Following Semi-Final 2 of Eurovision 2017, the bookies, fans and Eurovision pundits all had the grand final down as a three-horse race between Portugal’s Salvador Sobral, Bulgaria’s Kristian Kostov and Italy’s Francesco Gabbani. The running order, determined by producers, seemed to give that credence. Italy and Portugal, drawn into the first half, were put on late (ninth and eleventh) in their half, while Bulgaria, drawn into the second half, got to perform in 25th position — that’s next to last.

And it seems that the juries — supposedly independent and evaluating the songs without bias — were very much aware of the ongoing race.

Bulgaria’s jury gave Portugal and Italy zero points. And Portugal’s jury did the exact same, blanking Bulgaria and Italy.

Let’s break it down…

Bulgaria’s jury

The Bulgarian jurors ranked eventual winner Portugal 23rd overall, awarding Salvador a total of 0 jury points.

The five individual jurors showed remarkable consistency in their ratings. Two jurors ranked “Amar pelos dois” 15th, two more 17th and one 23rd.

The jury’s tastes were out-of-line with televoters, as the Bulgarian public ranked  Portugal fourth (resulting in 7 televoting points).

The Bulgarian jurors were kinder to Italy, ranking Francesco Gabbani 13th overall — but once again resulting in 0 jury points. The individual jurors rated him 9th, 14th, 15th, 15th, 16th.

The Bulgarian televoters also ranked Italy 13th.

Bulgaria’s jury gave their top marks to Austria’s Nathan Trent, rating him 5, 5, 5, 4, and 11. The public only ranked him 24th.

Portugal’s jury

We see a similar pattern of blanking favourites with the Portuguese jury.

Its jurors ranked Italy 18th overall, resulting in a total of zero jury points. Their individual rankings for Italy were 8, 10, 15, 17 and 21, respectively.

The public, meanwhile, rated Italy seventh, resulting in four televoting points.

The Portuguese jurors had a much greater spread in scores when ranking Bulgaria’s Kristian Kostov.

The individual jurors ranked “Beautiful Mess” 3, 4, 16, 18 and 23, resulting in an overall jury ranking of 14th. That equated to zero jury points.

Once again the public gave what appears to be a fairer placing, ranking Bulgaria third overall. That led to eight televote points.

The Portuguese jury gave its top marks to Azerbaijan, with two jurors ranking DiHaj first and another second. The Portuguese public only ranked Azerbaijan 15th.

Italy’s jury

The Italian jury was more generous with Bulgaria and Portugal, suggesting it evaluated songs in a more even-handed fashion.

In fact, its jurors ranked Portugal sixth overall, resulting in 5 jury points. (Italy’s individual jurors ranked the song 1, 7, 8, 9 and 12).

There was remarkable consistency with the Italian public, as they also ranked the song sixth overall.

Italy’s jury also showed some love for Bulgaria, ranking it ninth overall, resulting in 2 jury points.

The public was more generous, ranking Kristian Kostov third (and therefore giving him 8 televote points).

Italy’s jury gave its top points to Azerbaijan, with two jurors ranking it first, another second, another third and another fourth. The public only rated it 20th.

What do you make of this? Do you think the Bulgarian and Portuguese juries simply had different tastes to juries elsewhere in Europe? Do you think some of the jurors were deliberately marking down rivals? Let us know in the comments box below. 

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143 Comments
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Raina
6 years ago

Skype has opened its web-dependent consumer beta towards the entire world, after establishing it
generally in the United states and You.K.
earlier this 30 days. Skype for Web also now supports Linux and
Chromebook for instant messaging interaction (no video and voice yet,
individuals demand a plug-in set up).

The expansion of the beta provides assist for a longer list of dialects to aid strengthen that overseas functionality

adi
adi
6 years ago

Juries were introduced to reduce the geo-political votes, but I think since they were introduced, the situation is even worse. Probably we should not have juries anymore.

Alex P
Alex P
6 years ago

Perhaps the juries could be sent audio recordings only of the songs way before any pre-publicity is released. The recordings would not have any country name or performer on them, just a number. All decisions to be made on the same day at the same time so that they can’t tell each other their entry name, etc. That way, none of them would be influenced by betting or polls or media hype. I am Australian and can see exactly what everyone has been mentioning here. All politics and favouritism.

