Eurovision 2013 - 14/16/18 May 2013

And usually the BBC play out the credits from the country which is broadcasting, and cutting before all the sponsors appear. This year they had their own credits which looked kind of stupid.

I don't see how the BBC can't afford it as they are one of the biggest financial supporters of Eurovision which is why they automatic qulaification. I was actually outraged after I downloaded the app only to find out that I couldn't use the app to vote or even text.

But for text voting, I'm guessing TeliaSonera are not only in Sweden but in fact in different parts of the EU. Would they have put a deal in place for other countries that are voting by text?

I love it how they said last night that we can't vote on Thursday, of course we can - just the international number of the countries that are allowed to vote! I did it last year and it worked perfect!

But I do echo the previous person who said that the BBC should have just taken the international feed, however how would they have worked around the commercial breaks? But there didn't seem to be that many commercial break spots which was actually quite refreshing to see...

Well that's a bit naff anyway - I'm glad we didn't have it in that case.


Well it meant they could appear in-vision before the end - it hardly looked stupid (not that I can think of many ways custom credits could look stupid).


I'm not entirely sure how anyone could be outraged by the fact that they can't vote in a particular way - even the Daily Mail couldn't feign such outrage.


You do realise that votes received from other countries are easy to detect and will be disqualified?

There are multiple issues with the EBU voting app. The iOS and Android apps use different voting methods apparently.

AIUI The iOS version uses SMS - so would be unusable in the UK where SMS-voting has been widely discredited (SMS shortcode text votes can take 24+ hours to be counted due to the way they are handled to avoid swamping the network - which means they are unusable for 15-minute window style voting)

AIUI The Android app apparently uses some form of PayPal authenticated web voting - to confirm your location based on registered credit card address. This MAY be acceptable in the UK - but can you imagine how complicated it would be to explain THAT to viewers?

As for TeliaSonera - I think they are financial sponsors (hence the sponsorship logo on the results board that UK viewers hopefully didn't see on BBC Three) and happen to be a mobile telephony provider. I don't think they are technically involved (apart from possibly in Sweden as a normal telephony provider). Each country, I believe, uses its own standard phone/text voting systems that would be used on other shows - and files the results to the central collation operation (which I think is still run by Digame)

TeliaSonera were SVT Programme Sponsors last night, they did not appear as Eurovision SC Official Sponsors in the end credits, those named were Schwarzlopf, ICA, Isadora and Tetra Pak. ,

They had their own credits last year as well. If they'd have stayed on the credits after Ana through to Scott directly it would have looked a bit stilted wouldn't it? If Ana had said more, we'd have probably seen the credits...



It isn't a case of affording it. The BBC have much stricter compliance rules for competition voting than most of the rest of Europe. SMS voting demonstrably doesn't work fairly in the UK - so the BBC don't allow it. They introduced mobile shortcodes (as with Strictly) this year - so people can vote more cheaply from mobiles. Kind of the same result.

I suspect the app wasn't available early enough for compliance testing - and if it does use SMS on some platforms it wouldn't work here anyway.


Think they are primarily a financial sponsor - not sure they have any direct involvement in SMS specific to Eurovision other than their role as a telephony provider (like O2 or Vodafone in the UK)



Out-of-area votes should be filtered out in other countries as they are in the UK. You will be connected, but the caller ID check will mean your vote isn't counted. Blocked caller ID is also usually ignored. In some countries they use numbers that can only be dialled domestically, others use the Caller ID system. You will be connected, but your vote WON'T be counted...



Two breaks in the performance sequences (one contains a video, the other a green room sequence), and one between lines closing and results being announced (which contains the interval act and possibly another video). Last night the BBC didn't take the whole of the third commercial break, and returned to see the Lynda Woodruff VT.

On Thursday, the UK can't vote in the second semi-final (we only get to vote in one), so I suspect the BBC won't show all of the recaps and will opt-out for some or all of that sequence.

Their logo was on the results scoreboard within the show though.

The BBC needs to stop replacing the interval acts with their own garbage. Year after year the BBC has proved it is incapable of doing good Eurovision filler - and it's so arbitrary, what exactly is the point in the trash they churn out? This year's interview with Loreen was particularly disastrous. Why do the BBC we'd rather see their cheap trashy filler than the actual interval act? It'd save SO much money if they hadn't sent Scott Mills to Malmo and just had him do the commentary in London, as they did in 2011, without any dire BBC inserts.

I would have liked to have posted this shortly after the end of the first semi-final, but I was busy doing other things. Anyway here it is now:

My desired qualifiers: Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Russia, Belarus, Cyprus, Slovenia, The Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium.

Actual qualifiers (in order of announcement): Moldova, Lithuania, Ireland, Estonia, Belarus, Denmark, Russia, Belgium, Ukraine, The Netherlands.

Bold entries represent the actual qualifiers that match my preferences.

OUT: Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro.

I'm gutted that Austria and Croatia are out (I voted for Croatia). I'd have also liked Cyprus to have gone through and I'm disappointed they're out. On the other hand I'm shocked Lithuania are through, and would rather Estonia and Ukraine hadn't qualified.

I'm glad Denmark and Russia are through, I thought they were excellent. Also I'm glad to see Belarus through, the dance routine for their entry will be a chance for Eurovision fans to get up, join in and copy the dance routine (or to put it another way an adult kids' Boogie Beebies big video). I'm extremely glad that Montenegro's utter garbage is out, their entry would have been a disgrace to the final had it qualified. To a lesser degree I'm glad Serbia is out as I didn't think much of their entry.

I've given more detailed comments about who's through and who's out on my blog; if you're interested please check it out.

http://www.junioreurovision.tv/save-files/resizes/7a/2f/6e/fb/8a/71/51/65/e3/6a/5e/63/2a/ae/93/b9/EUROVISION_logo.jpg
What do we think of the new logo?
Gotham used again.

I'm not sure it's the interval act that's being filled, more the ad breaks?

I first saw it trackside on an indoor athletics meeting being shown on Eurosport, and couldn't quite work out what it was trying to symbolise, and the old EBU three arrows logo did the job quite well.
But after seeing the animated frontcap last night, it's actually quite clever and simple device with the O representing the centre of Europe and the left/right half sort of cryptically representing the left and right of Europe.

Let's now look ahead to tomorrow night's second semi-final. I've listened to my ESC 2013 CD double album in full twice over today. Based on hearing the CD today, I can now rank the semi-final 2 countries as follows:

Definitely want to qualify: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Malta, Switzerland, San Marino.
Wouldn't mind qualifying: Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary.
Prefer not to qualify: Albania, Finland, F.Y.R. Macedonia, Norway, Romania.
Definitely don't want to qualify: Greece, Latvia.

Tomorrow I might just listen to the semi-final 2 participants on my CD, and of course tomorrow evening I'll be watching semi-final 2. Of course by the time I've seen all 17 live performances in tomorrow evening's semi-final 2, some of my choices above may change.