Things that need to go

[Realest]

Björkman is a good guy.He did much to improve Eurovision and we should appreciate this. Can someone bring serious Arguments against him please?

And btw. 96/210 (45.71%) of all international, professional Jurymembers had Benjamin in their Top5 and now tell everyone how Björkman bribed every single of them.

 

[midnightsun]

I'm sure he is a "good guy", why should he be a bad guy? Even if he is a nice person in private, I don't like his way he and his team forces themselves through Eurovision. At this point I even don't trust Ola Sand, who I respected a lot in the past. but I don't think that he will do the content that much good it needs. Anyway. Not sure if changing the leading powers would change anything in Eurovision, because corruptibillity even happened much earlier and will ever.

(https://eurovisiontimes.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/eurovision-through-the-years-1997/

Italy had not participated since 1993 and apparently RAI had only accidentally applied in 1997. In order not to have to pay a fine, they sent the winner of the San-Remo festival of that year: The duo Jalisse, made up of the charismatic Alessandra Drusian and Fabio Ricci. ... Rumor has it, that RAI contacted several foreign juries to make sure the song would not win the contest.

->bribery always possible !)


Maybe I was just blind in the past, thinking Eurovision is "real" and "authentic" and sure, it's not scripted like Pop Idol or The Voice or X-Factor but in the past years - escpecially since Björkman entered the stage - there is a clear trend to push pre-contest favourites. And that is something I find really unfair. It's called "influencing".

Also, the introduction of the new juries went wrong in 2013 (Björkman's year, again!) when all juries suddenly voted a lot more odd-friendly than before. Criteria of voting doesn't seem to be existent for jury members any more although it's in the rules.

(Yeah, Realest, I know, not every single point is exactly given by the juries that way but there is a tendency)


By the way, the reason I'm commenting another time on this threas is because I stumbled upon an article by chance which proves that the odds results had a lot of similarities to the actually voting SINCE 2013 !!! The article is dated up to 2016 only, but if you include recent years (I'm sure, Realest is now calculating ;-)) this proves it even more.
And who is responsible for this? The juries! Because people voted a lot more differently the past years - not as odd-friendly as the juries.

https://www.escxtra.com/2017/03/16/analysing-ten-years-eurovision-odds-good-imperfect-indicator/

Odds are becoming increasingly more accurate indicators
Overall, this tells us that over the past ten years, odds-to-win have become increasingly reliable at predicting which countries will finish inside the top 15. This is shown by the green trend line trending upwards over the decade

------------------------

So what has to go?

The odds would be the best. But it won't happen, so what must go next are juries who don't stick by their own rules but only vote for odds-friendly songs! If they go for real criteria juries can stay as I think they are important. it's good that we don't have telephone voting only anymore.


---------------------------

Concerning Sweden: since 2013 Sweden has always gotten more points from juries than from televote (apart from 2016). Even for rather bad songs. So explain this to me. This happened, by the way, when Björkman got involved! ;-)

Sweden Jury voting | Public voting
2013 3 | 18
2014 2 | 4
2015 1 | 3
2016 6 | 9
2017 3 | 8
2018 2 | 23

 

[Realest]

Well, there is a correlation between Songquality and Bettingodds. Good songs are tendencially higher in the odds and bad songs tendencially lower. It is surely no coincidence that f.e. Cyprus and Israel are high in the odds and Slovenia and Portugal lower. So you cant say that the Juries were wrong by voting those Countries like they did this year f.e.
Also we should not forget that the Juryvoting is the Sum of 215 (mostly) individual Votes. And if you take a look at a few Juryvotes you see that nearly every single Jurymember has a few high bet songs in his Top10, a few medium bet songs and a few low bet songs in his Top10. E.G. Max Giesinger had :: from the high bet Songs, and from the medium bet Songs and from the low bet songs. The Reason why the Juries are somehow near to the odds are because Songs like and are more often voted by the individual Jurymembers. But Noone from the 215 knows how the 214 other Jurymembers vote, so your argument that the Juries are brainwashed by the betting odds is officially reduted.