Strato Incendus
Strato Incendus
6 years ago
Reply to  Alex P

That is a good suggestion on paper, however it would create a double standard, because then the juries would be judging studio versions while the televoters give their verdict on the live performance. Autotuned non-singers with strong, radio-friendly songs might suddenly score high with the juries no matter if they fail on the night of the TV show or not.

However, since you mentioned it, Australia’s top ten place solely thanks to the juries is certainly one of the biggest “curiosities” this year, to put it politely 😉 .

We love leds, visuals, air machines, fireworks, divas and dated ballads!
We love leds, visuals, air machines, fireworks, divas and dated ballads!
6 years ago

This reminds me of year 79, when Spain was winning and was the last to vote. They allocated 10 points to Israel and therefore gave the victory to ‘Alleluyah’. How different is this contest today!

Dark
Dark
6 years ago

As Bulgarian im just digusted , i tweeted to BNT exacly that the next day after Eurovision , its was just TOO OBVIOUS , the only reason we give Austria 12 points is cuz we had people from Austria that helped creating our song , i cant see other reason then that , cuz Austria desurved 0 points from televote , its was just a horrible kindergarden song …oh and yes , ofc we give Italy and Portugal 0 , because noone will notice. Well Portugal did the same , witch doesnt make them smarter either. If EBU ban Portugal… Read more »

We love leds, visuals, air machines, fireworks, divas and dated ballads!
We love leds, visuals, air machines, fireworks, divas and dated ballads!
6 years ago
Reply to  Dark

Totally agree. Any kind of supervision and punishment on the other hand would be really appropriate here

Darth Thulhu
Darth Thulhu
6 years ago

That was super-classy on Spain’s part.

Gaby
Gaby
6 years ago

Oh please, let’s not compare, Portugal juris gave 8 points to Belgium which was one of our biggest opponents so to speak, and distributed a total of 28 points between 5 top 10 songs, Bulgaria gave 3 points to Romania and that was about it for points to the top 10, there’s a huge difference here. The Italian song didn’t get points because it just wasn’t that good, technically speaking i mean which is what the juri is looking at, it only got points from 20 national juris and of those only 2 “12”s and 3 “10”s, so it’s not… Read more »

fikri
fikri
6 years ago

italy always have the best music taste in the contest imo.

Bob
Bob
6 years ago
Reply to  fikri

I agree. And I think the Italian jury voted in a much more professional way than most other countries.

Matteo
Matteo
6 years ago
Reply to  Bob

that’s why Italy probably will never win!

James Triggs
James Triggs
6 years ago

Reminds me of Ukraine and Russia last year, where there were juries who put one of the two first or very high up and the other last or near last. It wasn’t merely political – Australia’s televoters gave Russia 5 points, but the jury gave Russia none. Australia’s televoters gave Ukraine 8 points, but the jury gave them two. Australia was one of the contenders to win, like Russia and Ukraine and for two years now there’s a pattern emerging regarding jurors of potential winners. Its important to remember that this is just the second contest where the split between… Read more »

cascada
cascada
6 years ago

Hope the juries will go away completely and to be 100% televote again, but if you don’t want, is fine with me, I enjoy all this drama.

anonymous91
anonymous91
6 years ago

Netherlands were robbed of a victory, but doesn’t matter cause we’ll win next year with our dutch superstar Maan 🙂

WTF
WTF
6 years ago
Reply to  anonymous91

The audacity to say something like this after that farce of a jury ranking… Not only were you not robbed, but also extremely overrated to the point of nearly pushing your entry into the top 10 based on their rankings alone.

Polinasupporter
Polinasupporter
6 years ago

what about Ukranian jury? “fair” last place to Kristian

Svetoslav
Svetoslav
6 years ago

Every year The Ukrainian juri is unfair …

Truth
Truth
6 years ago
Reply to  Svetoslav

Kristian made a very stupid statement in front of Russian camera on breaking the ESC trophy on the Red Square. This is the reason Ukraine was outraged and rightly so. He could have paid much higher price for this, and since Bulgaria’s foreign policy is in general in favor of Ukraine over Crimea he really should not have done that.

