Eurovision 2013 - 14/16/18 May 2013

Just for the record: She did say thank you and goodbye in Swedish at the end of the broadcast.

Sorry, was unclear - the BBC cut the sound. SVT played it in full (I had to load their stream up as my whole party wanted to know what Eric Saade had said!)

For anyone that's interested the app just generates a standard text (charged at a fairly steep €0.50 here in Austria). After the text is sent there is a very short (5 second) video of the performer thanking you for your vote (the video wasn't there in the semi-finals).

Petra was just fantastic and made it much more watchable this year. For a competition that really shouldn't be taken seriously, it just seems obvious to make some fun of it all and her song was a welcome change. I do hope that she is the benchmark for future hosts.

It did seem to lack any stand out acts, both for brilliance and awfulness. It was very samey.

On the commentary side, can't they just fix the text and app voting issues? It seems that we have a problem with both of these types of voting in the UK, having been in use and then pulled in recent years with The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. The other countries have to be doing something different - or are we just scared after all the voting fiascos in recent years?

It's unlikely the SMS issues will ever be fixed, as it would be down to the operators (who are more concerned with upcoming technologies than intended side effects of a comparatively ancient system which was not designed for voting).

With regard to in-app voting; well with such a short window for voting you'd need a very chunky server to avoid this happening.

To be honest, there's nothing easier than pressing in 7 digits and pressing dial. Even at its simplest (PayPal, probably) online voting will take 3 steps.

YES!

They fattened up/fed from the golden goose to the point of exploitation in the UK, and took normal audience participation down with it when it 'crashed and burned'.

It seems to be quite tightly controlled now: although banning 'app voting' for Eurovision is perhaps the same as suggesting a 'man with a red flag' walks in front of a Google StreetView car on the basis that it's a dangerous motorised horseless carriage.

Personally I was totally bored by all the acts, and so was Mrs MarkyMark, who buggered off to bed
after the UK entry.

Of course the annual EBU contribution circuit test, that masquerades as the voting sequence, was fun to watch for 'people like us', but I suspect a large chunk majority of punters just go and stick the kettle on.

The high spot for me was the truly brilliant interval act with Petra:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSPFMpAp2d0

That's a recording from SVT's domestic coverage, you can hear their commentator at the end



It might be the UK mobile network infrastructure is so overloaded, it might crash if tasked with such a thing ?

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As has been said by several others, the app is just a way of sending a text message. If the app wasn't just a glorified SMS creator, we would be almost certainly be allowed to use it. It's nothing to do with forcing people to use the phone lines, but all about making sure peoples votes are actually counted which SMS doesn't guarantee.

I think your comment about not taking it seriously is a good one, it was often implied during the Wogan years that the UK saw the contest as a joke and the rest of Europe took it seriously. If that was ever true, it now seems that the opposite is true at least when it comes to the voting. I'm sure the other countries have text votes that were sent during the voting window but arrive afterwards. It is just that for some reason, we are meant to be outraged by that in this country. If some votes don't get counted, so what? The contest was fine for decades without viewer votes at all.

I'm surprised that the BBC allow countdowns to the end of the voting window. If I'm stupid enough to phone up when the countdown on my TV is at 2 but in reality the lines closed 4 seconds ago, should I be outraged by the fact that my vote may or may not have been counted? I know, I'll write to the Daily Mail and ask them.

In my view, the BBC shouldn't be running any viewer votes on any programme especially now they are not allowed to make money from it. The only beneficiaries are the various phone companies. Viewer votes should be left to commercial TV.

Actually that tends to be the most watched part in the UK. The peak audience figure always happens during the voting.

I don't think acknowledging the winner early was the problem, it seems a pretty wise decision. The problem was the awkward pause before resuming the voting.

It wouldve been far better to have announced the winner over the top of the green room feed, then gone straight back to the rest of the results.

They're waiting for the news to come along