The JURY Recepy for Eurovision success ... good or bad?

[VikingTiger]

Why do you have Romania 2013 as a non English entry?

Sorry, you are right. Too tired when I wrote this. I had also put Italy 2012 as non-english. I guess since only the refrain was in italian it should qualify as english. I have made the corrections - thanx.

 

[lucian-crusher]

SMRTV is asking EBU to organize the juries on their own and leave the broadcasters aside:

SMRTV CALLS FOR EBU TO TAKE OVER | OIKOTIMES.COM

 

[VikingTiger]

@ VikingTiger

It is not much about the language itself rather than the musical styles. Entries that do not sound American/British/Swedish/'classical' struggle normally with the 'jury' votes (in comparision to their public support).

My point was mainly to point out that I dont buy the "english"-argument. But I fully admit that there seem to be differences in the voting patterns of the juries and the televoters.
And what you say may be true in some cases. Best example of 2013 is Bulgaria, I guess. And Montenegro. But in general there was not too much disagreement between the juries and the televoters this year. Less so than last year.
But there are definitely exceptions to the rule. In 2012 Albania was hardly "american/swedish-sounding" - and it did very well with the juries. Also Moldova came in top 10 with the juries 2012.

 

[CC92]

@ VikingTiger

It is not much about the language itself rather than the musical styles. Entries that do not sound American/British/Swedish/'classical' struggle normally with the 'jury' votes (in comparision to their public support).

My point was mainly to point out that I dont buy the "english"-argument. But I fully admit that there seem to be differences in the voting patterns of the juries and the televoters.
And what you say may be true in some cases. Best example of 2013 is Bulgaria, I guess. And Montenegro. But in general there was not too much disagreement between the juries and the televoters this year. Less so than last year.
But there are definitely exceptions to the rule. In 2012 Albania was hardly "american/swedish-sounding" - and it did very well with the juries. Also Moldova came in top 10 with the juries 2012.

But Albania 2012 was at least not ethnic and had a big voice (basically this is what the appeal is all about). Their support for Suus came as a surprise to me, however, that year's 'jury' in general seemed to be rich on vocal fanatics, even more than in other years (see Ukraine). Moldova's 'boost' was rather negligible and submerges in the overall picture.
I agree with you nevertheless on that there does not seem to be much negative bias among 'jury' members against native languages themselves.

 

[A-lister]

I do agree with A-lister that the juries tend to give higher scores for ballads in generel, though. I will give him that. I think this in mainly because the juries will most probably hear the songs more times than just one. They may also tend to put more emphasis on the singers actual vocal abilities (and these last couple of years there have been quite a few remarkably good singers!). And, I guess the average age of the members of the juries are significanly higher than the average age of the televoters (just assuming this, though).

This year it is true we DID see a lot of safe, english, cheesy (?), some of them "swedish", ballads in the final:
Azerbaidjan (2nd in juries, 3rd in televoters).
Russia (10th in juries, 5th in televoters).
Ukraine (6th in juries, 2nd in televoters).
Georgia (13th in juries, 23rd in televoters).

Hmm.... I think it is a fact that juries are more prone to vote for ballads. But are juries the reason for english, cheesy, swedish/american ballads?

There were other "classic" ballads in 2013 as well, not sung in english:

Moldova (5th in juries, 19th in televoters)
Iceland (17th in juries, 12th in televoters)
Estonia (16th in juries, 24th in televoters)

I would not blame the introduction of the juries for countries choosing to sing their ballads in english...

Ukraine was neither an import product, nor was it "safe"...

The problem is not just languages, the problem is that juries are punishing everything that is ethno/local sounding and most of the things that aren't safe in general... just take a look at Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro for instance... the public simply have a more open-mind than the juries.

And it's something wrong in a contest where entries are suppose to represent their countries, but you get more praise if you import your product (again the Ukrainian entry unlike the others you mentioned was NOT imported).

 

[VikingTiger]

Ukraine was neither an import product, nor was it "safe"...

The problem is not just languages, the problem is that juries are punishing everything that is ethno/local sounding and most of the things that aren't safe in general... just take a look at Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro for instance... the public simply have a more open-mind than the juries.

And it's something wrong in a contest where entries are suppose to represent their countries, but you get more praise if you import your product (again the Ukrainian entry unlike the others you mentioned was NOT imported).

You argued that the juries go for english lyrics. I tried to make arguments that this is not the case. You are saying that "the problem is not just the language". Well, I have tried to argue that "the language is not part of the problem at all".

Whether the juries dismiss the ethnic/local sound is a totally different discussion.