Christian
Christian
6 years ago

I have never seen a song that is more overrated than Bulgaria’s. I really think we need the juries, but there’s no doubt they voted way too political this year. The scores shown above could be a coincidence of course. I don’t know if some of the jurors ranked their competitors higher than their colleagues to fool the public and letting it look like a trustworthy ranking (because they knew their other colleagues would rank the country lower to make sure it’s not in the top 10). The juries should be extended to more people. Oh and please take a… Read more »

HUO
HUO
6 years ago
Reply to  Christian

TIENES TODA LA RAZÓN

Malka
Malka
6 years ago

The juries were reintroduced in order to reduce bias, but ironically they’re more biased than the public. Last year as well, the Ukrainian and Russian juries didn’t award any points to each other, while their public gave each other top scores. And I mean, how is it that Greece’s and Cyprus’ juries weren’t targeted by the EBU yet for always giving each other 12 points? The juries usually help my home country Israel, but I still think that they should be eliminated. The juries are the reason why Sweden is always on top even with the bad songs they sent… Read more »

Åsa S.
Åsa S.
6 years ago
Reply to  Malka

Malka “The juries are the reason why Sweden is always on top even with the bad songs they sent last year and this year.” Always? In 2016 the juries placed Sweden on 9th place, with 122 points, while the televotes gave Sweden 139 points, so it was the televotes that gave Sweden a top 5 place last year. (And “If I were Sorry” turned out to be the most successful song of all Eurovision songs that year, check the article http://wiwibloggs.com/2016/09/02/summer-hit-frans-sorry-commercial-winner-eurovision-2016/148486/) And in 2011 the juries placed Sweden (Eric Saade) 9th, while the televote placed Sweden 2nd, just 2 point… Read more »

Az Paynter
Az Paynter
6 years ago

I haven’t exhaustively trawled through the comments here nor have I gone looking for opinions but I can do nothing but roll my eyes at people including Australia in the complaints of jury corruption. I do see how SOME juries aren’t doing their jobs fairly, but please do NOT lump Australia in with that lot. For one, we have only participated literally three times, not nearly enough for us to be caught up in whatever petty power plays and stupid games some of the other countries indulge in. I see nothing suspect in Australia awarding the UK our 12 points… Read more »

Du it fo yo lova
Du it fo yo lova
6 years ago
Reply to  Az Paynter

Lets be fare , this year Australia was waaaay overrated by the jury’s , and for some reason Sweden just keeps giving you all the points they have , but in reality even SPAIN (du it fo yo lova du it fo yo lovaaaa) had more points in televote and that should have been the real position for Australia , they had no business in the left side , let alone top 10. And lets face it , u gaved 12 points to UK just to make Northon stop bitching about Australia being in Eurovision ….

Min Min
6 years ago

I was already talking with my friends about this having the same suspicion. Especially in Italys case.. If it’s true, it would be so lame. The Juries are there to prevent political and block voting but as the Points were released it became more and more obvious that the professionals did exact the Things they were purposed not to do. Greece/ Cyprus and vice versa, The Scandinaviens, Armenia/ Azerbaijan (giving each other Zero Points) and now this case with the 3 favourites.

IN-JURIES
IN-JURIES
6 years ago

There’s no doubt that national juries hurt Blanche the most and it’s outrageous and excessive the points the gave to Australia: 171!!! And from the televote just 2?? Something wasn’t quite right here…No to talk about countries favouring each other: Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Sweden…ESC should really consider tackling corruption amongst juries voting or just rely on the best music experts: Televoters!!!

G
G
6 years ago
Reply to  IN-JURIES

No one hurt Blanche as much as she did herself, she was unpleasant to watch and a nervewreck. She ended up ranking way higher than she should have, so count your blessings. She shouldn’t have even gone through to the final based on her performance (and don’t get me started on the stolen tune)

Kris
Kris
6 years ago
Reply to  G

Have you even read the lyrics of City lights?? You are just plain ignorant!!

The Greater Plagiarist
The Greater Plagiarist
6 years ago
Reply to  Kris

Please do not call Mr(s) G ignorant as (s)he got to the point.
The lyrics are original indeed, but the most difficult part – the melody – is a clear copy! No doubts!
Please listen the “City Lights” melody again (and then also listen the “Éclat” melody of Alexe Gaudreault) and please tell me that your are not deaf/surd…

sap
sap
6 years ago

Portugal world record in eurovision, with highest score ever in 53 years of Eurovision, even with the old system…84 %… with the record of jury, and the record of televote with 42 countries with 400 million people…

This is History…

The rest is talking…

The Greater Plagiarist
The Greater Plagiarist
6 years ago
Reply to  sap

The lyrics are original indeed, but the most difficult part – the melody – is a clear copy! No doubts!

The Greater Plagiarist
The Greater Plagiarist
6 years ago

Sorry, wrong comment.

jj
jj
6 years ago

I think the juries were created to strategically outdo the diaspora votes for certain countries. But they have gone well past that and are quite corrupted with their power concentrated in the hands of so few.

