I can see countries pulling out...

[lockedintheattic]

neighbours said:

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?

yeah - considering quite a few of the favourites (Finland, Bosnia, Romania) have never won, nor have quite a few other finalists (Croatia, Malta, Russia, Moldova, Armenia, Lithuania, Macedonia), there's a good chance it'll end up going somewhere new.

[Adrian]

Which is what is ace about eurovision at the moment in my opinion. I love all this outpouring of national-pride-at-hosting lark.

A

[Steve]

Neil Clark of The Guardian has written a 5-Point-Plan to bring Eurovision back to its former glory:
arts.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1778514,00.html

[narcissus]

Ban dance routines

Is the man mad?!

[butker]

I hope that some countries do pull out (mainly the bigger ones). It'll force action to be made to sort out all of the voting problems. I definately think they should bring back some kind of judging panel at some point in the competition.

[Robbing the Dezan]

Boo to you.

Can't you just enjoy the show, it was always political, get over it.

[butker]

I do enjoy the show.

It's just extremely irritating when some genuinely good songs don't qualify, when rubbish like Turkey & Lithuania do.

I'd be able to live with my favourites not getting through, if it was good songs, that deserved to go through, qualifying instead of them.

[Robbing the Dezan]

On another note, this is set to be the first year the show makes a profit.

[dannywales]

Where did you hear that? I saw ages ago that they make loads of money off it.

[PopPony: Bored in Canada]

The only way to make Eurovision fair would be to let us lot on the popjustice board judge it without knowing which song was from which country. *cough*

[Madison]

adrian said:

France will probably never sing in English.

Natasha St. Pier did in 2001.

[NumanumAnzej]

Not much though. More importantly, why has the UK never sung in French?

[Adrian]

madison said:

adrian said:

France will probably never sing in English.

Natasha St. Pier did in 2001.

Yes, this didn't go down well.

A

[NumanumAnzej]

Well, she was Canadian.

[Danniiboy]

You know I think the semi final could actually end up harming the contest. There have been three semis so far and there a number of countries who haven't qualified for the final at all like Portugal, Slovenia, Estonia, Monaco and Andorra - and I think that some may just decide there's no point in taking part anymore. Belgium and the Netherlands are two others I think might follow Austria's lead and sit out the contest. I think if one more country does pull out, others will follow suit.

Sadly, I can't think of any other conceivable way to run the contest, now we have so many countries taking part, but the contest is definitlet biased towards the East now. Out of the 10 qualifiers, only 3 were from Western Europe. I think a lot of countries qualify for the final based on neighbours votes. This is where countries like Macedonia (ironically they deserved to qualify this year) manage to qualify for the final with seemed ease. Years ago, there was really only Greece and Cyprus who voted for each other, with the Scandis to an extent. Now you can almost predict where people's 12 will go, and this year, with them only announcing the top 3, it's going to look even more apparent!

[goggle]

So, now that this year's contest is over, do you still think countries will consider pulling out, or will they all hold out for 40-odd years like Finland?

[ntb]

Do you count Finland as Western Europe? If you look at the east/west divide in the semi, and then look at the divide in the final, it is only very slightly biassed towards the east. That must mean a good Western song could still win. This evening, a bad "western" song won, but it wasn't the worst and I'm quite happy that it's all heading to Helsinki in less than a year!

[KittyLips]

Finland is only just not part of Scandinavia, and those countries count as Northern Europe, not Western. And it's bloody great that they won.

[dalloway7]

In next year Czech Republiæ will debut (finally some neighbour who likes Poland so we have chance for 12 points).

[Conan]

Prague 2008, ahoij!

[KittyLips]

Can the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight please declare independence and enter too?

It would make me laugh.

[Conan]

kittylips2 said:

Can the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight please declare independence and enter too?

It would make me laugh.

The host of the afterparty show on German TV (the same guy who presented Germany's points) said something equally about Germany. It was something like: "Do we have to build up the wall again in order to get points? Or let's just seperate Baveria from the rest of Germany and make it an independent state."

[KittyLips]

I am really disappointed for Germany. It is their best entry in years and was one of the best songs in this year's contest. It should have been top 10 at least, personally I think top 5.

[NumanumAnzej]

Couldn't agree more. That said, I'm really proud of Finland for finally doing it. It's just a pity it was with that song and not at least 10 other songs they've entered over the years that have deserved it (Elaoon Elama, Lapponia, Kun Kelo Kay, Takes Two To Tango, even fricking Nuku Pomiin).

[narcissus]

I agree the semi might be damaging the contest. certain countries seem to be guranteed qualification whatever they send (i.e. Russia - although this years was ok), and others will find it very difficult whatever they try.

I remember reading an April fool this year (I think it was on esctoday). It suggested having regional contests to select the songs for the final. i.e a balkan region, a scandinavian region, meditteranean region etc...
The top songs from these regions would go through to the final. I actually thought it was a god idea. It would get rid of the neighbourly bias, because it would only be neighbours voting for each other. It would also ensure all regions of Europe were represented.

Why has the Czech Rep suddenly decided to take part? Slovakia seems to have given up, as have their other naighbours. The anti Eurovision lot seem to all be in central Europe.

[onrequest]

narcissus said:

I agree the semi might be damaging the contest. certain countries seem to be guranteed qualification whatever they send (i.e. Russia - although this years was ok), and others will find it very difficult whatever they try.

I remember reading an April fool this year (I think it was on esctoday). It suggested having regional contests to select the songs for the final. i.e a balkan region, a scandinavian region, meditteranean region etc...

How about voting in groups of 4, selected at random before the competition. The televotes of the 4 in each group are added up, and each group gets to give out one set of points.

Example;

Group A: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cyprus, Andorra, Germany
Group B: Estonia, Latvia, United Kingdom, France
Group C: Greece, Lithuania, Spain, Sweden...

1. This reduces neighbourly voting. Cyprus and Greece could vote each other #1 in their own televotes, but Cypus could only give Greece 12 points if the other countries in their group had also voted highly for Greece (and vice versa).

2. The votes would be proportionally representative. In a group containing Andorra and Germany, Andorra's votes would have a lesser influence on who gets the 12 points than Germany.*

*I imagine some people would have issues with this, even though it's logical that if more people enjoy a certain song, it should receive more points than if only 10 people in Moldova like it. Anyway, alternatively the individual countries' televotes could be worked out into their top 10 (so each country has its own 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10&12) and then this would be added to the top 10s of the other countries in the group. Then you'd work out the group's top 10 from that list.

I probably haven't explained that well.

And before anybody starts, I'm not suggesting this to find a way of making the UK win.

[Katrien Verbeeck]

^^^ That would be interesting, I mentioned in another post that maybe Europe should be split into 4 parts (north, south, east and west Europe maybe?) and the best 3 are chosen by the countries in that section or pehaps 3 countries could be picked at random before national contests begin (or they could take it in turns each year?). That would stop a lot of political voting maybe?

Just a thought!