UK jury + televote

BBC published their jury + televote and they are as follows...

UK jury voted (1-12p): Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bosnia, France, Ukraine, Turkey, Malta, Norway, Iceland and Germany.

I'm sorry but I just can't take this jury seriously. 12 points to Germany?! And you are supposed to be professional? I bet they didn't even like the song one bit but only voted for Dita von Teese. And come on, Ukraine ahead of France and Bosnia? You got to be kidding me! Don't even get me started on 7 points to Malta. The BBC should be ashamed of themselves putting those 5 people together to vote. Having said that the televote was not much better but at least it is understandable...

UK televote
1p Portugal
2p Germany
3p Denmark
4p Azerbaijan
5p Iceland
6p Malta
7p Norway
8p Lithuania
10p Greece
12p Turkey

Twitter-like updates from EBU

• Eurovision Song Contest 2009 had over 122 million viewers. That is 17 million more than last year. Yay!
• Norway only used their jury in the final due to a technical problem with the local phone operator. That is why they voted last of all countries as they were trying to solve the problem but did not succeed in time.
• There was a similar problem in Hungary where only the SMS votes could be used in the televote. Not sure how big the difference in the end was but I suspect that more people call than text, or is it just me who is old fashioned?
• One country in semi 2 did not get enough callers for the televote to be valid so only the jury was used. No mention of what country this could be. Maybe Slovakia?
• Spain only used jury in semi 2 since the local TV broadcaster did not show the event live - something which is not allowed. EBU promised consequences but what they might be nobody knows...

More juries + Finland televotes

Danish jury (1-12p): UK, Portugal, Russia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, France, Germany, Estonia, Norway and Iceland.

Spanish jury (1-12p): Germany, Israel, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey, Portugal, France, Norway and UK.

Israeli jury (1-12p): Bosnia, Malta, Croatia, Moldova, UK, Armenia, Turkey, France, Norway and Iceland.

Slovenian jury (1-12p): Armenia, Sweden, Moldova, Iceland, Greece, Denmark, UK, Bosnia, France and Norway.

Slovenian TELEVOTE (1-12p): UK, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Denmark, Azerbaijan, Albania, Croatia, Norway and Bosnia.

Finnish TELEVOTE with total numbers in the semi final:
1. Iceland 9.846 votes, 2. Sweden 5.949, 3. Bosnia 4.237, 4. Turkey 2.693, 5. Israel 2.430, 6. Switzerland 2.219, 7. Belarus 2.103, 8. Malta 1.828, 9. Portugal 1.651, 10. Armenia 1.147, 11. Macedonia 787, 12. Andorra 703, 13. Romania 654, 14. Montenegro 549, 15. Belgium 469, 16. Bulgaria 404, 17. Czech Republic 241. (Total 37.910 votes.)

Finnish TELEVOTE with total numbers in the final:
1. Estonia 16.225 votes
2. Norway 15.560
3. Iceland 9.865
4. Sweden 7.517
5. Bosnia-Herzegovina 5.358
6. Azerbaijan 4.441
7. Turkey 3.909
8. France 3.467
9. Russia 3.180
10. Greece 2.757
11. Israel 2.292
12. Portugal 2.203
13. Albania 2.191
14. Malta 1.986
15. Denmark 1.692
16. UK 1.659
17. Germany 1.650
18. Lithuania 1.531
19. Armenia 1.409
20. Ukraine 1.242
21. Moldova 1.187
22. Romania 1.079
23. Croatia 947
24. Spain 672
(Totalt 94.019 röster.)

Jury result (Final)

If only the juries had voted on Saturday without the televoters we would still have ended up with the same winner. And the same runner-up. The Brits and French would have moved up a few steps, as would the Danish (eh..why?) but Sweden would still be in the bottom.

Jury result

1. Norway (312 points)
2. Iceland (260 points)
3. United Kingdom (223 points)
4. France (164 points)
5. Estonia (124 points)
6. Denmark (120 points)
7. Turkey (114 points)
8. Azerbaijan (112 points)
9. Israel (107 points)
10. Greece (93 points)
11. Moldova (93 points)
12. Bosnia & Herzegovina (90 points)
13. Malta (87 points)
14. Germany (73 points)
15. Armenia (71 points)
16. Ukraine (68 points)
17. Russia (67 points)
18. Portugal (64 points)
19. Croatia (58 points)
20. Lithuania (31 points)
21. Romania (31 points)
22. Sweden (27 points)
23. Albania (26 points)
24. Finland (12 points)
25. Spain (9 points)

Thanks to Diarmuid for this information and the Belgian jury votes (see comment on "Swedish jury and more").

