For those of you who might be interested I thought I'd post this picture of the stage...even though its a very simple design, it looks quite impressive.
Only if our rivals buck their ideas up and vote on merit, not politically.
'Political voting' is largely a myth - it's down to cultural, historical and immigration factors. The ex-Soviet states are a case in point - 15 years since hey all split up they still have a shared history and cultural tastes, also there are many native lituanians in latvia and so on. Of course the public from those countries are going to vote for each others music.
Don't think the results from the UK are totally neutral - we always give a big score to Ireland, but then that is only to be expected: there is understandably a very large Irish population here and culturally we are more linked to Ireland than, say, our other nearby neighbour France
Only if our rivals buck their ideas up and vote on merit, not politically.
'Political voting' is largely a myth - it's down to cultural, historical and immigration factors. The ex-Soviet states are a case in point - 15 years since hey all split up they still have a shared history and cultural tastes, also there are many native lituanians in latvia and so on. Of course the public from those countries are going to vote for each others music.
Don't think the results from the UK are totally neutral - we always give a big score to Ireland, but then that is only to be expected: there is understandably a very large Irish population here and culturally we are more linked to Ireland than, say, our other nearby neighbour France
Similarly the Turkish entry normally gets high scores from Germany, usually assumed to be because there are a large number of Turkish people who work in Germany (Gastarbeiter or "guest workers" rather than German Citizens ISTR from German lessons at school - though this may have changed!).
Before I get onto the political voting issue, a bit about the stage. Although Sven and the lads from Prisma apparently are not doing the OB's this year (ERT are doing it all themselves) - it appears with those two left/right hand stage techocrane jibs the direction of the show won't appear all that different to previous 3/4 years. It's looks like high up to low down swoops of the stage a-hoy.
Now onto politcal voting...
Politcal voting is not a myth, it's always gone on - it's just now with more countries grouped together taking part its more noticable.
The most obvious one was 12 going from Greece to Cyprus and vis-versa.
The problem is that the EBU in letting more in (which some would argue was done to keep the competition going and more competetive) it has increased the political voting from those nations from the former Soviet Bloc. And in the rush to let more countries in, the eye has been taken off the ball in reducing the effect of political voting.
So, what can be done? I have 3 measures which could work.
1 - Open the phoneline for that country as soon as that perfomance has finished. I suspect a lot of the problem is that in the 8 min crush to vote, most voters will call the number of their neighbour as it's the only one they have made a note of. Longer voting times could help reduce that.
2 - National duries return - made of music professionals, and their marks are weighted into the viewers phone votes.
3 - No more the 6 marks to a neighbour rule. So, you can't give more than 6 votes to a land or sea border country. That would cut a lot of this out at a stroke. As an example the UK would not be allowed to give more than 6 points to the following :- Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal.
Eurovision is a great show, it's 3 hours of lightweight fluff once a year, but something needs to be done to drag it away from a neighbourly love-in with tunes back into something that resembles a pan-European televisied song competition.
Only if our rivals buck their ideas up and vote on merit, not politically.
'Political voting' is largely a myth - it's down to cultural, historical and immigration factors. The ex-Soviet states are a case in point - 15 years since hey all split up they still have a shared history and cultural tastes, also there are many native lituanians in latvia and so on. Of course the public from those countries are going to vote for each others music.
Don't think the results from the UK are totally neutral - we always give a big score to Ireland, but then that is only to be expected: there is understandably a very large Irish population here and culturally we are more linked to Ireland than, say, our other nearby neighbour France
Similarly the Turkish entry normally gets high scores from Germany, usually assumed to be because there are a large number of Turkish people who work in Germany (Gastarbeiter or "guest workers" rather than German Citizens ISTR from German lessons at school - though this may have changed!).
Let's not forgt Greece & Cyprus giving each other full points.
I was quite surprised to learn that Greece and Cyprus have only given each other twelve points every year since 2002, which is when I first watched the contest all the way through (and have done every year since). Before then it only happened in 1987, 1994, 1997, and 1998.
The stage looks very interesting indeed, like some sort of multiple staircase thing. I'm getting visions of Guildo Horn coming in and running up and down them all.
