Jake
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Post by Jake on May 18, 2006 19:09:28 GMT -5
Possibly Belgium
I have read on various forums that many people think that their countries will pull out. Especially alot of people from Netherland and Belgium (due to the Kate fiasco)
They need to sort out the voting.
I am sure these will pull out for next year
France Monoco Bulgaria Netherlands
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Post by soinlove on May 18, 2006 19:12:19 GMT -5
Hmmmm... When a country like Belgium send a song as strong as Kate's to Eurovsion and she gives a solid performance but still can't get in the top 10 it kind of makes you wanna ask some questions.
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Steve
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Post by Steve on May 18, 2006 19:16:24 GMT -5
I still think that the voting should be representative to population/number of votes cast. These smaller countries voting in their droves for, what seem to be, neighbouring countries, strikes me as particularly unfair.
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Jake
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Post by Jake on May 18, 2006 19:20:05 GMT -5
The case in point is Macedonia. A truly shocking performance, and an awful outfit. And yet it still qualifies!
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Post by Robbing the Dezan on May 18, 2006 19:23:15 GMT -5
FYROM was good. Kate wasn't that good.
Representative voting wouldn't work because it would be too confusing, and also you only want it to favour certain countries.
You seem to suggest only we vote on opinion and the Eastern countries vote politcally. If you look at the British results for the semi we would have given the high points to the likes of Ireland (neighbours, lots of Irish here), Cyprus (lots of Cyriots and Greeks), etc. Why do you think we were only one of two countries to give Lithuania anything last year? Because of the sizeable Lithuanian population in the UK.
Currently the contest may be unfairly skewed to the East, but representative voting would just unfairly skew it to the West.
Look at the Western European entries though:
Denmark has some rubbish song about the twist Germany has some country song We have a dodgy rap Ireland have a boring sleep enducing number France has some rubbish French song I can't even remember Monaco had that dire ukeleli song Andorra had some fat bird singing an alright song The Netherlands had a rubbish piece of shit Spain has some watery Las Ketchup Portugal had some rubbish retro shit.
Do you really want the contest to be biased towards the likes of this. Belgium was one of the only decent Western European songs. Eastern Europe makes better songs. Bias towards the East is far better than biased towards the West.
Wait until the results of the semi final come out.
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Jake
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Post by Jake on May 18, 2006 19:25:21 GMT -5
Macedonia was awful! She looked like an upmarket hooker. The performance was dire!
Belgium's performance was good. She deserved to make the final over the likes of Armenia anyway.
I can see Iceland oulling out now as well.
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KittyLips
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Post by KittyLips on May 18, 2006 19:25:33 GMT -5
France has already declared it is in the contest for the long haul even though it expects a bad result again this year. The Netherlands too is having a TV reshuffle and the Eurovision will switch channels and the Eurovision is planned to continue there.
Would we care if Bulgaria pulled out? And as for Monaco, this year's entrant was shocking. 2004's Marion was dogged by sound problems despite having a lovely song. 2005's Lise Darly had a gorgeous, classy song which she sang beautifully but in appearance was a classier version of israel's Shiri tits-aloft Maymon and her Americana ballad. 2006's Severine Ferrer was a bimbo in a sarong who forgot how to sing and looked like she'd been drugged.
Shame.
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Post by Robbing the Dezan on May 18, 2006 19:41:38 GMT -5
France has already declared it is in the contest for the long haul even though it expects a bad result again this year. The Netherlands too is having a TV reshuffle and the Eurovision will switch channels and the Eurovision is planned to continue there. Would we care if Bulgaria pulled out? And as for Monaco, this year's entrant was shocking. 2004's Marion was dogged by sound problems despite having a lovely song. 2005's Lise Darly had a gorgeous, classy song which she sang beautifully but in appearance was a classier version of israel's Shiri tits-aloft Maymon and her Americana ballad. 2006's Severine Ferrer was a bimbo in a sarong who forgot how to sing and looked like she'd been drugged. Shame. Exactly. Most countries enter expecting not to win. I mean only 1 country out of almost 40 can win. Financially it makes no different if they come 1st, 10th or 38th. So if they consistantly come last it just means they have to live with the shame. But it's just Eurovision.
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KittyLips
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Post by KittyLips on May 18, 2006 19:48:18 GMT -5
The Netherlands had a rubbish piece of shit I don't think any number of big words could have expressed the truth of that statement any clear: the Netherlands did indeed have a rubbish piece of shit. The only good that came out of it was Silvia Night taking the piss out of them live on telly .
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Post by Scoodle on May 18, 2006 19:48:52 GMT -5
if they pull out, who cares? enter better songs.