Swedish jury and more

So it's been revealed who the "music-experts" in the Swedish jury were...

Sarah Dawn Finer, singer
Magnus Carlsson, singer (+ schlager fan)
Anna Charlotta Gunnarsson, TV/radio presenter (+ schlager fan)
Michael Cederberg, radio producer (+ schlager fan)
L-G Alsenius, radio producer

Eh, ok... Who was in charge of finding suitable people for the jury? Christer Björkman? I thought the jury was supposed to consist of trendy musicians and producers who knows what is quality and freshness anno 2009. Not just a bunch of ESC-fans. I can live with Sarah D Finer as she was one of the MF-jury's favourites this year, but the rest? Producing Svensktoppen isn't that hot!

I would much rather have seen Alexander Bard, Mr & Mrs Bagge or Andreas Carlsson (judges in Swedish Idols), Robyn, Marit Bergman etc. Did they all say no, SVT???

I am still awaiting the separate votes from the jury only. I hope they will be made public!

This is how Sweden (jury + televoters) voted in the semi:
1p Belarus
2p Switzerland
3p Portugal
4p Malta (what the fuck?!? Chiara was vile in the semi!)
5p Armenia
6p Israel (another question mark...)
7p Turkey
8p Bosnia-Herzegovina
10p Finland
12p Iceland

And in the final:
1p Albania
2p Greece
3p Armenia
4p Finland
5p Bosnia-Herzegovina
6p Turkey
7p Estonia
8p Azerbaijan
10p Iceland
12p Norway

The Finnish and Romanian jury results have been made public. Any readers knowing about other countries?

Finnish jury in the final (1-12p): Israel, Sweden, Bosnia, Armenia, Turkey, France, Malta, Norway, Estonia and Iceland.

Romanian jury in the final (1-12p): Azerbaijan, Israel, UK, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Armenia, Malta, Moldova, Iceland.

UPDATE!

Estonian jury in the final (1-12p): Azerbaijan, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Albania, Portugal, Israel, Norway, Russia and Iceland.

Estonian televotes (1-12p): UK, Denmark, France, Sweden, Lithuania, Finland, Iceland, Azerbaijan, Russia and Norway.

Semi 1 + 2 result

Semi 1
1. Iceland
2. Turkey
3. Bosnia
4. Sweden
5. Armenia
6. Malta
7. Israel
8. Portugal
9. Romania
10. FYR Macedonia
------------------
11. Montenegro
12. Finland
13. Belarus
14. Switzerland
15. Andorra
16. Bulgaria
17. Belgium
18. Czech Republic


Semi 2
1. Norway
2. Azerbaijan
3. Estonia
4. Greece
5. Moldova
6. Ukraine
7. Albania
8. Denmark
9. Lithuania
10. Serbia
----------------
11. Ireland
12. Poland
13. Croatia
14. Cyprus
15. Hungary
16. Slovenia
17. The Netherlands
18. Slovakia
19. Latvia

- Finland and Croatia made it to the final thanks to the jury.
- Macedonia and Serbia would have been through otherwise.
- Poor Macedonia being kicked out by the jury for the second year running in favour for a Nordic country.
- Czech Republic came last with nil points in semi 1. Latvia got 7p but was still last in semi 2.
- Fan-favourite Switzerland weren't even close. Shame!
- I feel sorry for Ireland as it was a close call for them.

The juries are back

The EBU reference board decided, in its infinite wisdom, to bring the juries back to Eurovision for next year. Hooray. What a lovely idea.

The verdict of the juries will somehow be wieghted against the televote (nobody knows quite how yet), as that will decrease all this horrific neighbourfriendly diaspora voting that keeps contaminating the voting lately.

Do I sound sarcastic? Really? Well, it is just because I am old enough to remember the juries. They did quite often vote like apes. Do you remember?

On so many occasions, the juries favoured the stereotypical and the expected, rejecting anything slightly modern och slightly different. Not to mention, come the 90's, the increasing level of traded points, which turned the voting into a complete farce.

If the EBU takes this whole matter seriously and makes an effort to keep the juries representative and un-pressured by their national broadcasters, then maybe it is a clever move. Until then, I am not quite extatic.



Serious jury work back in 1973