EUROVISION 2020 - General Discussion Thread

[escYOUnited]

Please post any and all discussions regarding the contest itself, host country and city, organisation, rumours and other topics not related to any specific country's selection process.

 

[Loindici]

I think that's mostly exaggeration.

Probably.
Probably not.
For the last five years (or four years since he didn't return in 2015), I think there's still some evidence of things going weirdly wrong:
-host entries tanking quite terribly (except for 2016),
-Sweden getting prime positions on 9th or 20-24, or
-the excessive help that juries might give for 2017-2019 (with the exception of Frans, he did better in televoting),
-or even to the extent of the new voting system, which I believe has his interventions in realizing it.

Sure there's no written evidence of his 'wrongdoings', but it kind of made me wonder of whether the same things would happen if somebody else took the duty.

 

[anto475]

I think that's mostly exaggeration.

Please explain

 

[midnightsun]

If Sweden were less successful, people wouldn’t care about him that much

If Sweden was less sucessful I may be stepping back from my opinion about him.

I defended him when he started (I'll see if I find my posts from back then, would be funny to read). I never understood why people disliked him so much. But I got suspicious a few years ago and when Sweden always came in favour of the juries plus getting good spots in the finals I've been starting to think there might be something wrong.

That constant "everybody is hating Sweden" is so grating on my nerves. If anyone doesn't hate Sweden respectively their entries respectively their artists then it's me. I love Sweden. I love most of their songs, yet not all. So pardon me if I get a little doubtful when ALL of Sweden's entries suddenly score so high no matter what their quality is.

Now you may say the songs are ALL quality but at least in 3-4 cases televoters DISAGREED by not voting much for Sweden. So how can it be quality when millions of voters do NOT agree while juries do (for what ever reasons we will never know).

My personal opinion is (but that's really only simply speculation) Björkman isn't over his failure in 1992, compensating now by wanting to become THE man in Sweden's Eurovision history and I'm sure he will retire the moment Sweden is outrunning Ireland with the most wins in the ESC history.

By the way: imho Sweden is not the only country that has been massively overrated by the juries this decade... I think of Australia and Malta. But if you look at who wrote most of Malta's songs this decade... Swedish people. Australia is overrated anyway because it's Australia and I understand why Björkman wants to keep them in Eurovision. But I truly think he's pulling the strings when it comes to favouring some countries.

 

[Citelis]

Probably.
Probably not.
For the last five years (or four years since he didn't return in 2015), I think there's still some evidence of things going weirdly wrong:
-host entries tanking quite terribly (except for 2016),
-Sweden getting prime positions on 9th or 20-24, or
-the excessive help that juries might give for 2017-2019 (with the exception of Frans, he did better in televoting),
-or even to the extent of the new voting system, which I believe has his interventions in realizing it.

Sure there's no written evidence of his 'wrongdoings', but it kind of made me wonder of whether the same things would happen if somebody else took the duty.

Please explain

Well he may promotes his country a bit and surely he shouldn't make the runningorder every year. I have to agree on that.
But i don't get how he is responsible for bad results of host entries every year?
Also about doing better on juries every year happens because the majority of Melodifestivalen entries are jury-friendly. In 2019 for example ''Norrsken'' would do better on televoting i guess but Sweden makes sure that such entries won't win Melodifestivalen.
Now about the new voting system i think that is fair for everyone. Don't forget that both of Sweden's victories came with the old voting system.

 

[Preuss]

I mean considering the fact that Sweden’s always top 3 in their semi, I don’t see where it’s bias to give them a good spot in the running order of the grand final
If Sweden ends up somewhere between 9-13th or 20-26th in the running order, it feels like people will say that he favours them no matter what
So yes I can see that people would blame him for being biased if Sweden didn’t do well in their semi, so before we can conclude anything about it we’d actually have to see Sweden do bad in their semi for some years

 

[Etanna]

I mean considering the fact that Sweden’s always top 3 in their semi, I don’t see where it’s bias to give them a good spot in the running order of the grand final
If Sweden ends up somewhere between 9-13th or 20-26th in the running order, it feels like people will say that he favours them no matter what
So yes I can see that people would blame him for being biased if Sweden didn’t do well in their semi, so before we can conclude anything about it we’d actually have to see Sweden do bad in their semi for some years

My country always got a terrible running order in the GF despite doing well in the semi (Lake Malawi were 2nd in their semi yet they went 3rd in the GF, Mikolas was 3rd in the semi + did really well in the betting odds yet he went 1st in his drawn half in the GF, Gabriela went 2nd in the GF but she didn't do so well in the semi). And we don't get good running orders in the semifinals either.

So just because Sweden does well in the semi doesn't automatically mean they should always get a good spot in the final.
Nobody can prove if Sweden is or isn't getting pushed (intentionally or subconsciously) but the problem is the questionable impression their runnning order leaves. There's a clear conflict of interests when it comes to Bjorkman (and possibly others) and it's up to them to either opt to do things differently (randomized running order,...) or be always suspect of favouring their own country. As much as they might try to be objective, they're not robots and they will always put their own feelings into this highly subjective decisions. No matter how much they rationalize them afterwards, this is a competition and it should be as fair as possible.

