Juries & Televote

[Matt]

This topic pops up every day somewhere so I am creating this topic for an open discussion how you feel about it, what is working and what should change.

All discussions related to this topic will be moved here.

 

[rajo]

Jury vote is needed to balance the effect of televoting. You may say televoting is democratic, but it is not. Not only because you can deliver countless votes (you can't vote twice on election day), but also because you can vote for your home country abroad.

I tried that last year when I was in Romania, but it didn't work. I had to have a Romanian mobile for that.

The fall of Communism brought up countless new countries. They are now voting for each other, especially for the major country (Serbia, Russia).
The Balkan wars spread refugees to Central Europe, who don't want to go home anymore, although it's already save.

BBC commentator of 2005 called Austrian voting "bizarre as usual" because of highly favouring the Balkan countries. Still Balkan music doesn't really sell here and find its way into the charts, but people fell for Lordi, Lena and Rybak.

The call for immigrants in Western Europe brought Millions of Greeks and Turks there. Now these countries qualify handily because of that, and are always backed by televotes (look at last year's televoting figures).

Cyprus and Greece are always getting booed because of exchanging twelves, because the audience has a sense of unfair voting. But there is more worth getting booed, and there was a lot of booing in Helsinki, if someone remembers.

 

[Matt]

I kinda agree with you on that. It isn't always as black and white but the voting patterns are more than obvious. Out of all the systems we had so far, I find the 50/50 by far the most fair solution.

 

[rajo]

I am not convinced. There was a gap of 120 points for Austria last year between jury and televoting. Even if Austria won the jury vote, it wouldn't even been Top 15.

For friendless countries a 50/50 vote is still a tough nut to crack. The sweet grapes of victory are hanging unreachably high.

 

[Matt]

TBH, (and I'm using my two least favorite words). Austria was overrated by the juries and underrated by the televote.
Plus Austria wasn't the only one, same thing happened to Slovenia and the UK (role reversed).

The thing is, those who are pro televote will complain when the jury's vote differ a lot and those preferring juries question the televoting.

I personally believe neither of these two systems is flawless but having it combined brings us a whole lot closer to a fair result.

 

[rajo]

William Hill had Austria tied with Ireland at 3rd and 4th place after the final performances and right before the announcement of votes.

So, 5th place with juries is not really overrated then, best place since 1989, and highest points ever for Austria. Still televoters gave us the second last place!

Denmark and Slovenia were also screwed with televoters. Russia took advantage of it, otherwise they would got last and wouldn't have qualified respectively.

As for the UK last year, the juries didn't fall for the boyband factor, since Blue sang really out of tune. So, juries also balance the effects of having fanbases.

 

[Matt]

We also have to remember that the juries judge the show the night prior to the live broadcast which can sometimes explain a discrepancy in the results as well.

I remember a german jury member pointing out in 2010 that Lena performed poorly on jury night which could explain the closer gap in the results but on the big televised show she did just fine.

 

[rajo]

Lena won the jury vote, so what's the matter exactly? I don't quite get it.

 

[Matt]

Lena won the jury vote but "only" by 2 votes where with the televote she won by a landslide. That was my point. Apparently she didn't do well during jury night according to several source.

This is just speculation on my part but my point is that we need to take into consideration that juries don't judge the same performance.

 

[rajo]

Okay, I thought you meant the gap between jury and televote. So she was actually tied with the 2nd place, I was not aware of that.

 

[Matt]

Germany received 187 points and Belgium 185 (from the juries).

I totally get your point though about your dissatisfaction with the Austria results though. I still have a feeling that this year it may be the other way around. Trackshittaz may do well with televoters but not so much with juries. If that is the case, we can go from there.

 

[CC92]

I think that The secret is love was immensely overrated by European public voters and should never have seen the final.

 

[rajo]

I think that The secret is love was immensely overrated by European public voters and should never have seen the final.

Yeah, you know what? It's you vs. European Televoters.... Tschüß....

 

[Andrzej1987]

So why can't the juries vote on Saturday final?

 

[rajo]

It's for the running order of spokespersons I guess. The outcome of jury votes determine the running order in order to keep the suspense. It was quite obvious this year when Sweden notwithstanding the early lead got the a consecutive top marks at the end.

 

[Matt]

So why can't the juries vote on Saturday final?

There wouldn't be enough time to gather all the votes and combine them with the televote. The juries vote that night individually but in th end they still have to rank them as a whole. A notary is with them in the room supervising the process. So due to the time constraints it wouldn't be feasible.

 

[Andrzej1987]

Ok, thanks

 

[CC92]

Re: TURKEY 2013 - not taking part

But actually, Turkey is right, imo. The whole jury thing is just crap - it should win the song, which the most people in Europe like, not that who just a few "experts" like.

They may be right in a way, but the benefit of getting rid of the impact of diaspora votes is bigger than the possible disadvantages imo. Anyway, the voting system is most likely not the true motivation behind withdrawing from Eurovision, so who cares?

So according to you diminsihing the advantage of one or two 'big hitters' is worth to spoil the results for other entries, too? That sounds very bitter to me and I am not sure if it was an issue for you at all if instead let's say Germany or the UK benefited that much from diaspora votes. One also should consider that with a Secret is love/Quédate conmigo type of entry they might benefit from the 'jury' votes just in addition to their already huge public vote advantage. Means even in terms of Turkey the 'jury' thing makes it potentially more unfair.

 

[Venage]

Re: TURKEY 2013 - not taking part

So according to you diminsihing the advantage of one or two 'big hitters' is worth to spoil the results for other entries, too? That sounds very bitter to me and I am not sure if it was an issue for you at all if instead let's say Germany or the UK benefited that much from diaspora votes. One also should consider that with a Secret is love/Quédate conmigo type of entry they might benefit from the 'jury' votes just in addition to their already huge public vote advantage. Means even in terms of Turkey the 'jury' thing makes it potentially more unfair.

Why would a jury spoil the results? In the end every country is judged by the same juries except their own. In contrast the diaspora only helps a few countries which is just as unfair as the Scandinavian connection etc. The juries diminish the impact of vote exchanges and diaspora votes which is quite helpful. Granted, if the western countries benefited from diaspora votes that would indeed not be an issue, but that's they way it is. The juries just lessen the impact of diaspora votes for everyone, so no country has an unfair advantage which sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Matt]

Those who want to continue the jury vs televote discussion, this is the place to do so