Aria
Aria
6 years ago

I just saw the Bulgarian jury gave 0 to Belgium Moldova and Sweden too!!

Kris
Kris
6 years ago

Wiwiguys I have a suggestion!! It will be very kind of you to maybe put this suggestion across to the EBU: It is difficult to probably increase the number of Jurors. So methods have to be devised to change the way Juries vote- Method 1: Instead of doing a 1 to 26 rank the 5 jurors do a Top 10 of their favourite song giving 10 points to their favourite up until 1 point to their Tenth favourite. On adding the points from the 5 jurors , the entry that has the highest score receives 12 points from the Jury… Read more »

Justitia
Justitia
6 years ago

No need for jury.

Get rid of Big 5
Get rid of Big 5
6 years ago

Damn that was so dirty.. but honestly it was easy for these semi finalists to take down a Big 5 like Germany and Spain since they only had 1 night to present their entries. One of the main reasons why I really want them all to drop out of the Big 5 status. They pay the money, other countries makes a fool out of them and claim unfairness in return? PS: Germany probably won 2010 because EU was bankrupt and they needed to keep the contest alive. After EBU realised how popular the contest got when Loreen won 2012 DECISIVELY… Read more »

AngieP
AngieP
6 years ago

When I saw the jury results, it was obvious for me the jurors didn’t vote the other two opponents highly. Italy and Portugal gave their 12p to Azerbaijan(?) and Bulgaria to Austria(?). Both 12 points were strange. There was no sense. Bulgaria: big difference in how juries and televoteers voted on Portugal! From 23rd to 4th is a long way.At least people gave some points to Salvador. The thing is there were no jury points to Portugal and Italy. Portugal: Again people supported both favourites while the jury ranked them lower. Again no jury points for both favourites. Italy: At… Read more »

Polegend Godgarina
6 years ago

The juries from Bulgaria were more trash than the others. How can you possibly give 12 points to Austria?! Those who heard the jury rehearsal will agree with me. He sounded like a dying cat. I can’t really blame the Portuguese jury for giving nothing to Bulgaria, it wasn’t that special, while Portugal was unique.

George
George
6 years ago

Portuguese jury gave 10 points to Austria, so your argument is invalid here.

sandy
sandy
6 years ago

I wish the bookies wouldn’t take any bets for eurovison because the jurys are far to swayed by the bookies opinions. This tactical voting isn’t something knew and maybe not the the extent as the examples given above, I think all countries jurys vote tactical.
They see who are the favourites by the bookies, pick there favourite from the two and purposely vote the other one lower down so that its harder for that song to win. It happened last year with Russia and Sergey.

Akjxjs
Akjxjs
6 years ago
Reply to  sandy

Because italy was preferred by bookmakers from the beginning have aimed at Italian both jurors and people! Always commenting negatively

Rufio Feelwix
Rufio Feelwix
6 years ago

The juries are so shady!

Darth Thulhu
Darth Thulhu
6 years ago

Not a coincidence. Not remotely. Two ideas to help: 1) Reducing the share of jury points relative to televote points would be good. I’m just going to keep repeating a simple fix: Juries don’t get to give a “10” nor a “12”, significantly reducing their influence if they try to blank someone, and making it significantly less punishing for one country’s jury to Play Fair when rival juries go political. 2) Expanding/changing the pool of jurors to include more actual-famous-music-people who have actual-Eurovision-history. I mean, if Petra and Mans were on Sweden’s jury, and Diman and the Tolmachevy sisters were… Read more »

Polegend Godgarina
6 years ago
Reply to  Darth Thulhu

3) Goodbye juries, the public knows better and your unprofessional opinion won’t be missed. I need a Russian EBU supervisor, I’m sure eliminating the juries would be the first thing on their checklist.

Azaad
Azaad
6 years ago

Do you all remember how terrible the contest was in the 2000s without the jury? Russia’s victory in 2008 still disgusts me. Obviously the jury system needs to be changed but getting rid of it just favours countries with blindingly nationalist diasporas who will vote for their country of origin and those with many neighbours.

I also find it ironic that countries like Russia would want a 100% democratic televote when Putin himself has done all he can to destroy democracy.

PP
PP
6 years ago

EBU changes the rules for Eurovison , to have voting like in period from 1971 to 1973 to all countires get points from other country.
Or to have some changes example in final we have 26 countires and 42 countries in contest. All countries voted, but before start of voting , host presenter draw 21 countries who will votes and we hear only jury and televote from that 21 countries.