I liked Hungary 2013. But the only thing that made this "local" was the use of hungarian. If the lyrics were english, I dont think there would have been any way of telling that this came from Hungary. I have no answer to why the jury didnt like Hungary this year though - but I would say it is not because it is an "ethnical sound", nor because of the language (since I have just tried to argue why I dont find juries more condemning to non-english entries that the televoters).
As for Bulgaria and Montenegro 2013 I agree with you. They were harsly treated by the juries. I would have loved to see Montenegro go through. But was the reason for the harsh treatment by the juries the "ethnic" or "local" sounds? I am not sure of that.
"Fairytale" did not seem very swedish/british/american, did it? Nor was it composed by a swede. But it won both the jury votes and the televotes. So the juries cant be totally immune to more "european" sounds (not even if it is not a ballad).

When it came to Macedonia 13 (quite "local/ethnic" sounding) both the juries and the televotes agreed more or less. Neither seemed to like it.

And, moreover, I dont see the problem with having two different perspectives when judging the entries. I do agree that the juries and the televoters have different tendencies when it comes to the votings. But I dont mind. I find this balance the best alternative. And I do NOT think the juries are taking the ESC in the wrong direction.

 

[A-lister]

^
I never said Hungary or Montenegro were local/ethnic sounding, but they were up-to-date and in this context original... I already said that the juries goes against everything that seem to be out of the "western safe ordinary", ethnic sounds, local sounds, alternative music, freshness... they have a tendency voting against all that... which just proves that they have no credibility as "music experts" of this century, nor do they show any respect to the concept of the contest. I mean if premiering countries that import their songs is showing some sort of "expertise", then we can stop ESC right now.

What's the good balance when juries are punishing the ones that try something different? If all it takes is to hire G:son to make a dated cheese ballad to get jury love, then surely they are NO musical experts and have no place in this contest if it should have atleast a bit credibility. This is a European song contest, not American Idol.

And yeah, juries also seem to prefer English... just take a look this year... they choose two dated cheese ballads in English imported from Sweden over more genuine stuff from Hungary and Iceland....

 

[VikingTiger]

^
I never said Hungary or Montenegro were local/ethnic sounding, but they were up-to-date and in this context original... I already said that the juries goes against everything that seem to be out of the "western safe ordinary", ethnic sounds, local sounds, alternative music, freshness... they have a tendency voting against all that... which just proves that they have no credibility as "music experts" of this century, nor do they show any respect to the concept of the contest. I mean if premiering countries that import their songs is showing some sort of "expertise", then we can stop ESC right now.

What's the good balance when juries are punishing the ones that try something different? If all it takes is to hire G:son to make a dated cheese ballad to get jury love, then surely they are NO musical experts and have no place in this contest if it should have atleast a bit credibility. This is a European song contest, not American Idol.

And yeah, juries also seem to prefer English... just take a look this year... they choose two dated cheese ballads in English imported from Sweden over more genuine stuff from Hungary and Iceland....

"And yeah, juries also seem to prefer English....". Didnt you read what I posted? Where is your statistical proof?? You cant just give two random examples and extrapolate from that. Israel and San Marino would have qualified if it were up to the juries; in hebrew and italian.

I would say Norway 2013 was just as "up-to-date" as Hungary and Montenegro. And Norway did seemingly even better by the juries than the televoters. And again; Suus was not a typical "western safe ordinary" entry. But it was loved by the juries.

I am not saying you are totally wrong when you talking about the juries. But I do think you are heavily biased when you do your analises of the juries.

 

[VikingTiger]

But A-lister;
even though I support the existence of the juries, I do think there are room for great improvements.
The juries should definitely consist of more people!!!! When there are only 5 persons in a national jury, each member of the jury actually have a 10% saying of the countries final votes!!! That is WAY to much! There should at least me 10 people in each jury. I would suggest 12 persons. The EBU should also approve of the juries; making sure they consist of a variety of age, sex and occupations (professional musicians, people within the music industry, lay-people?, music journalists etc). A jury of 5 persons age 60+ is not ok. Nor is a jury of 5 musical journalists all in their 30s.

So rather than abandoning the jury system, I would like to see some improvements.

 

[A-lister]

"And yeah, juries also seem to prefer English....". Didnt you read what I posted? Where is your statistical proof?? You cant just give two random examples and extrapolate from that. Israel and San Marino would have qualified if it were up to the juries; in hebrew and italian.

I would say Norway 2013 was just as "up-to-date" as Hungary and Montenegro. And Norway did seemingly even better by the juries than the televoters. And again; Suus was not a typical "western safe ordinary" entry. But it was loved by the juries.

