What A Great Year It Was

2012 certainly has been a wonderful year for Eurovision fans. We've learned new things about the contest, we're now better able to ask other questions, but what stands out?

Loreen

Without a doubt the star of 2012 in the eyes of so many fans. I must admit I was not impressed by Euphoria at first but it does take me a couple of listens to get my head around a good song. At Eurovision she has definitely wrote a chapter in the history of Eurovision, not just for being a great song or gaining the second highest number of points ever received, but more importantly she won the contest for the fans. For this we should be grateful.

What national final formats actually work?

There is a huge difference of opinion about the best way to run a national final. While most fans will talk about running Melodifestivalen styled finals that may be too big and expensive to run in smaller countries, there has been many changes to national final formats this year. Yet, in spite of this there has been little convergence in formats which makes it very difficult to argue that one type works. 

Are the changes to the contest for the better?

Certainly it has been well flagged by the EBU that Eurovision will change substantially over the coming years, as Sweden the contest this would appear to be a relativity easy thing to achieve this year. We saw the beginnings of this change in Oslo in 2010, but it to difficult to say what the ultimate results of this change is. There have been differing opinions about the changes to the contest. Personally on the macro level I agree with the change and I don't see it as threatening the future of the contest. However I don't agree with everything that has changed but as with nearly all changes to the contest we cannot say how they will affect it until we see it in practice.

 Will we see another Junior Eurovision Song Contest?

This is probably one of the more regrettable questions that I write here. There are a lot of threats to JESC at the moment however I think it would be a real shame to lose it. Rather than being just a smaller version of the contest run in December, it has developed its own distinctive flavour and is differ to many of the other shows, I hope that the EBU will continue to develop ideas about how to allow it to continue and hopefully grow in size. 

So those are the main stand out points and themes of this Eurovision year. 

I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

Split Jury Results Are Out!

The last couple of weeks have seen a definite slow down in stories coming through about however today the most important piece of news to come from EBU in the form of a split jury/televoting break down. Here we discuss what happened in the final.

Televoting
Unsurprisingly Sweden topped the televote. The surprising thing was that Russia came second on the televote but by only 9 points. This means that, for the second year running if combined voting was not used there would have been a far more interesting finish. It will surprise many people how well Russia did. Serbia came third, Turkey came fourth and Azerbaijan came fifth. Estonia only came 12th despite coming 6th overall. Germany came 6th in the vote. Romania, surprisingly

On the other end of the list France came last with 0 points, which many will find quite shocking, especially considering the level of promotion that she did. UK would also have finished a more respectable 21st place. This will have implications at the BBC as their entire strategy was based on a good jury vote. But for the second year running the jury final performance was not up to standard.

Generally the public split over Russia and Sweden. However the top 5 managed to soak up a huge propotion of the votes, and the top 10 soaked a massive 71% of the televote points, meaning that the rest had very little points between them.

Juries
Juries once again proved surprising, but fair, even if their year on year voting seems inconsistent. Sweden won the jury vote by a massive 123 points. Unlike the televote the juries were extremely spread in the songs that they voted for. Though the number of points given by the juries to the top 10 was similar to the public vote (63%) the spread of the votes between places 9 and 22 was only 54 points, which is very small.

Somewhat surprisingly the Hump came last here, followed by Jedward. Albania and Italy tied for third, Spain came fifth and Estonia came 6th. Unlike the televote the jury top 5 would have been radically different for the actually one. France and Ukraine were the big surprises in the jury votes, coming 7th and 13th respectively.

The combining of the two votes worked very well. If you add up jury and public televoting points the order of the top 10 remains the same, in fact other than some rearranging at the bottom, the scoreboard is very similar. Many people brush this aside but I think that it is important that this occurs for me to have confidence in the voting.

That concludes the first piece of analysis. Tomorrow [All going to plan] I'll do a piece of the semi-final breakdown.

The Monday After

Only 351 days to the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. [Seems a long way away doesn't it?].

Anyway as Loreen starts to climb up through the charts across Europe it's time to start looking at what happened last night and who came where. 

As you just might already know Sweden won the contest, with 372 points and gaining the most number of 12 points ever [18 sets]. Whether you liked the song or not I think that this is a serious win and one that helps the contest as whole. It shows that the best song can win the contest regardless of where it is geographically. Most of all Sweden's is a huge one for fans of the contest.

Russia came second on Saturday, the grannies proving that age is no barrier to success. [Despite what Engelbert Humperdinck might think]. Serbia came third Zeljko proving that a safe Balkan ballad can bring you some success, especially when there isn't many other Balkan ballads in the competition. Azerbaijan came fourth which is a very respectable for a host country and suggests that Azerbaijan will still be a force to be reckoned with in future contests. Albania came fifth, which might raise a couple of eyebrows, but I did say that this would do a bit better than expected. It shows that a technically good song, combined with an outstanding vocal performance can do well in the contest.

