Eurovision 2007 - Helsinki

I'm very sorry to hear that Wicko, may I wish you a speedy recovery!



I think Paddy is certainly a terrific commentator for the BBC but I've never heard anything about the contest moving to BBC Three. People often forget that the final does still do pretty well in the ratings on BBC One and as the BBC have positioned the channel as 'The One to Watch' with an emphasis on live and national events, until that changes I can't see the final leaving the channel for BBC Three.



Dream on! The voting is always absolutely extraordinary and it has little to do with the quality of the music. I actually miss the old jury system - it seems that text/phone voting has made the political and neighbourly voting even more ridiculous than ever before. The poster above who said that the party seems to have been gatecrashed recently by new Europe, with the old Europe paying for it certainly has a point!

Paddy would only been in the running due to his links with Liquid News as Christopher Price was due to host the alternative live version of Eurovision back in 2002 but sadly died a month previously. I would have loved to seen him do the commentary for Eurovision but it was never meant to be.

The crowd booing at the end just proves the point about how unfair it was.

How the hell could top acts such as norway and portugal not get in.

Very dissapointing result.

This just makes me even more apprehensive about the points awarded to the UK tomorrow night.

Sorry if this has already been answered, but do we know who's giving our voting results tomorrow? Is it going to be Fern again or someone else?

I had a call from my mother who is Maltese who was upset because Malta didn't get a look in this year. I was out at the time and never saw the show. Then I came home to find all of the old school countries knocked out. This Eastern European block thing really does need to be addressed.

I say scrap the Semi Final and hold a West & East Eurovision contest then the winners of those get to go into the final. Then we could have an equal number of countries voting, say ten from each contest. I also think that countries that don't win should not be allowed to vote.

I used to really look forward to Eurovision, this year I am watching it out of duty and respect for an old friend.

My vote.... Germany.

The EBU are indeed considering two semi-finals in future (though not next year), but an East/West split was quickly dismissed:

http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/7975

http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/7976

But surely the 'quality of the music' is subjective? What we determine as 'quality music' in the UK isn't what they like in the Balkans or the Med, it's all good music just to diffrent tastes.

The voting isn't really political, or to a certain extent neighbourly; it's cultural and down to geographic tastes

Did the American version of Eurovision that NBC were planning ever get off the ground?

It's simply too many countries, not enough time. I think the only real solution might be for a few of these countries to invade each other!


I think scrapping the semi-final and going back to the older relegation type method would be better.

However, in place of the semi-final have a "B final" instead, but it be more of a spin-off with the top 5-10 getting a place for the next year (for their country) - and possibly giving just the winner a wildcard into the main show this year.

The bottom 5-10 of the main show are then relegated to the "B final" the next year.


Other than that the only other method would be to make it into a series and have so many heats and then the final - though I don't think this would be appreciated by Eurovision fans and non-Eurovision fans alike!



Sorry if it's been touched upon, but have they sorted out the voting this year - or once again is every single country getting a vote.

The simple way is to go back to just participating countries voting, but I think for non-participating countries they should just get one vote between them, with votes from all non-participating countries combined.

Now here's a radicel ideaa. . The songs go on air without the countyrs name. Therefore, no one knows what country is performing until all votes have been counted and then when the scorebord is unvaled the countries name is against the song numbre. This means people would have to vote for song and not use thier vote poilotically. This way other countries may get a look in. if this had happened last night, then Switzerland, denmark and Noway would all have been in the final.

I will agree on this, and ironically allowing the all the Eastern European countries of the EBU to join which at the time it was said would save and improve the ESC, has infact totally destoryed it.
When countries good songs/tunes like Switzerland and Belgium failed to get in by the jarringly obvious Eastern European block votes something has to be done.

So, here's the Hatton Cross annual improvements to reduce the block vote factor.
1) Open the phone/text line for each country AFTER that performance has finished. This should provide an more even spread of votes, and end the quite ridiculous 10mins to vote scrum at 9.45pm. I've suspected that most votes are given to the neighbours because in the short space of time it's the only ones on mainland Europe that the voting public can remember.

2) During the reprise of the acts vt wrap during the voting reverse the running order, so last appears first on screen.

3) After all the votes have been counted, you can only give a maximum 6 points to a land or sea bordering country. So, therefore Switzerland can only give 6 to Germany, Italy, France and Lichtenstein (if they ever entered). The UK could only give 6 to, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, The Netherlands, and France. This would stop in an instant some of the more doubious voting from our former Soviet friends.

4) If that is too radical, then change the voting so that all 42 national jurys do not give out all the votes. All 25 finalists give their votes out as normal, but the losing semi-finalists are split into 3 groups of 5 and add and agregate all the votes together and work out the 1-12 points like that. To mix it up further Group1 announce the marks at the start of voting, Group2 after the 12th country has voted, and Group 3 at the end.

Anyone got the EBU's chief scrutineers e-mail address?

Oh I agree totally.. there's no chance people vote for the music but we can all but imagine.

And as for Paddy and the final moving to BBC Three, well obviously its not been suggested yet but in my view I only watch Eurovision, like I'm sure many others do, because of Wogan's commentary.

So would the National selections be held in secret then?
Your idea is impractical, and that's being kind.