I think the stage is supposed to be based on a Greek auditorium thingy (where the old Greek olympic games, operas, etc were performed) It's difficult to see what I mean from that pic as it looks as if the steps actually rise up during performances. But the stage is basically circular and surrounded by the steps. I'm thinking there may also be the possibility of a return to the 'Latvian way' where the green room appears on stage during voting
I hope they sort out the voting. Get rid of the 'read out every single countries votes' rule and lump together the countries who didn't get out of the SF as 'The Rest of the EBU'. The voting is way too rushed and yet perversely seems to take really long!
Now onto politcal voting...
Politcal voting is not a myth, it's always gone on - it's just now with more countries grouped together taking part its more noticable.
The most obvious one was 12 going from Greece to Cyprus and vis-versa.
But how can you be sure that is a *political* decision by the voting public of Cyprus and Greece?
It's more likely that it happens because of the links between Cyprus and Greece. No-one is allowed to vote for the country they are in but there's nothing to stop them voting for the country where they originated in or the country that their family live in.
Also Greek/Greek Cypriot tastes are virtually identical. No idea if the people of Northern Cyprus get to watch and vote - I doubt it.
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The problem is that the EBU in letting more in (which some would argue was done to keep the competition going and more competetive) it has increased the political voting from those nations from the former Soviet Bloc.
Again, not necessarily political voting. Of course the public in the baltic countries are going to give lots of votes to their neighbours - until 15 years ago they were the same country. Lots of Latvians live in Belarus and lots of Lithuanians live in Latvia and they all grew up with a common culture.
If Scotland and Wales entered the competition next year, England would give them lots of votes for the same reason.
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So, what can be done? I have 3 measures which could work.
1 - Open the phoneline for that country as soon as that perfomance has finished. I suspect a lot of the problem is that in the 8 min crush to vote, most voters will call the number of their neighbour as it's the only one they have made a note of. Longer voting times could help reduce that.
But then the songs at the start would be far more likely to win and the last few songs would always lose
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2 - National duries return - made of music professionals, and their marks are weighted into the viewers phone votes.
There was a lot to be said for the jury system - for a start they voted according to lyrics rather than the singer with the nicest tits!
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3 - No more the 6 marks to a neighbour rule. So, you can't give more than 6 votes to a land or sea border country. That would cut a lot of this out at a stroke. As an example the UK would not be allowed to give more than 6 points to the following :- Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal.
A nice idea, but a logistical nightmare. However it wouldn't stop the Greece/Cyprus issue and some countries would have a huge disadvantage (Switzerland, Austria and Germany) whereas some like Israel would have a big advantage!
Also since when has the UK had a sea border with Portugal?
I was quite surprised to learn that Greece and Cyprus have only given each other twelve points every year since 2002, which is when I first watched the contest all the way through (and have done every year since). Before then it only happened in 1987, 1994, 1997, and 1998.
When did both countries start doing phone voting though? The bigger countries including the UK have done it for a long time, others didn't start till much later
I was quite surprised to learn that Greece and Cyprus have only given each other twelve points every year since 2002, which is when I first watched the contest all the way through (and have done every year since). Before then it only happened in 1987, 1994, 1997, and 1998.
When did both countries start doing phone voting though? The bigger countries including the UK have done it for a long time, others didn't start till much later
That's not at all true. Five countries (don't know which ones) had televoting in 1997. In 1998 the vast majority of countries (and possibly all of them) started.
I hope they sort out the voting. Get rid of the 'read out every single countries votes' rule and lump together the countries who didn't get out of the SF as 'The Rest of the EBU'. The voting is way too rushed and yet perversely seems to take really long!
Thats actually a brilliant idea but they've already taken action this year to reduce the amount of time it takes do the voting: announcers (Fearne Cotton for the UK and Eimear Quinn for IRL) will only read out the points from 8 up. Points 1 through 7 will appear automatically.
As for the voting...televoting can never be abolished because too much revenue would be lost however the televote result could be diluted by a combined jury vote thus not affecting voting revenue.
I hope they do have the green room behind the stage! 2003 was the best eurovision in a long time.