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Steve
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Post by Steve on May 18, 2006 19:49:36 GMT -5
I'm not saying that western countries don't vote "politically" either, but I can't think of any other way to make it fairer for all.
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KittyLips
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Post by KittyLips on May 18, 2006 19:59:23 GMT -5
I'm not saying that western countries don't vote "politically" either, but I can't think of any other way to make it fairer for all. Political voting is a myth bandied about by people who's favourites lose, and by artists who lose. Different regions of Europe favour different styles of music- the northern area favours schlager, Eastern Europe seems to prefer techno-folk, the meditteranean prefers latin beats etc. Adjacent countries have similar stars- Carola is known in Scandinavia, Sibel in Turkey, probably Armenia and probably some of the ex-Russian provinces etc. It's not political, Kate just gave a bad performance. The song should have made it through but like with Selma's bad staging last year it all went tits up. I would accept that some people are trying to play the odds and beat the bookies by voting shit into the finals, but that would be sooo costly and would have to be organised across countries and involve so many people that even that seems unlikely.
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Post by Katrien Verbeeck on May 19, 2006 2:39:02 GMT -5
They need to get rid of the semi finals because it's just crap. Not many people watch it so they don't get many votes probably so anything gets through. Like I said before they should pick names from something for those who did not make the top whatever and aren't one of the big 4 instead of having a semi final. Or they get a jury to vote in the semi final - it would make more sense.
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Post by lockedintheattic on May 19, 2006 4:00:40 GMT -5
Hmmmm... When a country like Belgium send a song as strong as Kate's to Eurovsion and she gives a solid performance but still can't get in the top 10 it kind of makes you wanna ask some questions. Her vocals were so weak, and the choreography was sloppy and unpolished - all round it was a great idea badly executed. Compare that to Ukraine where an OK song was lifted by a great performance (vocally & choreography). People need to look at performances on the night - you can't just expect to get in on a good song alone, Eurovision is more competitive than ever.
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Post by Scoodle on May 19, 2006 4:08:18 GMT -5
lockedintheattic, i totally agree. There's a lot of good songs in Eurovision this year. It's more competitive than ever and the performer needs to sell it on the night. Kate wasn't terrible or anything but the performance just didn't grab enough attention.
Although she did use the wind machine very effectively and more selectively than my dear Carola!
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Adrian
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Post by Adrian on May 19, 2006 4:08:40 GMT -5
More competitive than ever and with more entrants than ever. 40 is the limit and more want to be in it. They need a semi-final, otherwise it would be a 6-hour long marathon which nobody will sit through.
What people need to do is stop seeing the semi-final as crap. I watch this as the final and then the final as the Final Final. And it's all fun.
And to claim to try to make it fair - Eurovision doesn't need to be fair. As long as decent songs continue to win, that's all that matters.
A
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Post by onrequest on May 19, 2006 4:29:21 GMT -5
The semi final is particularly unfair because it gives many of the songs a second exposure. I remember seeing an analysis of the results for either last year or the year before showing that a lot of the highest voted songs in the final were those from the semi final. I'm guessing that the 'big four' don't watch the Semi-finals much since they're never in them. This means Belgium could have missed out on votes from its neighbours, such as France.
Another thing is that all the countries can now vote, even those who aren't in the final. Imagine Cyprus was not in the final; before they would not have been able to give 12 points to Greece. But now, they can give them 12 points each year, even without performing.
How about adding up the actual number of phone votes? We make the most calls, but our vote counts for as much as Moldova's, where they probably receive 5 votes.
"Our tenth place from the UK is Greece, with 568 votes. In ninth place, Belgium with 1,033 votes."
And so on.
Alternatively, restrict how many points you can give out based on number of votes. It would have to be worked out on the night after the lines had closed, but say we cast 10,000 votes and Andorra has 500, we'd be able to give a 12 points, but they'd only be able to go up to 6 or something.
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Adrian
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Post by Adrian on May 19, 2006 4:33:28 GMT -5
Greece won last year without being in the semi-final.
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Adrian
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Post by Adrian on May 19, 2006 4:58:45 GMT -5
Hurrah for the girls from Treble (Netherlands). Their reaction to not qualifying (from esctoday.com):
I like that.
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NumanumAnzej
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Post by NumanumAnzej on May 19, 2006 5:31:49 GMT -5
Me too. I haven't chimed in about this yet, partly because it seems a bit silly to me, partly because I was asleep. But surely, for Western Europe at least, Eurovision is more about the taking part than winning? The amount of hassles involved with organising the contest the year after is practically a deterrent. It's only the fans who want to see their country win (and not all the time, because I hope Daz gets nul points).