And btw a 55-60% Quota in predicting a Top15 is nothing really good. Im pretty sure if I would have made a Top15 prediction this year I would also easily get around 9-10 Right at least. And not to forget that this graphic prediccted the Combined Result, not the Juryresult only. I mean nearly everyone knew that etc.. wouldnt make it in the Top15, so it was very easy to predict 9 of the Top15 (=60%) correct from the remaining 20 Countries.

Btw. this didnt answer my question how Björkman influenced the Musicprofessionals who votes. And btw what are the "New Juries" from 2013?

And last... this year it was clearly proved that the Televoter are brainwashed by the Bettingodds and not the Juries. In the Semifinal deservedly got the same amount of Points (116) like but in the Final suddenly there is a gap of 246 Points (317-71) which makes absolutely no sense. It clearly shows how the betting odds and all the mediahype brainwashed many ESC-Viewers this year. Everywhere is written that only and can win, so noone voted for knowing that he is chanceless. Many people obviously voted for because they liked Netta more than Eleni among the only 2 possible Winners, while the Juries gave a damn about the Odds and recognised Cesar despite being only #19 (only Raffael Gualazzi was lower btw. from all Jurywinners). Not to forget that this Salvador-Idiot helped Israel this year...Many People wanted to see Israel win from then on, because they wanted to see how Salvador hands his Trophy to Netta. So yes, the Televoting is often by Circumstances which have nothing to do with Music.

 

[Realest]

Concerning Sweden: since 2013 Sweden has always gotten more points from juries than from televote (apart from 2016). Even for rather bad songs. So explain this to me. This happened, by the way, when Björkman got involved! ;-)

Sweden Jury voting | Public voting
2013 3 | 18
2014 2 | 4
2015 1 | 3
2016 6 | 9
2017 3 | 8
2018 2 | 23

sent very Juryfriendly Songs. Its that easy.

I also think that Robin Sternberg was a bit overrated, but still its a chart- and radiofriendly Popsong which is vocally very anspruchsvoll (dont know in english), so it fits in the Jury Agenda. Not to forgot that Robin only won Melfest thanks to the professional Juries. SVT always makes sure that they dont send something that could get killed by the Juries at ESC so they take the Risk that their Televoters get overvoted. Yohio would easily have been something around the 20s at Eurovision I guess.

Sanna was loved by both equally.

Mans scored 279 Televotes from 39 Countries (7.15 Points) so you cant say that the Juryvoting was faraway and was unfair.

Frans should have won the Juryvoting regarding that he apparently represents a Juryfriendly Country plus had the only hit in this horrible year. The Fact that the only Hitsong (Russia, Ukraine, Australia who?) scored only 9th with the Juries refutes every single Argument of yours regarding Björkman rigging the Juryvote.

Robin Bengtsson is the Same like Mans. He scored 126 Televotes from 36 Countries while being Top15 in the remaining Countries, so you cant say there was a huge Gap.

Benjamin sent a chart- and radiofriendly modern Popsong mixed with 80s Elements which had a universal Appeal all over the 3 continents. His Song went platinum 2-3 Weeks before Eurovision started and his Staging was something never seen before. But not to forget that the Staging would be nothing without Benjamins Stage-Presence. It was the whole Package which had Juryfriendlyfriendlyness written all over it. If you read the Swedenthread here or in ESCForum, you can see that even most of the Haters predicted a Top5 in the Juryvoting and the Fact that -back then in March- 215 us unknown Jurymembers gave Benjamin the 2nd Place like predicted since 2 Months, proves, that they did their Job right. F.Y.R. Macedonia or San Marino would get the Same Jurypoints with that Entry, say what ever you want. So Id rather say the Televoting should be questioned on this one.

Maybe other Countries should step up their Game like Sweden did after the Huge Failure from 2010, if they want to convince the Juries. Hope I could help. [MENTION=15159]midnightsun[/MENTION]

 

[tuorem]

Well, there is a correlation between Songquality and Bettingodds. Good songs are tendencially higher in the odds and bad songs tendencially lower. It is surely no coincidence that f.e. Cyprus and Israel are high in the odds and Slovenia and Portugal lower.

I would have thought of other examples in terms of entries of lesser quality. xsnooty You wanted to summon me by naming those two.