I am not saying you are totally wrong when you talking about the juries. But I do think you are heavily biased when you do your analises of the juries.

Sill though, the imported safe ballads in English were preferred by juries over ALL ballads in native language (Moldova the only exception)

Yes, Norway... western country and in English... I agree though, but it was also the only one out of the more up-to-date entries that faired well with juries... and btw it faired well with the public aswell so the juries weren't needed really.

Suus unfortunately probably got more support for vocals than the song itself by the juries, but it's not something that can be proved... but also another entry which faired quite well with televoters... so again juries hardly needed

So all in all, yes I believe the televoters are indeed generally more open minded than the juries, and apparently juries are not needed to "teach" televoters what the "right" choices should be... because afterall televoters wanted Hungary, Montenegro and Bulgaria over generic stuff like Georgia and Armenia for instance

 

[Matt]

Let's look at some of the facts and then we can go from there, granted this year's ranking is not really representative cause it's based on an average rather than actual points but for a lack of a better example let's use that ranking. There were 8 non english songs in the Final, let's see who ranked them higher


Televotes/ juries


Estonia 24[SUP]th</SPAN>[/SUP] 16[SUP]th[/SUP]</SPAN>
France 25[SUP]th</SPAN>[/SUP] 12th</SPAN>
Greece 4[SUP]th</SPAN>[/SUP] 14th</SPAN>
Hungary 8[SUP]th</SPAN>[/SUP] 21st</SPAN>
Italy 10[SUP]th</SPAN>[/SUP] 8th</SPAN>
Iceland 12[SUP]th</SPAN>[/SUP] 17th</SPAN>
Moldova 19[SUP]th</SPAN>[/SUP] 5th</SPAN>
Spain 26[SUP]th</SPAN>[/SUP] 26th</SPAN>


The televoters ranked Hungary, Iceland and Greece higher while the juries put Italy, Estonia, France and Moldova higher up. Both put Spain in last place. So technically the juries were more kind to foreign language songs in the 2013 Finals. I'll do the same with 2012

 

[Matt]

Same thing for 2012...first televote than juries


Russia 2nd vs. 11th
Serbia 3rd vs 2nd
Albania 8th vs 3rd
Estonia 12th vs 6th
Italy (bilingual) 17th vs 4th
Spain 18th vs 5th
Macedonia 11th vs 17th
Bosnia 16th vs 15th
France 26th vs 13th

Out of the 9 songs that were in a different language, the juries ranked 7 of them higher than the televoters.....not so much language bias afterall is there?

 

[Matt]

One more, Eurovision 2011 breakdown

televote vs juries

France 15th vs 12th
Greece 3rd vs 14th
Italy (bilingual) 11th vs 1st
Serbia 13th vs 8th
Spain 16th vs 24

The juries here also win 3:2 on this one. I think this should put the "juries vote for English songs" claim to rest.

 

[sistem]

Ehm, we aldready have 50/50, you mean the juries should get even more powers?

we had 50/50 until this year, now the juries have overall power, see Romania scoring 12 p in televoting and being awarded only 1 point in the final. People are being discouraged to vote in the future if their opinion gets cancelled by 5 people who are part of the jury.

 

[A-lister]

@ Matt

Again Matt, I already said that the main issue here is not the language one, rather juries' close-mindness musically.

 

[AdelAdel]

@ Matt

Again Matt, I already said that the main issue here is not the language one, rather juries' close-mindness musically.

Care to explain? First, you say that juries have a negative bias against native languages and when Matt proved you wrong, you still won't give up...

 

[Matt]

@ Matt

Again Matt, I already said that the main issue here is not the language one, rather juries' close-mindness musically.

You just said a few posts above

And yeah, juries also seem to prefer English

In addition, your first point in this topic is "send an English song".

So you changed your mind from one post to another?

 

[A-lister]

^
No? But I noticed you only cared to read the first sentence so then my general message didn't come through

 

[A-lister]

Care to explain? First, you say that juries have a negative bias against native languages and when Matt proved you wrong, you still won't give up...

No I won't give up, because there's far more to what I've said in here than the language issue, it seems however as if that's the only part some are willing to read though

 

[Matt]

^
No? But I noticed you only cared to read the first sentence so then my general message didn't come through

Then let's clarify it. That way we can move on discussing other claims but I would like to get an understanding if you opinion on the English issue has evolved or not.



Based on the information provided, do you believe the juries are bias towards songs performed in English and ignore other songs? If yes, what do you base your claim on?