Eurovision Song Contest 2023 - 13th May - Liverpool

[Tansike]

^ they‘re still part for the Grand Final though

But ehm yes interesting. Let‘s see how this will work out…

[Artoo]

I don't care about the global thing, but PLEASE FFS don't abolish jury votes completely.

It seems they really my don’t want a UK victory in the near future

[flopho]

It seems they really my don’t want a UK victory in the near future

sorry should've added this to my comment, as Tansike said this only counts for the semis.

[Artoo]

sorry should've added this to my comment, as Tansike said this only counts for the semis.

Oh I see that now.

I still don’t think anyone wants a UK victory though

[jordi_89]

https://eurovision.tv/story/voting-c...g-contest-2023

Absolutely horrible news, back to the 00s cheese it is I guess.

Voting changes announced for Eurovision Song Contest 2023



I don't care about the global thing, but PLEASE FFS don't abolish jury votes completely.

They already ruined a few semifinals, so for me they can keep jury voting for the final only.

[jordi_89]

Am I the only one who things global voting is a GREAT idea? They're finally gonna execute our plan for European global domination. All jokes aside, this will bring more eyes for next year's Eurovision, specially from outside of Europe.

[jordi_89]

Oh I see that now.

I still don’t think anyone wants a UK victory though

They're not gonna end up last thanks to the votes from outside of Europe though. 2-3 points are guaranteed now.

[SholasBoy]

I can see why they’ve changed the semi votes. Phone votes usually go for the more entertaining acts that get left behind by juries, so that will give more fun for the final, but perhaps at the cost of better music but we’ll see. Does this mean there will still be jury shows for the semis?!

[Colbie]

^ Yeah was wondering that too, since they already have alot of rehearsals it seems unnecessary if it doesn't count anymore

[greek_boy]

I can see why they’ve changed the semi votes. Phone votes usually go for the more entertaining acts that get left behind by juries, so that will give more fun for the final, but perhaps at the cost of better music but we’ll see. Does this mean there will still be jury shows for the semis?!

Yes. There will be jury shows which are essentially dress rehearsals. Juries have always voted in Eurovision because their votes were used as back-up in case televoting becomes invalid (low participation) or fails. It's just that jury shows for SFs won't be as excited as before because the votes won't count now lol (only San Marino jury votes will definitely count haha).

[greek_boy]

Am I the only one who things global voting is a GREAT idea? They're finally gonna execute our plan for European global domination. All jokes aside, this will bring more eyes for next year's Eurovision, specially from outside of Europe.

It's a good idea but it really depends on the execution and how they plan to do it.

I still believe EBU is completely wrong to create fake voting for countries like San Marino that cannot do televoting. If they offer online voting for the rest of the world, they could do online voting for the residents of San Marino.

[greek_boy]

It seems they really my don’t want a UK victory in the near future

UK can easily win if they keep up with the good entries. Besides, juries will be part of the final voting so UK won't miss out any jury votes haha

[greek_boy]

I can see why they’ve changed the semi votes. Phone votes usually go for the more entertaining acts that get left behind by juries, so that will give more fun for the final, but perhaps at the cost of better music but we’ll see. Does this mean there will still be jury shows for the semis?!

Yes and no. This year's second half in the final was extreeeemely boring and Moldova clearly got an advantageous position in the running order which translated to 2nd place in televoting. So many mid-tempo/slow songs performed on second half. It was a borefest.

Azerbaijan and Switzerland wouldn't have qualified this year (both received zero pts from the public). Australia wouldn't have qualified too.

But then again, a fun silly song like Latvia wouldn't have qualified with televoting ....

It's going to be unpredictable i feel sorry for Malta!

[Artoo]

UK can easily win if they keep up with the good entries. Besides, juries will be part of the final voting so UK won't miss out any jury votes haha

You assume the UK wants the expense of hosting it again after this year

[greek_boy]

You assume the UK wants the expense of hosting it again after this year

Of course not, but they can win anytime with a strong entry so we're just ending the BS excuses the UK public was making up (it's all political, they hate us, Brexit, we should withdraw etc)

[Artoo]

Of course not, but they can win anytime with a strong entry so we're just ending the BS excuses the UK public was making up (it's all political, they hate us, Brexit, we should withdraw etc)

We never actually won though

[jordi_89]

It's a good idea but it really depends on the execution and how they plan to do it.

I still believe EBU is completely wrong to create fake voting for countries like San Marino that cannot do televoting. If they offer online voting for the rest of the world, they could do online voting for the residents of San Marino.

Yeah they could offer some alternative for San Marino if there's not enough people for the televote.

[greek_boy]

Yeah they could offer some alternative for San Marino if there's not enough people for the televote.

the problem is not the televoting participation but the Italian telecom system that San Marino is using.

[greek_boy]

We never actually won though

We never actually had a strong entry worthy of winning the contest since 1997! Well, 1998 maybe!

[Artoo]

We never actually had a strong entry worthy of winning the contest since 1997! Well, 1998 maybe!

There was one called Come Back (I think) that deserved to win.

[jordi_89]

the problem is not the televoting participation but the Italian telecom system that San Marino is using.

Oh, I thought it was because San Marino's population is just so low.

[Mainshow]

The new changes are brilliant!

I completely disagree with everyone saying that juries were responsible for bringing some "quality" in recent years.
In recent years, there would have been a single different qualifier per semi final - I donīt think that two different entries in 2022, 2021, 2019 would have massively dropped the overall "quality" of the Grand Final.
Also, juries are rather narrow-minded and are neither focussing on trends or originality - Viewers are more open to such criteria (e.g. Dubstep in 2013). Jury members have been downvoting original entries for a while now (Lithuania 2022, Ukraine 2021, Finland 2017, Portugal 2019). They might be saving one or two well-produced/composed English songs performed by great vocalist but itīs not better than killing off televoting favourites such as Montenegro 2013 or Bulgaria 2013.