 

[midnightsun]

I don't think odds show a clear trend what is a good or bad song, at least not in Eurovision. I posted the history of odds some postings ago and in the most unpredictable year (2011) very "good" songs (fan - and radio friendly) flopped. Some of them would have been very high ranked in the odds in 2016, 17,18 ...

The odds are influenced by people on betting on things. Some countries will always be high in the odds because just of their country. Portugal so low in the final wasn't necessarily expected. I think people just didn't see Portugal winning again the contest so for some logical reasons nobody would set their money on this country again. Slovenia is just at the margin of what people listen to normally so there is a good chance it will rise up surprisingly high despite the odds but it won't ever win.

 

[Realest]

To finish this discussion:

This is Benjamins Juryresult:

Benjamin got the most #1 Votings, even more than Cesar.
96/210 Professional Juries had him in the Top5.
147/210 Professional Juries had him in the Top10.

He convinced all over the 3 Continents. Noone can tell me that Björkman bribed any of them. has too much Reputation to lose for such Non-Sense.

 

[Realest]

I would have thought of other examples in terms of entries of lesser quality. xsnooty You wanted to summon me by naming those two.

Well, those Songs didnt chart anywhere and didnt even exist anymore one day after Eurovision. Those Songs brought nothing new/innovative to Eurovision and I cant see why they should get high Jurypoints. Most of the Countries had them in the Bottom3 in the Televoting and without their Diasporavotes they would have had around 0 Points in the Televoting. So these songs are completely irrelevant.

 

[tuorem]

Well, those Songs didnt chart anywhere and didnt even exist anymore one day after Eurovision. Those Songs brought nothing new/innovative to Eurovision and I cant see why they should get high Jurypoints. Most of the Countries had them in the Bottom3 in the Televoting and without their Diasporavotes they would have had around 0 Points in the Televoting. So these songs are completely irrelevant.

And you show me no mercy Aw, my poor heart

 

[AlekS]

He convinced all over the 3 Continents. Noone can tell me that Björkman bribed any of them. has too much Reputation to lose for such Non-Sense.

Screw Björkman. The broadcasters themselves are "dear friends" with each other. The broadacsters' officials form the juries according to desired outcome, perfectly knowing every jurors' taste.

As for Sweden 2018. He performed better at the jury rehearsals. If they cared about televoters they would selected something less pale, monotonous and more appealing like Israel or Cyprus.

Those Songs brought nothing new/innovative to Eurovision and I cant see why they should get high Jurypoints.

How come a weak spinoff of their last year's Justin Timberlake spinoff is so innovative that it ended as the jury's #2?

 

[Realest]

Screw Björkman. The broadcasters themselves are "dear friends" with each other. The broadacsters' officials form the juries according to desired outcome, perfectly knowing every jurors' taste.

These are only Conspiracys. Such form of Corruption exists, if even, only in Countries like and like they have proven often enough in the Past with their similar Juryvotes. This has nothing to do with Björkman or since they never benefitted by such corruption (Sanna Nielsen even lost some Points because of such agreements).

How come a weak spinoff of their last year's Justin Timberlake spinoff is so innovative that it ended as the jury's #2?

As I said on another Page, "Dance you off" went Platinum (only "NMAFN" reached the Same in as far as I know) and I can Imagine that Professional Juries saw the hitpotential in it. Lets not forget the whole polished Performance weve never seen before. For me the Imagination seems logical that someone from the Musicindustry sits in his Bureau, watches all 26 Performances and decided that stood out the Most. As I said earlier, even here and mostly on ESCforum most people including Haters knew about "Dance you off"s Juryfriendlyness and predicted a Top5 Finish. The Surprising Thing here is definitely the Televoting.

 

[Preuss]

What’s confusing to me is the fact that you do not believe that Sweden’s pushed but the juries in this contest (and neither do I really), but still you believe that Australia’s being pushed big time in this contest...? :?

 

[AlekS]

This has nothing to do with Björkman or since they never benefitted by such corruption.

3 Few years ago 1 Western broadcaster openly said in April that they will give Sweden the highest points, and they gave them really high points eventually. This is all I'm gonna say about it.