Laurie
Laurie
6 years ago

Poor Francesco Gabbani… he was the victim of these manoeuvres … he did not deserve it because he is a great artist, polymusicist (he can play very well piano, drums, guitar and trumpet) and a great songwriter …. Now hope is that Europe understands his value and loves him and appreciates all his beautiful songs full of great meaning….

Darth Thulhu
Darth Thulhu
6 years ago
Reply to  Laurie

6th still is quite good. He deserved somewhere in 3rd-5th, in my opinion, but sadly lost a slot or two to politics, much like Russia last year and Italy (again) in 2015.

sandy
sandy
6 years ago
Reply to  Darth Thulhu

I dont think he lost because of politics. He just so happened to be the favourite with the bookies for so long, so the jurys made sure to vote him lower so that the song they liked better would stand more of a chance beating it.

R
R
6 years ago
Reply to  Laurie

The cut to the song was what destroyed it.

PP
PP
6 years ago

Do you remember when all 5 juries member from Germany put Denmark on first place in final 2014.

Justin K.
Justin K.
6 years ago

Everyone’s rankings aren’t as consistent as AZE-ARM, so my guess is their rankings are true rankings of each song. If it weren’t so disparate between jury members, that might actually be the bigger problem… I will only defend the juries to say that it’s difficult to compare them to the public in that there are only five of them–five random people on the street could potentially give the same disparate rankings. And as Wiwibloggs always mentions, the public can only vote for their favorite, and not punish their least favorite–something the jury can do by a single person ranking them… Read more »

Mattias Sollerman
Mattias Sollerman
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin K.

One measure to combat the influence of outliers is to disregard the highest and lowest rankings, much like the wiwijury does. To do this with only five jurors might not be a good idea though.

Darth Thulhu
Darth Thulhu
6 years ago

Yeah, if it’s going to be statistically rigorous, there needs to be ten or more juror votes. Roping in people like “Head of Delegation” and, heck, even the main performers themselves, would be a way to expand the jury without requiring more travel expenses.

Justin K.
Justin K.
6 years ago

I know, it’s so hard with a such a small sample size! Seeing as research needs that to happen sometimes, that would be a great idea if we could allow more jurors on the panel, whether on location at Eurovision or at the home broadcaster (monitored by the notary and a camera feed to the EBU/host broadcaster).

PP
PP
6 years ago

Only ex yugoslavia juries put other ex yugoslavia countries in almost bottom on their list. We had traditional changing the points between Greece and Cyprus. Ukraine gave 12 points to their neihgbour Belarus. Again Azerbaijan last with juries ant televote in Armenia and Armenia last with juries and televote in Azerbaijan. Again some nordic countries votes for their neihgbour Sweden. This year we had some gave 12 points to Portugal and some to Sweden. Again from 2013 we had very strange voting from jury from Germany, in 2013 they gave 12 points to Hungary, in 2014 for host Denmark, in… Read more »

Aria
Aria
6 years ago
Reply to  PP

Is there bad blood between Estonia/Belgium and Serbia ?

Denis
Denis
6 years ago

Who cares really?
People are far to intelligent to believe any type of weird conspiracy theories(unless you of course are a avid obsessed reader of this blog where it’s standard to believe everything is fishy).
it could be as simple as the songs didn’t appeal to them, it’s allowed not to like them. It’s not a universal thing to love the songs
Weirder things have happened than juries not giving points to a hipster with heart failure and a 12 year old Bulgarian Justin Bieber copy.

Marc
Marc
6 years ago

Juries keep proving they are the worst. Always rewarding the same safe songs. Italy clearly deserved a better jury scored than Sweden, Australia and Netherlands. France sent a different song, in French and it came only 19th. Hungary: it was original, unique, well produced, in Hungarian and juries didn’t value it And so on. What Portugal achieved with juries was unbeliveable.. unique and in Portuguese. Juries are sending a message to delegations: Send generic cold songs like “Heroes” Sound of silence” or “Beautiful mess” cause we are going to vote for it for sure. Don’t try to offer something different,… Read more »

Unknown Melody
Unknown Melody
6 years ago

One of the Portuguese jurors (Ramón Galarza) voted upside down, which is why Bulgaria got 0 points instead of the 2 it was supposed to get. Compare his votes in the semi-final to his votes in the final.

