Eurovision 2011 - 10/12/14 May 2011

Those credits don't look 4:3 safe!

I dare say there don't like blue, Azerbaijan,are not even in Europe is it? How can the resolve this issues as it need to be sorted. ok I be honset its NOT as bad as other years but still at least 15 countries I was able to predict who would get the top 3 points

By the look of things, credits were designed to be read by The Borrowers, presuming they have a widescreen set.

Pres-wise, the bits I have seen have been fantastic.

Lovely simple graphics (the black bars almost a little Apple-esque), and I liked how they did the scoring with the two massive video walls and the Talking Telephone Numbers desks in the middle.

I know the production values are execellent, the set very snazzy and easy for quick turnaround between acts, but I can't help feel it's just all a little bit too identikit generic these days. Are countries obligued to use this 'heart' brand?

Please explain the tactical voting that went towards Azerbaijan winning? One of the most 'who they?' countries in the final! There will always be voting according to diaspora and cross-cultural connections, but it rarely affects the winner

I don't understand all this talk of voting for neighbours. We voted for Ireland because Jedward has a large fan base in the UK, not because of geography, and it is the same across Europe. The Scandinavian/Eastern Block countries vote for each other because their respective acts get air play and have a fan base in each others countries. It's as simple as that.

If anything, acts like Jedward and Blue suffered from having a 50% jury vote as they are known in many countries and consistently getting between 2 and 7 points makes me think they had a considerable amount of phone votes that were pulled down by the jury voting.

Good show tonight and the dynamic voting obviously worked - though as soon as Blue got 12 points early on you knew they were screwed. Can't complain about the winner - there were 4 or 5 songs this year which were strong contenders, and though I wasn't keen on Azerbaijan in the semi-finals, I do think they performed it much better tonight. Also think Italy had a much better song that Graham gave them credit for, while France finished just about where they deserved. How on earth they became bookies favourite I don't know.

As for the BBC end of things - Graham did a superb job tonight and I'm so glad Wogan is now long gone - it was him, not crazy acts from Eastern Europe, who was ruining it a few years ago. Only major complaint is the obsession with Twitter/Facebook this year - they go to all the effort of blocking out the Vodafone logo but think nothing of mentioning Twitter/Facebook about 30 times over the evening.

And as for the Germans - well two out of three shows over-running - are they trying to break a stereotype or something. Also very disapointing interval act - after 25 songs you don't really want two more. The act we didn't see on Thursday looked far more suitable.

I'm pleased that Azerbaijan won. That means another first-time winner after a run of first-time winners 2001 to 2008 inclusive. Also it continues the trend of a different country each year:

1996 Ireland
1997 United Kingdom
1998 Israel
1999 Sweden
2000 Denmark
2001 Estonia (their first ever win)
2002 Lativa (their first ever win)
2003 Turkey (their first ever win)
2004 Ukraine (their first ever win)
2005 Greece (their first ever win)
2006 Finland (their first ever win)
2007 Serbia (their first ever win)
2008 Russia (their first ever win)
2009 Norway
2010 Germany
2011 Azerbaijan (their first ever win)

That's 16 years of a different country winning each year (1996 to 2011 inclusive). How much longer can that trend continue?

Totally didn't top last years interval act.

43 years?

Semi Results

First Semi-Final
1.Greece
2.Azerbaijan
3.Finland
4.Iceland
5.Lithuania
6.Georgia
7.Hungary
8.Serbia
9.Russia
10.Switzerland
11.Malta
12.Armenia
13.Turkey
14.Albania
15.Croatia
16.San Marino
17.Norway
18.Portugal
19.Poland
Second Semi-Final
1.Sweden
2.Denmark
3.Slovenia
4.Romania
5.Bosnia & Herzegovina
6.Ukraine
7.Austria
8.Ireland
9.Estonia
10.Moldova
11.Belgium
12.Bulgaria
13.Slovakia
14.Belarus
15.Israel
16.F.Y.R. Macedonia
17.Latvia
18.Cyprus
19.The Netherlands

Shocking!