As I said on another Page, "Dance you off" went Platinum (only "NMAFN" reached the Same in as far as I know) and I can Imagine that Professional Juries saw the hitpotential in it. Lets not forget the whole polished Performance weve never seen before. For me the Imagination seems logical that someone from the Musicindustry sits in his Bureau, watches all 26 Performances and decided that stood out the Most. As I said earlier, even here and mostly on ESCforum most people including Haters knew about "Dance you off"s Juryfriendlyness and predicted a Top5 Finish. The Surprising Thing here is definitely the Televoting.

Sales shouldn't be even considered by pro juries, because it depends of buyers/televoters and their tastes...The juries shouldn't be influenced by somebody elses' tastes ie. sales He didn't chart well outside of Swedish market anyway.


I'd rather imagine some of the the jurors thinking "oh, it's Sweden, they're gods of Eurovision recently. Our NF buys music from Swedish authors. MF is the best. They're high in the odds. Björkman was in our international jury. He's a guru of ESC, you can't b*tch with someone who produced ESC (and proabbly will produce it again)" etc. and other nonsense which has nothing in common with particular music quality. + as I've said already, he performed better at the jury show. The juries have already discredited themselves so many times that I'm not even wondering.

Televoters were simply spoiled. Swedish music of such kind is everywhere. And what we've seen in May is not even close to what we hear outside of Eurovision-bubble. Many people noticed how he reminds them the last year's entry.
It sounded okay-ish in the semi but it got boring in the final. The staging made my eyes bleed. He's not attractive or charismatic for me As appeared I'm not the only one who wasn't impressed - only 688k YT views of his performance in the final.

 

[Realest]

3 Few years ago 1 Western broadcaster openly said in April that they will give Sweden the highest points, and they gave them really high points eventually. This is all I'm gonna say about it.


Sales shouldn't be even considered by pro juries, because it depends of buyers/televoters and their tastes...The juries shouldn't be influenced by somebody elses' tastes ie. sales He didn't chart well outside of Swedish market anyway.


I'd rather imagine the juries thinking "oh, it's Sweden, they're gods of Eurovision recently. Our NF buys music from Swedish authors. MF is the best. They're high in the odds. Björkman was in our international jury. He's a guru of ESC, you can't b*tch with someone who produced ESC (and proabbly will produce it again)" etc. and other nonsense which has nothing in common with particular music quality. + as I've said already, he performed better at the jury show. The juries have already discredited themselves so many times that I'm not even wondering.

Televoters were simply spoiled. Swedish music of such kind is everywhere. And what we've seen in May is not even close to what we hear outside of Eurovision-bubble. Many people noticed how he reminds them the last year's entry.
It sounded okay-ish in the semi but it got boring in the final. The staging made my eyes bleed. He's not attractive or charismatic for me As appeared I'm not the only one who wasn't impressed - only 688k YT views of his performance in the final.

1) Name or it didnt happen..

2) Juries often went for songs that can exist outside Eurovision. Benjamin had the 6th highest Chartsuccess this season (behind IL/CY/CZ/DE/AT) which is pretty good for a Song that came 23rd in the Televoting.

3) These are only Conspiracys again. Our NF f.e. had Songs from finish and danish Composers (Thomas Stengaard) and still our Jurys gave 0 Points to them. Countries like Serbia, Armenia, Slovenia etc.. didnt have swedish Songs in their NFs and gave 12 to Sweden. Not to forget how the azeri Juries constantly give 0 Points to Sweden since years (Robin Bengtssons only 0 in the Semi came from Azerbaijan btw.). I even think many Juries dont even know who he is. In our Jury we had Singers who have no clue about ESC.

4) I wrote it somewhere else, but I also think Benjamin was the Victim of other Circumstances which have nothing to do with music. If he represented Portugal f.e. who sent 3 portuguese Ballads in a row, he would have been more appreciated by the Televoters. But this shouldnt be a criteria. Thats why we have Juries. He charted in Coutries which gave him 0 Points, while better placed Songs didnt chart. I and many professional think his staging is innovative and impressive. And btw. without being gay I think hes pretty attractive. The YT-Views say nothing in this case. Moldova or Slovenia also have like 80% of their Views on the Semi-Performance. Those Views are rarely equally distributed.