Aria
Aria
6 years ago
Reply to  Unknown Melody

Yeah I had noticed that !!

quince
quince
6 years ago
Reply to  Unknown Melody

he’s an old guy… lol

that should be rectified!!!

Tom
Tom
6 years ago

Jury was not professional or objective – so many of them ranked Croatia in bottom 5. Now you might not like the song, but his performance was probably the best of in all 3 nights. Also overall performance of Croatia was very well thought. So it was unfair that Croatia recived jury points from only 8 countries or so. Greece, Cyprus, Australia, even my favorite Austria, were ranked much higher than Jacques, even with worse vocal performance and mostly unoriginal songs. Same goes for Hungary, good song and performace, original and different, was in bottom 5! Poland, even with bland… Read more »

4li3n
4li3n
6 years ago

I NEVER IMAGINED THAT PORTUGAL IS FAVOURITE OF TELEVOTE!
NEITHER 12 POINTS FROM SWEDISH JURY!

But I’m against jury because of them Finland failed the final
(https://www.instagram.com/p/BT4GRjFFStg/ but I’m so happy for this cover)

Robert
Robert
6 years ago

I immediately noticed this as the jury votes where being presented. Definitely shows how the jury have too much power as both ranked good songs at very undeserved places (out of touch with the public completely). Secondly it also shows that the jury have knowledge about the competition that they shouldn’t know at all. All I can say is that is is very fishy

Emy
Emy
6 years ago

Mainly, congratulations to Salvador! It was one of my three favorites together with Blanche and Gabbani. I liked so much Finland, too. I’m not Italian, but I’m living in Italy and I think the juries have not been corrected. The press bored people with daily news about Francesco, presented him as the absolute favorite. When one is favorite for months and months, it is easy to build a “collective assault”; it’s a phenomenon of mass psychology (I can talk about because I’m a psychologist): everyone hates “the common enemy.” This is valid with both juries and televoting. Fearing that he… Read more »

buskyta
buskyta
6 years ago
Reply to  Emy

I agree with your evaluation.

buskyta
buskyta
6 years ago
Reply to  buskyta

We have here in Portugal the example of that. Salvador victory was made in the social media during the semi-finals with the comments of a jury member that said that Portuguese are “pigs” that don´t deserved a true masterpiece. And suddenly everyone in Portugal is now a fast-food “art critic” making themselves feel superior to others that don´t liked this “art masterpiece”. Is truly a psychological phenomenon, people following the crowd and the fashionable tendences.

Fatima
Fatima
6 years ago

For goodness sake, can’t an algorithm be deployed to look for counter-favourite bias? If country A’s jury points for country B = 0 AND country A & country B are favourites then “ALERT!” It’s as simple as that. And while they are at it, put something to look for Armenian / Azeri reciprocal blanking. Obviously further checks should be needed once an alert is raised, but they have a whole day to do this. It shouldn’t be up to wiwibloggs to highlight wrongdoing three days later, it should be nipped in the bud by the EBU. How are those people… Read more »

Brites
Brites
6 years ago
Reply to  Fatima

I don’t know what were the portuguese jury intentions, but, as a portuguese citizen, I can leave here my opinion: apart from the portuguese song, my favourites were the belgian and the italian. Because I expected this year’s contest to be a change in that worn-out model that has been selling us the “complete package” of what has become a stereotype of Eurovision (music resembling fast food and a trendy body in trendy clothes), I would never vote for Bulgary. What Bulgary has brought does not individualize or represent the country and its culture; on the contrary, their contestant and… Read more »

Enthusiast
Enthusiast
6 years ago
Reply to  Brites

The song represents the spirit of Bulgaria, man, and its mission in 21-st century to bring the solution how to heal our nowadays life with the untouchable love. Don’t you see the magic of the future – how this energy from inside is pouring out to wash the pain from the past? I see it, I love it. This song is elevating, but first we really need to heal our hearts with the Portugal’s one… most of us, I mean. Not me though… I’m already captured by the new beginning… P.S. And this is Song Contest. Better bring on the… Read more »

jj
jj
6 years ago
Reply to  Brites

But unlike Justin Bieber, the Bulgarian singer has a full-toned resonant voice. Justin Bieber’s voice is rather thin and scratchy, and those it has gotten deeper from when he was a teenager, it is not as deep as the Bulgarian singer’s is already at 17.
I didn’t like the Bulgarian song though – too slow, crying and overwrought – but I think it is more like Sam Smith’s style of song than Bieber’s.