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Adrian
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Post by Adrian on May 19, 2006 5:37:43 GMT -5
...whereas Eastern European countries are gagging to host it. Interesting opinion.
(for the record, I mean this non-sarcasticly)
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Post by Robbing the Dezan on May 19, 2006 7:01:02 GMT -5
I don't know if that was sarcastic or not. But for a lot of Eastern European countries hosting Eurovision is a big deal. Financial matters aside, for Estonia and Lavtia it was a positive step towards European integration. I saw a documentary about Estonia 2 years after they hosted it, and the President, or Prime Minister kept talking about how important Eurovision was for Estonia. The same for Ukraine last year - many/most people in the West don't think these countries have changed since the fall of the iron curtain.
I understand Estonia and Latvia got assistance in organising the event from bigger countries like Sweden. But they put on greta shows, particularly the Riga contest in 2003.
And of course, hosting Eurovision is a huge thing for Greece. After their Euro 2004 win, then hosting the olympics, then winning Eurovision, they are now hosting the event.
onrequest, sorry, but you are talking crap. All your stlye of voting would do is favour big countries like Germany, the UK and France. Have you seen how WE vote? It's all Ireland and Greece. This is not the US presidential elections, it's Eurovision. And also, representative voting would give the biggest countries a disadvantage. How?
Well, if say Germany makes 10,000,000 votes and Moldova makes 1,000 votes - Germany can't vote for itself, so that means it can't receive 10,000,000 out of the total Europe wide votes. Moldova being so small can only not receive 1,000 votes.
Why should Germany's opinion matter more than Lithuania's? It doesn't make it fairer at all. You are just trying to think of ways to make the songs you like, and your own country win.
And on the comment that "the semi final give its participants an unfair advantage": Has it not occured to you that if they qualify from the semi final it means they got lots of votes, i.e. people actually really like them, therefore of course they will do well in the final.
Last year Greece won without being in the semi final, and Malta came second and they weren't in the semi final either.
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Post by Robbing the Dezan on May 19, 2006 7:15:46 GMT -5
But! I do think only qualifying countries should be allowed to vote in the final. It would also cut the voting time down significantly.
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jamstar
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Post by jamstar on May 19, 2006 7:21:36 GMT -5
At the end of the day Eurovision is a 'fun' event and I love the songs whether they come last or don't even get to Eurovision through the national selections. Through Eurovision I get to hear some great pieces of pop which otherwise I may have never discovered.
I hope that countries who dont go through to the final don't take it to heart and continue to participate. Just look at Finland! They just keep on going and I have a lot of respect for that sort of attitude.
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Post by Robbing the Dezan on May 19, 2006 7:26:29 GMT -5
I can understand Belgium being annoyed, because they entered their strongest entry for years, and for certain bookies was the favourite to win. But countries like France can't complain. Maybe if they chose a decent song, and weren't so stubborn and sung in English they might get somewhere. And with having Andorra and Monaco now it's like having 3 Frances. And that's not a good thing.
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Adrian
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Post by Adrian on May 19, 2006 7:36:10 GMT -5
France will probably never sing in English. Their president stormed out of an EU meeting this / last year when told English was the language of business. They're incredibly proud and protective of the French language.
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KittyLips
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Post by KittyLips on May 19, 2006 7:39:56 GMT -5
Fair enough. I was glad Sibel performed in Turkish as the English spoken bit sounded horrible.
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NumanumAnzej
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Post by NumanumAnzej on May 19, 2006 8:08:21 GMT -5
Yeah, but if she'd sung in English, and did the talky bit in Turkish, maybe with one chorus in Turkish too, that would have been fine.
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Post by onrequest on May 19, 2006 8:51:45 GMT -5
Why should Germany's opinion matter more than Lithuania's? Well it's meant to be a vote for Europe's favourite song. So regardless of countries, if 40,000 people vote for one song, and only 100 vote for another, it's not exactly right that both are awarded 12 points based on where the voters lived? I hadn't thought of that. Fair point. No, that is not the case. I don't think the United Kingdom deserves to win, in all honesty. Besides that, we won in 1997. That's not all that long ago. Some countries have still never hosted it. I also like seeing how different countries host the Eurovision.
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Post by Robbing the Dezan on May 19, 2006 8:55:21 GMT -5
Well if you like seeing how different countries host the event you should like how it currently pans out:
Sweden Denmark Estonia Latvia Turkey Ukraine Greece
Who knows, maybe Sarajevo 2007?
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