 

[Realest]

What’s confusing to me is the fact that you do not believe that Sweden’s pushed but the juries in this contest (and neither do I really), but still you believe that Australia’s being pushed big time in this contest...? :?

I never said Australia cheated regarding the Juryvotes, but their special treatment is definitely not fair. 2016 it was disgusting how the EBU tried to promote an Australian Victory. And as I said in another Thread, I see no Justifications for Isaiahs 171 Points.

 

[AlekS]

1) Name or it didnt happen...

2) Juries often went for songs that can exist outside Eurovision. Benjamin had the 6th highest Chartsuccess this season (behind IL/CY/CZ/DE/AT) which is pretty good for a Song that came 23rd in the Televoting.

3) These are only Conspiracys again. Our NF f.e. had Songs from finish and danish Composers (Thomas Stengaard) and still our Jurys gave 0 Points to them. Countries like Serbia, Armenia, Slovenia etc.. didnt have swedish Songs in their NFs and gave 12 to Sweden. Not to forget how the azeri Juries constantly give 0 Points to Sweden since years (Robin Bengtssons only 0 in the Semi came from Azerbaijan btw.). I even think many Juries dont even know who he is. In our Jury we had Singers who have no clue about ESC.

4) I wrote it somewhere else, but I also think Benjamin was the Victim of other Circumstances which have nothing to do with music. If he represented Portugal f.e. who sent 3 portuguese Ballads in a row, he would have been more appreciated by the Televoters. But this shouldnt be a criteria. Thats why we have Juries. He charted in Coutries which gave him 0 Points, while better placed Songs didnt chart. I and many professional think his staging is innovative and impressive. And btw. without being gay I think hes pretty attractive. The YT-Views say nothing in this case. Moldova or Slovenia also have like 80% of their Views on the Semi-Performance. Those Views are rarely equally distributed.

1) Someone from Big 5 It doesn't matter because they've changed the HoD and director thankfully. However they're still "dear friends" with Björkman.

2) His "success" in charts is tragic. #78 in France, #69 in Spain with how many, 100 copies? Compare this amount to amount of televoters

3) Conspiracy is your words about haters
Never said that ALL juries are corrupt tho. Armenian juror was at MF 2018. Björkman visited Armenian broadcaster in 2017 & 2018 to take part in their NF's international jury. When somebody's broacaster selects your song (it's not even fully your choice anymore) it's a cheating :? No matter if they vote for it in May or not.

4) As I've said earlier the sales charts these days are tragic. Especially everything beneath the top 20. YT doesn't represent Easterners though because it's not so popular here comparing to Western countries for some weird reason. Exclude the local views and likes and we will get almost equal picture with the televoting (talking about the final).

 

[Schlagerman1]

This thread is so negative it is even making Nina Bo'Nina Brown jealous...

Sure there is always things that can be better, but for real, can't we just this year try to focus more on the fun parts of Eurovision in 2019, the songs, the talents, the crazy and the emotional stuff. There is so many things in the world that we can worry about than a silly little music competition in Europe where singers from two or three continents (depends on how you count and I don't care really...) gets 3 and if they are lucky, 6 minutes of fame. Everything won't be 100% fair, but is life that? No I guess it will never be. Instead of sitting here on a forum trying to overshadow others opinion, then go and try to do something about it instead. I am no expert in how to make that, but there is probably a way if you put your mind to it. Instead I will this year try to put everything on the side, all the politics, all the drama, all the fights and just listen to the songs and enjoy the crap out of them. I may fall into these "traps" as well of going to far once or twice, but we are all humans after all. Let's party like it's 2019 already!

 

[Preuss]

edited

 

[GRE]

Australia.

 

[Preuss]

[MENTION=15870]Realest[/MENTION]

Can I just ask you why you believe that Sweden entries don't get any special treatment by the juries but Australian entries do...? :? You wrote earlier that the reason why Sweden's done so well with the juries is the fact that they've sent "juryfriendly songs and it's as easy as that". Well so has Australia so where's the difference

Because I find your arguments quite ironically as everything's based on your taste, and you have absolutely nothing to support your claims that Australia gets special treatment. I just can't take your arguments seriously about this Sweden/Australia thing because I feel like your arguments are so one-dimensional