Mattias Sollerman
Mattias Sollerman
6 years ago

Has anyone ever gone beyond the statistical analysis and actually spoken to the jurors? Are they contractually allowed to talk about their motivations for ranking songs in a certain way? I’m not expecting anyone to spill the beans, but it would be nice to get the inside perspective from a human being. I’d want answers to questions such as: “What happened to make you rank this particular song so differently in semi and final?” “Why do you think music professionals and the public have such differing opinions on Australia’s (for instance) performance this year? Is the public missing something?” “What… Read more »

El
El
6 years ago

Honestly I have the feeling that televoters were more true then the jury even in the last maybe 2 years. Italy jury was ok here, congrats on that (I really don’t think we deserve Italy in Eurovision lol, love them every year ) but Portugal and Bulgaria it’s so obvious
Also Greece-Cyprus, Azerbaijan-Armenia, Ukrain-Belarus , Australia and Sweden way too high, Italy too low and so on. I do think we need jury but this is not working. And lets not forget what they did to Russia last year

quince
quince
6 years ago
Reply to  El

Italy always receives exaggerate amounts of points from Malta, Albania and Montenegro. Always. Everybody has some friends….:-) Apart from France, Germany and the Netherlands…

Jo
Jo
6 years ago
Reply to  quince

Germany, France and N’lands have Belgium, Switzerland, Austria.
Italy’s points from Malta and Albania (Montenegro???) are usual, but waay below the neighbour voting. Malta gave 12 to UK and Albania to Australia last year, even though Francesca was #1 in those countries.

blaubeere
blaubeere
6 years ago
Reply to  Jo

Germany – Austria?! lol….. Check up the last years and count the points together those both are giving each other. Spoiler: it’s not much

quince
quince
6 years ago
Reply to  Jo

Average points received in finals, last 20 years:

Italy from Malta 7.1
Italy from Albania 7.9
France from Belgium 1.3
France from Switzerland 1.6
Netherlands from Belgium 0.5
Germany from Austria 4.3
Germany from Switzerland 5.1
Germany from Belgium 1.3

Everyone has friends, but Netherlands, France, Austria; Belgium, Germany and Austria are the ones with the least friends of all!…

Linnea
Linnea
6 years ago

Austria is so underrated by the public… BUT the Bulgarian was nice and awarded Nathan with 12 points, well deserved!!!

Lukewarm
Lukewarm
6 years ago

Portugal does not deserve flak. Or at least they deserve the benefit of doubt. Their jury did give points to a lot of other favorites and maybe some of the juror really disliked Bulgaria. They also egged Spain which earns them kudos. Italy, not surprising. They have always been classy. In 2015 Swedish jury ranked Italy 5th and Russia 6th. Russian jury ranked Sweden 1st and Italy 4th. Italian jury ranked Sweden 2nd and Russia 8th. Hats off to all three countries that year for fair play. Especially Russia for ranking Sweden on top. 2016 was a bit different but… Read more »

Aqua Azure
Aqua Azure
6 years ago
Reply to  Lukewarm

The only one that should be ashamed is you–petty little hater. Because of jurks like you and your DOUBLE STANDARDS, there is always this east-west division. It is completely understandable why both Portugal and Bulgaria did what they did–they were tactical and maximized their shot at winning. Both countries have never won before, and both if them saw this year as an opportunity of a lifetime. This is all a standard practice here. Italy probably bribed Montenegro to give them top points and no points no Portugal and Bulgaria. And if you look closer you will see these political games… Read more »

Lukewarm
Lukewarm
6 years ago
Reply to  Aqua Azure

How is it a standard practice when some countries are able to show much more class than the others? You say East-West division, but it is not like the Russian-Swedish relationship has been rock solid. Still the Russians were able to play fair in 2015.

Turning this into a tactical game is not one of the points of having juries. Yes, politics and tactics will always exist, but never have we reached this low point the Bulgarian juries have displayed with their voting. Don’t try to justify something that is 1) not right; and 2) not standard.

Aqua Azure
Aqua Azure
6 years ago
Reply to  Lukewarm

What I object to is double standards and hypocricity. YOUR DOUBLE STANDARD AND HYPOCRISITY. If you are holding Bulgaria accountable, you should hold also Italy, Portugal, Montenegro as well as the 12 point exchanged UK/Australia, Cyprus/Greece and countless others. At least in the case of Bulgaria and Portugal, I can understand that they had a lot at stake.