Estonia came sixth which was as surprising as when they came sixth in 2009. Definitely Ott deserved his placing, but this was a big surprise. Turkey came seventh which, I do believe was a fair placing for them. Then three of the big 5 came Germany - Roman Lob doing about as well as can be expected. Italy - I'm not sure how Nina Zilli might feel about her placing but I felt it was a bit below where I'd put the song. Spain came tenth, their best result in since 2004, which they should be pleased with. Personally speaking, Spain was the standout performance of the evening, it was the song I voted for and I think it deserved a high place than it got.

Looking down at the bottom of the table, Norway came last [again] which was a big surprise but given that Loreen most likely hoovered up votes from around Europe this is understandable. UK and Engelbert Humperdinck came second last with just 12 points which was a disappointing results for The Hump. I think the running order really went against the UK though. Also for the second year running the UK did a poor jury final performance. This really will raise some questions in the BBC and I also intend to have a post on the UK over the summer.

Hungary, despite being well tipped to come last didn't, which might be seen as a success. Denmark came 23rd which was disappointing for Soluna Samay. I think she did a wonderful song and full credit to her for that. France came 22nd, showing that touring around Europe doesn't really help your chances. Malta came 21st, no big surprises there. Iceland and Ireland both should be disappointed with their results, Ireland especially, where Jedward were hotly tipped to do well.

The only other real surprise was that Greece fell out of the top 10 for the first time since 2003. This might mean that one of the most consistent Eurovision countries may be falling, but also I don't think that the song deserved to come much higher.

I'll have more  analysis of the results during this week.

Reaction To Rehearsals: Day 8

So today might be the last day of rehearsals but that doesn't mean there are a lots of second rehearsals to get through today.

Estonia - Ott had a great rehearsal today but he is playing around with the notes in the song a lot which might be a little risky. I haven't seen this on the screen but it does look very static on stage, unless camera work is really good this could be a bit dull looking on stage.

Slovakia - Some corrections were made which is a relief. I'm not sure if this is a qualifier but I'd say it still has a chance.

Norway - Vocally this is back on track. He is using a backing singer to get him over the harder notes though, which is something that don't agree with. Tooji is really going to have to make sure he doesn't over perform this.

Bosnia & Herzegovina - This does remind me of Eurovision entries of old. I hate the dress though and I'm not hearing anything overly positive from Baku though.

Lithuania - This song is growing on me (well the last 90 seconds anyway).  This was a good rehearsal but the blindfold really must be dropped.

UK - There have been some very good changes in aspects of the performance but most importantly this was vocally good today. This is looking like a strong entry from the UK.

France - This still looks messy today but it is vocally good again which is a massive concern dealt with.

Italy - This was done as a full dress rehearsal and all is looking perfect on stage, there are very few faults in this entry.

Azerbaijan - All very similar to yesterday's performance but they are deliberately trying to lose this by throwing in the wailing man in the middle. Bit dull but anyhow.

Spain - This is as good as yesterdays performance, which was excellent. In spite of people claiming there is no major connection I think that this is the best vocal at Eurovision.

Germany - After Germany's great rehearsal yesterday all that they would need to be able to do, they held their own today and I think that they should be pretty pleased to be able to do that.

So that's all the technical rehearsals done for 2012. Tomorrow evening dress rehearsals kick off in Baku, with the jury final later that night. I'll put up a post later tonight looking back on this week.

  

Baku Completes The Crystal Hall

While I try and get to the end of the college year, the blog has become a little quieter than usual. I am sorry about this but I will make up for it as Eurovision nears [and exams are over].

Today we learned that Baku has now completed the Crystal Hall and Azerbaijan have now started to reveal plans about how Eurovision will operate. A press conference was held today in Azerbaijan about most the completion of the hall. They also mentioned that buses will be the main mode of transport, and each delegation will have no less than two buses each available to them 24 hours per day.

SVT have also started their preview shows, looking at the first nine songs of semi 1. Full results are here. Some of the votes are interesting, particularly Finlands high score.

Structural Problems With The Crystal Arena?

As reported by ESCDaily problems have been found in the construction of the Crystal Hall in Baku. The faults largely lie in the glass of the arena. It is though that the amplification systems needed for the songs in the Crystal Arena could actually shatter the glass. A friend of mine studying Engineering said that being located so close to water puts the structure in danger with high vibrations from an amplification system.

Azerbaijan explained to the they have low building safety standards and really don't see what the problem is 75% of all structures in Baku completed in the last 10 years are still reasonably sound. The EBU is unhappy about this.

It is understood that further tests will be carried out but it is rumored that the EBU have alerted Rome to prepare contingency plans in the event of an emergency. It is understood Rome simply said that the same plans from 1991 will be good in 2012.