Latvia’s Supernova has a potential drama brewing less than 24 hours before its first heat. LTV have announced that they are looking at potentially “dishonest” streaming on Spotify by some of the competing acts. This is relevant as, in October, it was announced that Spotify streams will count towards votes at Supernova 2017.
In a statement, Supernova producer Ilze Jansone explains that she wouldn’t like to think the acts themselves are “so naive” to try and rig the voting. She explains that “a global company like Spotify” would know “how to recognise any manipulation”. Therefore, any attempt would immediately be caught out.
However, there are apparently examples where acts have, for example, suddenly become popular in new areas. Any listens deemed suspect will not be counted, with only “real data” to be used in voting.
Supernova 2017 — Spotify Data
LTV have not given any specifics as to which acts are under investigation. Even just glancing at Spotify data, however, gives clues as to which acts could have attempted to improve their chances.
For example, one act — who we will not name — has amassed over 3,200 listens in the city of Boardman, Oregon, USA. As of the last US census in 2010, the city only had a population of 3,220 people. The same act achieved a staggeringly similar amount of listens in Los Angeles as well. Riga appears fourth on their list with around 1,400 listens.
Boardman is a known location of suspicious Spotify figures. It appears in the top-five listener locations for five Supernova acts, including three with noticeably high listening numbers.
Other acts have a much more Latvian feel to their listeners. Acts such as Miks Dukurs, My Radiant You and Anna Zankovska for example, have only Latvian cities in their top 5. Even Markus Riva — who appeared in the Russian iTunes chart with his entry “Dynamite” — has Riga as his top location.
Similarly, some acts have had a meteoric rise in streams in a short period of time. In the past week, two acts have achieved over 20,000 streams of their Supernova songs. The average amount of streams for the remaining acts is around 4,900. Whilst these acts could just be popular, they again seem to mainly attract streams outside of Latvia.
LTV have not announced any further measures, but it may be interesting to see what happens with the results in the first heat. The first heat of Supernova 2017 kicks off on February 5 at 20.25 CET.
… and btw, how do you know, it’s Boardman in Oregon, and not Boardman in Ohio? Boardman in OR had a population of 3379 (in 2013), and you wanna tell it makes more than 3724 The Ludvig listeners of them??? :)))
Poleged is really worried about the success of The Ludvig. Maybe Poledged bought all The Ludvig dislikes in YouTube? 🙂
The Ludvig bought all views at YouTube and plays at Spotify. LOL
AWFUL
For editors:
Lauris Valters was crowned the winner of the night.
That was the only thing certain about the group that qualified.
I agree with Polegend–it would be too easy for anyone to rig votes with this kind of system. Besides, how much of “suspicious” votes they will not consider?
must be a huge Latvian American community in Boardman Oregon!
Wow, it’s almost as if musical taste is subjective and that some songs appeal to different people??? Crazy, right Polegend. I love The Ludwig and I hope he does really well (I don’t know about win, but I’d love to see him in the final).
Can’t they just isolate streams from within Europe, only considering those in the scoring? Not really familiar with how Spotify stats work but I’m fairly certain they have those figures.
Lol a couple of the songs including Katrina cirule doesn’t appear in Australia probably geoblocked but still those won’t have as much plays from outside Latvia
I don’t even have Spotify.
@ Ratus – are you the Ludvig in person? His song is absolutely terrible. He can’t sing, it’s cheaply produced, he looks and sounds like an undertaker, and nothing about it remotely works. His YouTube views were probably bought as well – he used to have far more dislikes than likes, now he has twice as many likes but the same number of dislikes. He should be disqualified for the sake of our ears, really.
Why don’t they just cancel the Spotify voting.
It was a dumb idea anyway because some songs are popular but don’t do well at eurovision so it doesn’t make sense.
The Ludvug is possibly the biggest deal at the moment and he has the largest amount of youtube viewers. He has a good song so I would understand why people would listen to him. Plus, he is the only one who has got on USA Spotify list as one can see on his data.
I think they talked more about Edgars Kreilis who is previously unknown in the country and gets thousands from USA without being on specific lists.
@ Aaron – of course it was going to be the Ludvig rigging the Spotify plays. He cannot sing, and his song is horrid, so I can see why he’s so insecure to the point that he had to buy all those plays. He needs to be disqualified both for the sake of the show’s integrity, and for the sake of our ears. Runaway and Silhouette are cheaply produced trash as well, so again, I can see why they bought the plays – how about spending money on a better producer and on vocal lessons?
I can’t help but laugh. Who ever thought that anything online can be trusted. People who are rich can buy CD’s in stores, to put it online you just make it easier for them, nevermind just PLAYS.
After ”international jury” (meaning that Armenia should ask Azerbaijan what song to send, or it means that you ask only your country’s friends- in that case is useless), now is internet that has the power.
Why don’t you just send a decent song?
But if you want to challenge anyone that’s getting streams out of Latvia that’d leave less than half left (I guess), because Dynamite’s second most streamed place is London….sooooo…..
For those wondering it’s “Silhouette”, which I adore, she has
Silhouette 1,275 listeners from Boardman (<3)
Runaway 754 listeners from Boardman.
I'm In Love With You 3,552 listeners from Boardman (C H E A T)
Escape 149 listeners from Boardman
Overall I think The Ludvig's votes should be disqualified…
Incredibly stupid system.
Who thought that including the Spotify plays in the voting system would be a good idea to start with?
Is the rigging act The Ludwig perhaps? Bc he rigged dem YouTube views too.