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More news from the world of the Eurovision Song Contest, as the podcast continues through the summer, keeping you up to date with all the Eurovision news.
In this week’s show, we look at the official viewing figures of Eurovision 2012 (why are they down on last year?), the jury/televote scores as they were released by the EBU (and why those numbers aren’t enough), music from the Swiss song that everything seems to agree should have been at Baku, and some ideas for Eurovision trips over the summer and autumn
Eurovision Insight Podcast: Victory, Votes, and Viewers
We have viewing figures, jury results, more National Final winners, and our first ‘Second Chance’ of the Summer from Ultra Nate and the Swiss 2012 selection process.
Looking for more details on those trips? Check out Eurobash 2012, OGAE Portugal, Tallink Cruises, and OGAE Germany (Berlin Bash).
Don’t miss an episode of the Eurovision Insight podcast by subscribing to the RSS feed dedicated to the podcasts. iTunes users can find us in the iTunes Store and get the show automatically downloaded to your computer. Looking for the 2012 Eurovision MP3’s? and help the ESC Insight team find Solna on a map of Sweden.
NDR’s official ESC site wrote to all broadcasters asking them to send their split results some time ago but unfortunately only very few broadcasters sent their results.
Indeed, and I’m glad they have, but really it should be the role of the EBU to publish all relevant voting. I believe that should include the televote percentages and the Jury scores on a country by country basis.
Of course EBU should do it but they obviously cannot be bothered to provide transparency. If you want to, I can tell you the results of those broadcasters who sent their split results to NDR. They keep publishing results as they come in. However, I will have to find out how to access their news archive first. The site is a bit messy … but I could try. If you write an e-mail, I guess that they would be happy to tell you the results they know too.
Switzerland have this open submission for songs but in the 2 years it’s been in operation they really haven’t selected from outside their borders when compiling their finalists.
Sietse Bakker was asked during an interview on Radio International in April why a complete breakdown of results was not released and he gave some waffling and nonsensical reply that they didn’t consider it helpful in terms of the contest. It’s clear they want to avoid the questions of obvious bias it would raise.
I can’t personally agree with Ultra Nate as a should’ve sent for Switzerland, Ewan. It’s a pleasant enough pop song, but comparing it to Euphoria is quite ludicrous in my opinion. Euphoria is something radios and clubs will play, while “My Love” is quite stuck in the early 90’s and would have just cancelled itself out going up against Gaitana. All the best scoring songs of recent contests have been either the closest possible thing to a European hit, (albeit one with some oomph or other certain charm… the subtler, more radio-friendly numbers like Should’ve Known Better and Never Alone tend to fall by the wayside,) – or high-calibre, timeless, classical kinds of songs such as Madness of Love and It’s My Time – or on rarer occasions, novelty acts that aren’t terrible such as Hard Rock Hallelujah, Dancing Lasha Tumbai and Party for Everybody. Some of the high scorers also meet more than one of these criteria.
It’s also critical to nail the live performance, a lot of good songs fail because the performance was not up to scratch. The biggest factor here, in my opinion, is what the juries and television audience hears. It might be a bad vocal performance, or the mix might just not be coming through as well as it should. (This is why I think France got 0.) Camera angles and general staging are also important.
I’m learning more every year, but taking everything into account now, I think that is the elusive answer to the question “How do you win Eurovision?”
If Ultra Nate would go to Eurovision, it would be one of my favorite songs. However, it would unlikely upset Loreen’s victory.