Eurovision 2014: Confirmed Countries

[ParadiseES]

and in what country in the world except Sweden non-fans really do care about Eurovision?

Viewing figures don't say the same....

 

[anto475]

Eurovision certainly is not dying! If we compare the contest in the last 10 years with what have been in the past, Eurovision is celebrating the best times in terms of popularity and scale. It happens countries to go away and then return, it happened in the past, it will continue to happen in the future as well. Eurovision now is victim of it's own success as everything which is slightly less than what have been in the previous years come as huge disappointment and people sometimes tend to overreact with their negative predictions about the future. Good things happen only if we stay positive - I'm sure that Eurovision 2014 will be great like every year and next year hopefully the broadcasters with some problems will be again where they belong
What EBU should do now is to encourage a bit the music diversity in Eurovision and everything will be fine.

I couldn't agree more. We've reached a stage where 36/37 countries participating is something to be upset over. The contest has gone from a nice evening in May to something countries build entire arenas just to host it. The contest has inspired spinoffs in Asia and among Turkic countries. The phenomenal expansion of the contest, in every aspect, is just slowing down right now. Absolutely nothing to worry about.

 

[Quent91]

36 countries... Welcome back to 2004.

Hope this will help small countries to make a better result than they usually do (San Marino, Poland,...), though.

 

[Gera11]

Hope this will help small countries to make a better result than they usually do (San Marino, Poland,...), though.

Poland isn't a small country

 

[Quent91]

Poland isn't a small country

yeah, I know, but "in a Eurovision way", they're a small country

 

[cassio]

36 countries... Welcome back to 2004.

Hope this will help small countries to make a better result than they usually do (San Marino, Poland,...), though.

Belgium ???

 

[DanielLuis]

Belgium ???

You definitely can't compare Belgium with Poland and San Marino at all.

 

[Avalon]

Belgium ???

As he said, it's not about the countrysize.

 

[cassio]

As he said, it's not about the countrysize.

"yeah, I know, but "in a Eurovision way", they're a small country" :-)

 

[escYOUnited]

ESC 2014: Where are the Balkan countries? | ESCunited.com

 

[anto475]

Srdja Trifkovic, a Serbian person and foreign affairs article of Chronicles Magazine, a backward conservative magazine in the US, gave this sorry excuse of an interview to RT explaining why he thinks Serbia dropped participation of the Eurovision this year. There's nothing new or of real relevance here, just the same "the contest has gone downhill and everyone engages in bloc voting" tripe.

 

[GRE]

Srdja Trifkovic, a Serbian person and foreign affairs article of Chronicles Magazine, a backward conservative magazine in the US, gave this sorry excuse of an interview to RT explaining why he thinks Serbia dropped participation of the Eurovision this year. There's nothing new or of real relevance here, just the same "the contest has gone downhill and everyone engages in bloc voting" tripe.

I am greek,and i would be idiot if i blame eurovision for political voting.
Here i read Well, we’ve seen political voting all along. For instance, Cyprus and Greece awarded each other 12 points, while giving zero to Turkey. The Scandinavians in particular are notorious. The Swedes and Norwegians giving Denmark 12 and visa-versa, and also Finland and Estonia help each other...

 

[ParadiseES]

Srdja Trifkovic, a Serbian person and foreign affairs article of Chronicles Magazine, a backward conservative magazine in the US, gave this sorry excuse of an interview to RT explaining why he thinks Serbia dropped participation of the Eurovision this year. There's nothing new or of real relevance here, just the same "the contest has gone downhill and everyone engages in bloc voting" tripe.

1) It's funny how a Serbian man complains about bloc voting.
2) No offense but this man is just an ignorant and an idiot.

 

[BGN]

Eurovision voting is everything, but "political". If we consider the most obvious example - the ex yu voting, I can't find any political reason people there to vote for each other as soon enough they were fighting one against another. The reason Balkan countries to vote for each other is that we just share the same music traditions, we have common stars (like Zhelko) and so on. The same goes with Scandinavia, ex-ussr, etc. Bloc voting do exist, but it is not mathematically enough to ensure good result, let's not talk about winning. Also the Estonia bashing is quite obvious in this video and I think that's not true that Finland and Estoina are involved in points exchange
But we should also consider that RT is just propaganda channel, thus their last possible aim is to inform the people

 

[A-lister]

Eurovision voting is everything, but "political". If we consider the most obvious example - the ex yu voting, I can't find any political reason people there to vote for each other as soon enough they were fighting one against another. The reason Balkan countries to vote for each other is that we just share the same music traditions, we have common stars (like Zhelko) and so on. The same goes with Scandinavia, ex-ussr, etc. Bloc voting do exist, but it is not mathematically enough to ensure good result, let's not talk about winning. Also the Estonia bashing is quite obvious in this video and I think that's not true that Finland and Estoina are involved in points exchange
But we should also consider that RT is just propaganda channel, thus their last possible aim is to inform the people

There IS political voting in ESC aswell (though I think juries are actually more responsible for that than televoters), though I do agree with what you say here. But as for ex-Yugo it's just as with the ex-USSR, it's actually diaspora voting but people tend to overlook that and think it's some sort of bloc voting going on because they are neighbors. But if anyone got any knowledge on both regions, they'd quickly see the demographic composition of the countries and see that for instance half of B&H consists of Serbians, just like around 30 or so % of Latvia's population consists of Russians... people think that diaspora voting is just Turks voting for Turkey in Germany or Belgium or Greeks voting for Greece in the UK, but it's obviously the same with Russians voting for Russia in Estonia and Latvia and Serbs voting for Serbia in Bosnia or Albanians voting for Albania in Macedonia and Montenegro and so forward...

But yeah, it's also true that especially the ex-Yugo market is very integrated and they share not just similar music culture, but also the same TV shows and known music acts are known throughout the region. It's probably the most integrated music market in Europe. Ex-USSR is kinda the same thing.

 

[Leydan]

Diaspora voting between countries is an endless topic, there is so many. Just too add to the list, you also have Poles & Lithuanians in UK and Ireland meaning the Baltics and Poland do very well out of the UK and Ireland from this. (In 2008 Poland only got points from the UK and Ireland). British influence monopoly over Malta. There's the Romanians in Italy, Spain and Portugal. And should Morocco return, there is the Moroccan populations across western Europe. It goes on. There is no way to stop this, unless you revert to an all jury voting system. But that will be unpopular and it is easily manipulated in its current form. Its a choice between the Devil and the Deep Blue sea really. There is nothing that can really be done about it.

As for that article, it's a poor excuse and Ironic considering Serbia has benefited from diaspora "political" voting

 

[DanielLuis]

I think the diaspora/political voting has decreased through the lat years, even when you consider televoting alone.

 

[GRE]

I will tell you only one thing.
The diaspora gave 12 points to Dracula last year in Italy,
but in 50-50 system,Romania got only 1 point from Italy.

 

[A-lister]

I think the diaspora/political voting has decreased through the lat years, even when you consider televoting alone.

It has indeed, as a matter of fact I think that the televoters are proven to be generally more open minded and less judging than the juries (especially in terms of musical diversity). The winners of late would have stayed the same with televoting alone. I personally don't feel the need to have a group of juries "lecturing" the masses, also who can prove that these juries aren't biased or even bribed in some cases?

 

[ParadiseES]

The televoters are equally open minded now and 5 years ago. It's just that some years ago the bloc countries were actually sending the strongest songs (in general) while the "victims" (big five, some western countries....) were sending poor songs. So the bloc voting looked bigger.

Now those countries are usually sending better songs, so the difference is not that big.