JESC: Malta 2016

[GianlucaTomoe]

Alright. In a way, I feel you. I recall my OGAE chapter having a pretty universally negative reaction to my 2015 Eurovision favorite () with some people claiming that they didn't like it because it was such a different song, and I'd be lying if I said schadenfreude played no role in my happiness at their coming top 10, beating some favorites along the way. And I absolutely oppose (in a vacuum) censoring snark and venom about songs in the adult contest online. But that's because adults have 1) the self-discipline not to look at online comments, 2) the emotional wherewithal needed to withstand the most vicious ones, and 3) the critical thinking skills to realize that said comments are maybe not personal, even if they sound like it. Contestants in Junior Eurovision don't necessarily have any of those just by virtue of their being a lot younger (10-15 vs. 16+ may not be a big jump mathematically, but y'all, think of yourselves at each age and how you'd respond to online criticism). I'm hardly imploring you to avoid any kind of negative comments about the songs - it's perfectly natural and fair to like some of the songs and not like others, and even if it weren't, that'd make me a hypocrite. I'd also like to apologize for singling just you out; it's not fair of me to pick on just you when this is kind of a pattern I'm noticing and I'd stop were it not for my sense of responsibility to give you a response that you do honestly deserve in this case. Just...maybe asking to be careful with word choices and avoid things like "fanwank" and directly expressing happiness that they flopped.

Back to a more direct discussion of the contest! Super great winner, and I'm excited for the possibility of Georgia in 2017.

Don't worry, I had already understood what you were trying to say in your previous post, and I agree with it

As a matter of fact, I never bash/dislike JESC-songs, contrary to the ESC-songs, because I know they are children. The only ones that I "allow myself to dislike" are the ones that deliberately want to be trashy and copy the style of some bad ESC-songs, like Cyprus.

i loved jesc but the winner song is literally the same as gaia cauchi's song with a fancier instrumental and i'm extremely disappointed it won over... well over anything except australia's boring dirge, but specially armenia and russia. i guess it's not as underwhelming as gaia herself or italy's victory, but still. M E H.

also what is gianlucatomoe even rambling about. his taste is more typical eurofan than most people in this board. maybe he should just admit he hates everyone here instead of making it about the elusive concept of "fanwank".

i won't even touch the flop of macedonia or that female hostess right now because i'm still a puddle of magma about it. at least destiny and poli were amazing.

Lmao no, it was the same also when I was in ESCForum, it's not hate against the people but a matter of principle that the songs should be judged in a calm and mature way and not obsessively, like most of the fans do.

 

[Joni]

Now this is touching

 

[Pawhlen]

Macmillan: They were more frustrated back in 2007 when they got beaten by with just point!!!

 

[DanielLuis]

In conclusion, the whole contest was very well done (considering the very small venue) and the postcards were amazing! They did very well being able to do all that with such a small venue. However, I hope there's more variety next year! I kind of hope gets the chance to host JESC 2017.

They do get the chance to host. Just like in the adult version, the winning broadcaster gets first refusal to host JESC nowadays. Hopefully GPB will accept and will host the contest.

 

[Alaska49]

Lmao no, it was the same also when I was in ESCForum, it's not hate against the people but a matter of principle that the songs should be judged in a calm and mature way and not obsessively, like most of the fans do.

oh.

you see yourself as calm and mature and not obsessive.

i see.

interesting.

 

[lavieenrose]

Calm.

I didn't think I would've ever said a things like this, but at the moment the level of the entries for ESC 2016 is so bad that even Croatia stands a chance of qualifying. I wonder why HRT hasn't officially confirmed Nina yet. It's always like this, when male singers are rumoured to participate in ESC, they are always immediately confirmed, when it's female singers, it's never true. I hope for a good Croatian entry even if it won't be Nina.

Mature.

I hope Montenegro withdraws! It's the most annoying country in Eurovision.

Not obsessive.

I'm not talking about OGAY, I'm referring to those hordes of fanboys who everyday infest all the ESC-related websites, forums, Facebook groups etc... like you

