was better than expected (this is my first real Eurovision watching)

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Another aspect to this is that the Eastern countries see the contest as a way to promote their country. Imagine Serbia that till 2000 was in war and NATO bombings and all these, winning the Eurovision is like a new page in their history.

The West countries have passed from this stage many years ago.

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To me , Albania is the only Eastern Country that voted fairly . And guess what ? They used a jury !

I WANT EVERYBODY TO READ THIS PELASE:

Albania had to give a jury result as their televote failed. This made for some interesting observations.

Albania had previously given their 12 points to a neighbour in 2006 and yet with a jury this year, they gave 12 points to Spain. That kind of blows the theory out of the window that jurys are no fairer than televoting.

I also noticed that the only points awarded to Ireland(last place) from 42 countries, came from the 1 country that used a jury rather than televoting.

Finally, Albania was the ONLY country to award points to France, Germany and Spain.

I don't think I need to say anymore.

If the EBU need any more evidence than that, then they are fools.

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It does raise a very interesting point, though. The whole reason for getting rid of the juries and replacing them with phone votes was to get rid of the "political voting". That clearly has not happened, for whatever reason. So surely alternatives need to be looked at.

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Do you really believe this is the solution TG?

I dont see how the answer to this is for Western Europe to play the same cheating game. I for one would not be happy for the UK to start awarding 12 points to Ireland every year regardless of the song. I would rather have the UK come last each year than do that.

The ONLY answer is for Western Europe to stand up and be counted. Any reasonable person can see that the ESC needs drastic reform. I don't blame you from seeing things slightly differently because it does not affect Turkey in the same way.

To be honest, I have been looking for a real backlash from Western Europe since the contest ended and it has not materialised. I predict that no countries will withdraw for next year. However, in the end the only loosers in this will be the performers. I can see the ESC becoming less appealing for Western European countries to win in the future. The magic of actually winning the contest will be lost and it will be meanless(sone of you may think that time passed long ago anyway).

The only way that I can voice my opposition to wards a contest that I used to adore, would be to complain to the BBC and refuse to watch next year. I have done one half of this already and I will certainly be doing the latter next year.

This is not about "sour grapes". I can enjoy the contest even when the UK comes last...that is not the point. My only problem with how this contest has progressed has always been over the issue of being fair. We are all used to a few countries voting for each other each year and that was disappointing. However, when you have almost every country doing it then it becomes a real problem and it no longer remains competitive. A real shame.

I agree, I'm not sure that I'd be happy for Greece to be represented by an Albanian singing in Albanian even if it did win. (mind you in Greece it would never happen)..

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I WANT EVERYBODY TO READ THIS PELASE:

Albania had to give a jury result as their televote failed. This made for some interesting observations.

Albania had previously given their 12 points to a neighbour in 2006 and yet with a jury this year, they gave 12 points to Spain. That kind of blows the theory out of the window that jurys are no fairer than televoting.

I also noticed that the only points awarded to Ireland(last place) from 42 countries, came from the 1 country that used a jury rather than televoting.

Finally, Albania was the ONLY country to award points to France, Germany and Spain.

I don't think I need to say anymore.

If the EBU need any more evidence than that, then they are fools.

See, this is good and bad.

For one, I'm not sure that Spain was an entry deserved of 12 points and secondly, the fact that Ireland was given any points is not a good sign, I can think of 23 more countries more deserving of points than Ireland.

Maybe split vote is required.

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