San Marino – it’s all about the money

Sebastian Schmidt

When details emerged of the marathon process to pick a song for San Marino at Eurovision, it all sounded a bit … weird. Why would any third-party with zero interest in how SMTV does at the annual contest waste their time and money?

Having spent months whittling 1050 entrants down to 11 – only one of which is even slightly related to San Marino – details have emerged of how to pick your personal favourite.

To cast an online vote at the grand final (on 3 March) will cost €1. Although to be fair, it’s limited to one vote per Paypal account.

Well, you might say, that’s fair. It stops anyone flooding the ballot box.

All thing being unequal

And yes, if it was a strict 50/50 split between insider jury and the public, we’d be of a mind to agree. But the twist comes with deciding how much influence the paying public gets.

  • If less than 50,000 votes are cast, the public vote accounts for just 10% of the total vote
  • If between 50,001 and 100,00 votes are cast, the public vote makes up 20%
  • If between 100,001 and 200,000 votes are cast, the public vote is worth 30%
  • If between 200,001 and 250,000 votes are cast, it rises to 40%
  • Only if more than 250,000 votes are cast, does the public vote and jury vote split 50/50

Given there can only be one winner, this pretty much puts the final decision in the hands of a jury – and far be it from OnEurope to spread unfounded gossip, but we’ve heard that someone connected with a jury member might have bankrolled the whole shebang.

And if that’s true, it’s probably because they care about Eurovision and the fate of San Marino. Any suggestion they’re doing it to boost a protégée is just not true.

However, if all of this potential parfum de rotten fish isn’t enough, there’s one more way to part with your hard-earned cash. A crowd-funding site is to let fans to buy a share of royalties for each song.

Here’s the line-up

Norway Phil's reviewMonty's reviewRosé's review
RomaniaPhil's reviewMonty's reviewRosé's review
SerbiaPhil's reviewMonty's reviewRosé's review
San MarinoPhil's reviewMonty's reviewRosé's review
DenmarkPhil's reviewMonty's reviewRosé's review
RussiaPhil's reviewMonty's reviewRosé's review
MoldovaMonty's reviewRosé's review
NetherlandsPhil's reviewMonty's review Rosé's review
AustraliaPhil's reviewMonty's reviewRosé's review

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[…] a mockery of the entire selection procedure by allowing all and sundry to enter and then, ya know, weighting the public say in their own final by the weight of cashola that voters put into the thing. It seems now that the […]