The reality is that you can say everything you want but actually the reality of the facts if that I'm 100% right because it's under's everybody's eyes that the fans only support only one kind of songs and singers and there's no space for everything else in this contest because it seems like a dictature where everyone has to fit the Eurovision-scheme and who doesn't do that gets bashed everyday and with no real reasons at all but actually those are the better acts because they don't give a fuck about what the fans want and they just go with ESC with their own music and this is for me the most important thing authenticity originality realness life outside the bubble and those most of the time are the female singers for example this year we have some innovative songs from them the same goes for last year and all the years before and all of them are always bashed and hated i can give you a long list like aminata boggie agnete twiins polina jamala iveta zlata emmelie kate ryan manuella all the ukrainian singers every single one of them have at least one hater and this is incredibly annoying and untolerable no seriously I'm progressively getting tired with this shit and I can see myself in a couple of years ditching ESC completely if it doesn't make an U-turn embracing the world of the real music because that's the music that I listen to instead of the usual tailor-made for ESC entries that only and exclusively the fans care about and not a single person outside of them now you will say yeah please do it but actually I can see many people who would think the same as me and ESC in a few years will have lyk 2 viewers in total this is why last year Autumn leaves and Time flopped despite being fanwanked and this is also the reason why Italy stayed away from ESC for lyk 13 years because the country with the classiest music certainly doesn't participate in a circus contest and yet when they returned they gave to the contest 2 of the most major fanwanks (Grande crapore and that Marco Mengoni shit) because this seems like some kind of unwritten law and all of this is shameful for the reputation of the contest therefore when all this old eurotrash crap gets kicked out of ESC it will be always late

 

[Alaska49]

i am on a higher plane of existence now that i've been exposed to that last rant. how egregious that every song he likes has at least one hater. how absurd that autumn leaves was fanwanked because being one of the least talked about entries of that year is already too much. so much sacrilege all around.

(though i perversely am totally feeling the part that concerns ukraine lol. ukraine is just so good, y'all. embrace the motherland.)

 

[lavieenrose]

i am on a higher plane of existence now that i've been exposed to that last rant. how egregious that every song he likes has at least one hater. how absurd that autumn leaves was fanwanked because being one of the least talked about entries of that year is already too much. so much sacrilege all around.

(though i perversely am totally feeling the part that concerns ukraine lol. ukraine is just so good, y'all. embrace the motherland.)

Tried to do a dramatic reading once. Failed to keep it together each time at about 20 different points, but always at "at least one hater." One hater OH THE HORROR.

 

[Lugano]

Just got to watch the show this night. I thought the overall quality of the songs was very high this year yet not one song stood out like a favorite to me. I've been keeping an all-time JESC top 50 for years and this may be the first year where none of the songs will chart in it, but I'll see about that next year.

The hosts were absolutely horrible though. I can't even begin to count the many times that the male host had to correct himself and that final "we have a 110 points for.. oh wait no" was absolutely catastrophic. When Malta hosted two years ago it was much, much better.

In response to Macedonia being a favorite that flunked; I think it was, in part, because of the tacky, even a little slutty performance. I personally don't care but i do believe the young viewers will consider it to be stupid and the adult viewers will think of it as too adult for this setting and i'm sure this reflects in the jury points. Belarus had a pretty similar type of song but lacking the tacky performance instead doing something that was interesting to watch and it showed in the results. Also, this is not the first time Macedonia has killed their JESC chances with such an act. They should know better.

Imo, in 2017 the adult jury should be killed and replaced with a televote which does 50% and the other 50% from the kids juries. That seems to be the most in the spirit of this contest. Also, the one-person (or two in case of Jedward) juries should also be stripped obviously. It doesn't make any sense to give individuals such a large voice, experts or not.

As for Georgia, it wasn't the best song (I thought that was either Italy or Albania, though Belarus and Armenia surprised me with their performance as well) but not the worst either and certainly a more deserved winner than that Candy Music debacle from a few years ago and also better than Bzz.

In conclusion; satisfying show, good quality songs and singers, horrible hosts, some changes still need to be made and hopefully the booing will cease to exist.

 

[EDC0708]

As with last year left it a bit late to comment, well done Georgia! I was rooting for Cyprus and Belarus on the night, I thought they were great. Strange how the programme seemed to switch between UK and US English, Bulgaria's song used the UK spelling of "colour" but Italy used the US spelling of "Mom"!

I was a bit shocked how low the ratings for JESC are, only 3.9 million watched this year across 14 markets (presumably three participating nations don't have TV ratings?) it's particularly shocking when without returning country Poland, it would have only been 1.7 million. The main show gets over 200 million viewers, while the Eurovision Dance Contest got around 18 million in 2008, over 4 times as many viewers as JESC is getting now.

This years ratings, unfortunately all of these are down, possibly due to the move from Saturday evening to Sunday Afternoon:

Poland - 2,800,000
Bulgaria - 280,000 (Down from 1,078,000 in 2015, when they hosted)
The Netherlands - 257,000 (Down from 330,000 in 2015)
Italy - 50,000 (Down from 80,836 in 2015)
Israel - 33,000
Slovenia - 28,800 (Down from 134,100 in 2015)
Armenia (Down from 2015 according to the EBU)

Currently the youtube link is it 353,572, no issues with sound this year.