 

[BorisBubbles]

You see, this is precisely why Björkman can't remain as executive producer. It doesn't matter whether he rigs it for Sweden or not. The fact that he's also the producer of the Swedish entry creates a conflict of interest. You can't use hire this guy and keep your fingers crossed that he will remain impartial, 100% of the time. The sheer possibility of collusion should be enough reason never to hire this guy as your exec, ever, no matter how good he is at his job.

 

[Ezio]

Björkman needs to be impeached, by we (not wiwi) the people!

 

[anto475]

Björkman needs to be impeached, by we (not wiwi) the people!

Wiwi needs to be impeached too, I'm waiting for Deban to take over and save us from another annoying year of William, but that's an argument for another day.

 

[BorisBubbles]

William Lee Adams is a pure force of WIT. The only change I'd make is having him become unfiltered and bitchy again because his putdowns are infinitely more funny than his current "EVERYTHING IS GOOD" routine (you are not Matt, nor will you ever be him.)

Having said that, Deban is an earth angel and i'm still naming my first cat after him..x

 

[Realest]

Björkman is a good Guy. I wish him all the Best.

 

[Preuss]

My country always got a terrible running order in the GF despite doing well in the semi (Lake Malawi were 2nd in their semi yet they went 3rd in the GF, Mikolas was 3rd in the semi + did really well in the betting odds yet he went 1st in his drawn half in the GF, Gabriela went 2nd in the GF but she didn't do so well in the semi). And we don't get good running orders in the semifinals either.

So just because Sweden does well in the semi doesn't automatically mean they should always get a good spot in the final.
Nobody can prove if Sweden is or isn't getting pushed (intentionally or subconsciously) but the problem is the questionable impression their runnning order leaves. There's a clear conflict of interests when it comes to Bjorkman (and possibly others) and it's up to them to either opt to do things differently (randomized running order,...) or be always suspect of favouring their own country. As much as they might try to be objective, they're not robots and they will always put their own feelings into this highly subjective decisions. No matter how much they rationalize them afterwards, this is a competition and it should be as fair as possible.

I think you're right about the fact that Lake Malawi and Mikolas very well could've been given better slots in the semi-final, but not sure how you can blame where Sweden's put in this running-order when it's even more weird to me why Tamta or even Katerine got sloot #11 and #13 then. But I do agree though that it's not ideal that Björkman's doing the running order although I have no problems with Sweden getting a good draw considering the semi-final results - but obviously I would be skeptical if they did bad in the semi by then getting a good draw in the finals

 

[Citelis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjkQ6AC8-GE
By watching that video i realised that Sweden needs some more 5th places. Sweden got only 7/20 5th places is the last 20 years.

 

[Alaska49]

tamta and specially katerine's draws ended up being terrible to them. katerine was right after duncan and two before keiino, the televote top 2. absolutely squished like a sardine like anja nissen was in 2017 (and like they hoped michał szpak would be in 2016 but he outsold both amir and dami and indirectly caused jamala's victory 3333 glorious polish prince)

 

[lavieenrose]

(and like they hoped michał szpak would be in 2016 but he outsold both amir and dami and indirectly caused jamala's victory 3333 glorious polish prince)

That entire season was so fun for so many reasons but this is right near the top

 

[Ezio]

William Lee Adams is a pure force of WIT. The only change I'd make is having him become unfiltered and bitchy again because his putdowns are infinitely more funny than his current "EVERYTHING IS GOOD" routine (you are not Matt, nor will you ever be him.)

Having said that, Deban is an earth angel and i'm still naming my first cat after him..x

In his early days, he was very unfiltered and bitchy. Now he is sucking up to everyone to get interviews, clicks and revenues. Very contrived and inauthentic y'all.

 

[Loindici]

Do you think the criteria for juries need to be tightened? Like... maybe have a musical professor from an university to sit at one jury place? Or have an indie musician?

 

[Ezio]

I think Professional juries should include anyone but people who are affiliated to radio stations, record companies, former contestants or national finalists.

 

[Preuss]

Do you think the criteria for juries need to be tightened? Like... maybe have a musical professor from an university to sit at one jury place? Or have an indie musician?

Definitely, I mean I’m pretty sure all jury members are connected to music in a way but I definitely think it needs to be tightened. I mean, in our jury we had a 7th place ranked Idol contestant or something

 

[Realest]

Well I kind of think you need them too, but that’s why I feel the juries need to be extended to like 10 people because 1 member can seriously drag you down
I mean not sure about this but when the danish juror back in 2016 reversed her order which resulted in Ukraine getting 12 points, I am pretty sure that if she didn’t, Jamala would’ve got no points at all from the Danish jury... :?

Yes, Jamala would get 0 Points (11th Place instead 1st) and Australia would get 12 instead of 10 Points and Russia 3 instead of 0. Ukraine would have won only with 9 Points and we were robbed of a more exciting Voting, because Sergey "only" needed 389 Televotes to overtake Ukraine in the End instead 404.
But 2018 they invented the exponential Juryvoting to make sure these Mistakes have less Weight than before.