Lukewarm
Lukewarm
6 years ago
Reply to  Aqua Azure

I am only talking about how the top contenders voting on each other. By no means do I think the case you bring up are ideal.

Does not take anything away from this shameful Bulgarian jury.

Aqua Azure
Aqua Azure
6 years ago
Reply to  Lukewarm

Lukewarm: And next time you write a comment please try to make an argument and not just attach demeaning adjectives to a country. That is if you want to be seen as anything other than a hater, and an uneducated one at that.

Lukewarm
Lukewarm
6 years ago
Reply to  Aqua Azure

Instead of responding to my fair arguments, you resort to calling me a hater. Okay…

Jo
Jo
6 years ago
Reply to  Aqua Azure

??? Montenegro gave 12 to Greece and also gave points to Bulgaria. They also gave points to Belgium and Sweden.
If Italy would bribe that country, why would Italy give points to Portugal and Bulgaria then?

Tiago S
Tiago S
6 years ago
Reply to  Lukewarm

Actually the Portuguese jury includes some members that are into alternative music and some members from an older generation. This could explain some of them rooting for Azerbaijan and not being interested in Bulgaria. They have a well created song, but it’s more for a younger/commercial generation (it reminds me of Justin Bieber). The none votes to Italy are hard to explain though…

Tiago S
Tiago S
6 years ago
Reply to  Tiago S

Just read that Inês Meneses gave the maximum points to Moldova.There goes my theory of her being alternative.

George
George
6 years ago
Reply to  Lukewarm

Before the final the two main contenders were Italy and Portugal. Portugal placed Italy 18th and all you’re saying is “they maybe deserve the benefit of doubt” You’re on some serious drugs my friend. Or this is just a desperate attempt to take of the attention from this atrocity and point it to more convenient to your needs direction. Well it’s not working, man. Even if your write ‘shame’ another 100 times, it won’t take away the humiliation Portuguese jury brought to itself, not a slightest of bit, sorry 😉

João
João
6 years ago

Finally Portugal got the point and play the game with the right rules…
How many times Portugal was so naif? Giving points to countries who actually ranked better than Portugal precisely because of the portuguese votes? Remember Esc2007?

R
R
6 years ago

The solution for the juries is really simple: make the panels bigger (ex.: 12 people) and more diverse (age-diverse, area of music/radio they work-diverse, enforce 7-5 ratio, etc.).

This would both remove potential bias and detect if there are lots of bias towards a certain country.

Azaad
Azaad
6 years ago
Reply to  R

Good idea!

Lukewarm
Lukewarm
6 years ago
Reply to  R

It will be better but I doubt by much. The € value is never going to be worth it for the organizers.

Gobio
Gobio
6 years ago

Can someone please upload here the FULL jury votes (of all countries’ 5 jury members +televote)? Thank you in advance.

kai
kai
6 years ago

well….since i saw Sweden taken Portugal from the top5 in the last vote in ESC1996 i believe in everything
…and guess who was the lat jury? Sweden!!

Lauren Figg
Lauren Figg
6 years ago

I think the juries should come into this not knowing which song belongs to which country. That would make it much more fair and unbiased.

R
R
6 years ago
Reply to  Lauren Figg

It would be really diffivult to do, just to not say de the word ‘impossible’

Fatima
Fatima
6 years ago
Reply to  Lauren Figg

Easy to say, Lauren but I’d love to know how would you enforce that.

M_K
M_K
6 years ago
Reply to  Lauren Figg

That’s a very good idea. Next year, the juries should only consist of aliens that got stranded on planet Earth just a few hours before the contest. The EBU just has to make sure that they don’t have access to the internet.

Zane
Zane
6 years ago

It’s obvious something needs to change to the jury voting system. They were put into place to neutralize potential bias from the public, except they only strengthen it or in some cases (like here) make it even worse. It’s sad really, that some jurors don’t seem to be able to fairly judge the songs. Besides that, they sometimes even flat out copy-paste each other’s scores. I’ve looked up some jurors that they chose this year and it’s baffling how some of them are actually allowed to judge this competition. The EBU needs to look into this and come up with… Read more »

ESC84
ESC84
6 years ago

Fair game award to Italy.

Darth Thulhu
Darth Thulhu
6 years ago
Reply to  ESC84

May those occidenaltis get some good karma from it, going forward. This is twice, now, that they’ve been punished for doing the right thing.

Mark Beckenbreur
Mark Beckenbreur
6 years ago

Nope, it is not a coincidence.