Well it has been an exciting morning in the Eurovision webs … People have been apoplectic with rage on eurovision.tv stating how Jon Ola Sand and SVT have “ruined the contest”, and yet on escnation, the bastion of the fans, it’s been rather a muted and accepting response. I am, of course, talking about the changes to the scoring for ESC.
You’ve not heard? – Well let me enlighten you. In the old days before today, you saw a set of points, 1 to 12, and had NO IDEA how they were made up until you looked at e.tv and complained about how XXX jury hated XXX country or how the televote was rigged.
You, as a fan base, also said that you couldn’t understand how 5 juries can override the votes of the public and how the UK jury was the stupids by not giving Slavic girls any credit for their fine, fine song, but the votes of the UK public were completely ignored…
You, as a fan base also gnashed your teeth when the jury spokesperson’s came on and said what a lovely evening it had been and how they had a marvellous time, all the whilst wishing they would get on with it…..
You, as a fan base, wailed when the excitement went out of the voting procedure…..
You, as a fan base, made low moaning noises when last years contest took a shade over four hours….
You complained….. and whinged…. and wished the EBU would do something. And now they have. They have made the system completely 50/50 by stopping you working out who has won the televote and the jury days after the contest and complaining about that, by showing it to you live on the night! – Presenting the jury votes first, and then the televotes in one massive pot, least to most. They’ve solved the problem of you complaining about the spokespersons, by limiting their appearance to giving out the 12 points. They have reduced the hours of the contest from 4 back down to a manageable maximum on 3 1/2. They have made the voting exciting again by, in all probability, not showing the winning country till the very end of the scoring, therefore making it exciting.
Surely that’s all your Christmas’ coming at once? All Hail the EBU for listening to the fans and doing what we had been asking for in one fell swoop.
Only, it appears not to be….. and I’m confused by that.
It appears that Fandom didn’t actually want any of the things that they asked for on their wishlist to Uncle Sandman and Christer… what they wanted was any excuse to moan! – “it’s too much like the Melodifestival” they said…. without remembering that other selections have been doing it this way for years and years AND they and others still tune into MF because they cream over SVT’s stagings. “They’ve ruined the contest” they said…. and I’m still struggling to see how after reading all of the rants, no one can actually give me a decent reason why.
I think that what has happened is a good thing. It overcomes many of the issues the previous calculation system had. It will give credit to populist, jury hated songs. It will make everyone’s televote count equally, because it will actually count for something. It will highlight, in the best way possible, juries who have an odd composition or are out of kilter and will raise questions immediately. It will keep the suspense to the end of the voting sequence, it may even stop a proportion of the booing in the hall.
It’s not perfect by any means. The rules on a lack of a televote or jury are a worry. If this happens (as it surely will with San Marino) the solution is to take “a random pot of countries televote or jury” and award points based on that. Basically the excel spreadsheet televote or at the very least a foreign televote. It would be easier if the jury counted double but hey… Not my call.
When everything is done and said, the Eurovision Song Contest is a TV show, shown around the world. It is not the exclusive domain of fans who hark back to the halcyon days of 500 million viewers because the days of taking what is in front of you are gone or believe that they know best. Heads up, they dont!
TV viewers have a choice, they will either watch something that is engaging, or turn off. Can any of you, hand on heart, tell me that 3 hours of songs and an hour of “you are wonderful” is engaging TV? The contest has a reputation, whatever that might be in your country, and as guardians of the contest the EBU have a right, nay an obligation, to ensure the contest survives and adapts so that people see it long into the future.