Also, bloc voting still exists in the jury vote and itīs even more brutal and harms the integrity of the contest. If Cyprus awards 12 pts to Greece in the televoting, that might be "undeserved" but itīs logically due to demographics and socio-cultural factors... if a jury does it 99% of the time, itīs utterly disgusting. Same applies to Sweden trying to make Australia happen or the Nordic voting bloc.

Besides, Eurovision has evolved. The music scene has changed and televoters have been quite "fair" lately - What a few fans who are mourning about the changes keep on forgetting is that even televoters donīt let trashy entries pass - Just think of 2009 - That year was an incredible edition and we had the same rules back then: Only televoters decided on the qualifiers (apart from one jurry qualifier per semi) whilst we had a 50/50 jury/televoting vote in the Grand Final.
Televoters havenīt voted for Latvia, the Czech Republic (which got a big fat zero), Bulgaria and Belgium and therefore, all "low quality, fun/trash/joke entries" got eliminated THANKS to the televoters.
This trend has been going on since the mid-/late 00īs: Silvia Night (Iceland 2006), Dustin The Turkey (Ireland 2008) didnīt qualify either whilst the televoters heavily voted for ballads from Cyprus (2004) and Malta (2005) or "quality entries" such as the Netherlands 2004 and made them qualify.

Countries which are perceived as "heavily relying on diaspora" like Poland didnīt qualify in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009 despite 100% televoting. They have qualified only 1 out of 5 participations and ironically, it was the juries who saved the Polish entry "For Life" (which ended up being bottom 2 in the end).

"Smaller" countriesīchances remain the same. People can blame diaspora, bloc voting and a "lack of taste in music" when it comes to the televoting but ironically, the juries prevented SWITZERLAND from qualifying 3 (!!!) times but saved Azerbaijan 3 (!!!) times instead.

All countries (people claim to never get eliminated due to diaspora, bloc voting...) have been voted out by the televoters before:
Ukraine (2012) just got saved by a shocking #3 rank in the jury vote.
Russia (2018)
Serbia (2009, 2011, 2013) (Serbia got saved by the juries in 2011)
Greece (2016)
Poland (2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2021)
Armenia (2013) (got saved by the juries)

Malta has been saved several times by the juries and got its best scores THANKS to televoting alone (2002, 2005)

Iīm not naive - we do have some bloc voting/diaspora effects but they are rather limited and each country would have been voted out by the televoting in recent years. The song is the most imporant factor.

Of course, there will be examples of why country X could have been saved by the juries in the near future but honestly, juries arenīt really voting on "quality" - They are simply human - overwhelmed by the sheer number of songs - We already saw jury members who openly said that they usually "fall asleep during Eurovision" - We got juries which voted down entries due to politics (hello Armenia, hello Azerbaijan, hello Russia) - We noticed juries who "bought votes and cheated" (hello Poland, Montenegro, San Marino, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania this year). We noticed "professional" jury members voting upside down - they stole Poland and Lithuaniaīs qualifications in 2019 (!) .....Also, fans noticed that some juries stopped voting for betting odds favourites (especially if their own entry is one of the favourites as well... hello Russia 2019 wo didnīt vote for either Switzerland, Italy or the winning entry from the Netherlands).

Such things can also happen in the Grand Final but the "consequences" arenīt that "heavy", e.g. they donīt prevent countries form qualifying, the "effects" are rather limited and the EBU finally found a way to stop making "aggregated jury votes" a thing - just doubling the televoting score is a great way to handle such "errors".

I prefer a honest and authentic televoting system for the semi finals with all its flaws (with limited effects) instead of all these "professional" juries adding different problems. - Iīm glad they are part of the GF to somehow "even out a few effects" but still, the EBU needs to make sure that they will start voting on criteria instead of ranking 25 to 26 entires (for ordinary people, thereīs no difference between a song ranked #8 or #16, honestly) - itīs too complex, overwhelming and will end up with them downvoting songs based on non-professional reasons.

When it comes to the Rest of the World vote, I think that itīs a brilliant idea to make loyal and avid fans be part of this show and honestly, itīs just a single set of points. Itīs 1 set of points out of 37 televoting sets of points and 37 jury votes in the Grand Final.

Also, former Eurovision participants who arenīt taking part for various reasons can also vote, e.g. Hungary, Turkey, Andorra, Luxembourg, Slovakia... or JESC-participants such as Kazakhstan.

[greek_boy]

There was one called Come Back (I think) that deserved to win.

I love it but Latvia had clearly the best performance of the night and you can't say it won because of politics..

[Mainshow]

There was one called Come Back (I think) that deserved to win.

UK 2002 which ended up being #3 in the end?
That was a great entry, for sure and personally, in an utterly weak year as 2002, I would have liked it as a winner but I honestly believe that the running order was the problem here because the UK got drawn to the so-called "death slot" (#2).

UK received points from ALL COUNTRIES who used 100% televoting that year whilst 2 juries (Russia and Romania) awarded 0 points to the UK and thus, I really do not believe that "juries" vote for "quality entries" only...let us not forget that Russia 2012 and Norway 2022 easily qualified in the jury voting as well ;)

[westhammer]

I’m guessing it was changed after the Jury fiasco last year where they removed the votes of 6 countries?