An upswell in televoting during last night’s Melodifestivalen final caused SVT’s phone lines to jam, and may have prevented thousands of people from voting for their favourite. Aftonbladet reports that a large number of Ace Wilder fans contacted them to say they could not vote for the “Busy Doin’ Nothin'” singer, suggesting that her voting line may have born the brunt of SVT’s malfunction.
Maria Ilstedt, Project Manager at SVT, confirmed that SVT had major problems with the televoting system. When Aftonbladet asked what Ace’s fans should have done when their votes wouldn’t go through she simply said: “They should have called a few more times.”
That leaves Ace in an uncomfortable position. Adored by millions and riding a wave of momentum headed into the final, she ended up with 23.8% of the televote, just short of Sanna’s 25.8%. She’s understandably scratching her head and wondering if she lost because of a technical glitch rather than public will.
“I don’t know if you can rely on it,” Ace told Expressen after the show. “I hope it isn’t true. It would be really horrible if it were true. I hope everything went as it was supposed to but who knows?”
That quote—that you can’t rely on it—made the newspaper’s front cover this morning.
Sanna didn’t have an answer. “I don’t what I should say about it,” she said. “It was an exciting final and it’s fantastic.”
No end to the drama
In the wake of #melfestrobotgate there are still a lot of question marks hanging over Melodifestivalen, and the voting debacle won’t help restore faith in the contest. Anton Ewald added to the drama when he lashed out at the juries after the show, saying you have to be close with them in order to do well. That sounds like sour grapes to us.
Host Nour El-Refai had to cope with the voting drama live on air.
Apparently there was a backlog of votes that SVT had to process just moments before the results were meant to be confirmed and verfied. Because the televoting was so close they had to double and triple check the results, which meant Nour and co-host Anders had to improvise on stage.
“They told me in my microphone that we don’t have a result exactly as I was about to say we have one,” Nour said. “I had to fill the time and it felt like an eterninty. TV seconds can be unbearable.”
Especially if you’re the woman who may or may not have come out on the wrong side of a technical issue.
In any event, Ace can still count herself a winner. All of Sweden is talking about her. As we know from our interview with her after the show, she’s staying upbeat.
Related links
- Ace Wilder questions Sanna Nielsen’s Victory (Expressen)
- Two measly points! (Noje)
- Ace on SVT’s voting chaos: I would be disappointed (Aftonbladet)
You can also keep up-to-date with the latest Eurovision news and gossip by following the team on Twitter @wiwibloggs and by liking our Facebook page.
Photo: Olle Kirchmeier / SVT
What T and Ben Cook said is quite relevant here. Is there any evidence that this was exclusively Ace’s problem? No voting system technology is perfect – even Eurovision 2011 was rumored to have badly suffered from lost televotes during the first half of the first semifinal. That being said, it would seem that SVT would do well to get its best minds better and maybe hire a scientist or two to resolve this problem, as well as the problem of vote spamming by computer that caused so much controversy two weeks ago. One suggestion I’d have is to simply… Read more »
I liked Helena and Jace Wild more, actually. I think there would have been another winner if the jury results were not presented before the audience voting, now there could have been tactic voting.
I am with Diane on this one!!!! There are just some bitter losers who could not shut up!!!! Gawd!!!! Ugh!!! *cough-Dhani-cough*
Either way, my top 2 faves are the top 2 come results night!!! I could not have been happier!!!
Dhani, stop being drama queen. And calling Swedes racist is just childish.
I’m actually proud of the Swedish televote for not handing the victory to Helena on a silver plate just because she’s a past winner. It proves that Swedes were probably evenly split for completely different reasons over Sanna and Ace’s songs. Unlike Sweden, the Melodifestivalen proved to me that MALTA is a country easily bought by charm offensives and other questionable alliances: Just because Helena’s song was written by a Maltese is not a valid reason to grant it 12 points in contrast to all other 10 international juries. Helena’s song was a good attempt to get back on track… Read more »
great sweden. you just blew all your chances away by selecting the wrong winner. you had chance to win with helena.
It was so unfair that Helena didn’t won!!! She only got 7th place by the tele voters, that just shows that the swedes are racist because she’s greek. If they knew what the song meant to her. I love Helena I’m listening to survivor all the time….. They have an awful taste because they chose sanna nielsen and her boring song…………
And we have interenational juries in some countries they don t gave high points to the Ace who is strong contender to win. Germany gave her 0 point, and Malta 1 point.
That’s kinda unfair to Ace as it seems she would’ve won if there was no technical glitch. I don’t know what they should do but that’s really unfair.
Este tipo de prensa no es bueno para ESC.Lo unico que se consigue con esto es que cantantes, con una trayectoria discografica con prestigio no quiera ir a ESC,ejemplo Monica Naranjo España y con toda la razon
Well i thought that these things happen only in Romania, all these conspiracy theories after the show :)))))
Well if it’s confirmed that there was a problem with voting for Ace and that they were only 2 points away, it’d only be fair to hold a mini competition like Ukraine was going to do in 2011.
This happens every year and it’s the same for all of the contestants and not just Ace. If you can’t get through the first time, you have to call again.
Had it been won by Ace, I’m sure Sanna Nielsen’s fans will do the same. I think technical glitches is and will always be happening, so get used to that. I watch Ace’s interview after Sanna won, and she said that she happy for her and she believe that Sanna will kick some asses in Copenhagen. I just hope that’s an honest statement..
It would be utterly cruel to Ace.
First, lose by just 2 points. Then, discover that your votes got lost by a technical glitch.
My understanding is this: Ace should have won and didn’t because of a technical problem at SVT. SUCKS. Sanna is so 1987
My understanding is that when this sort of thing happens it should affect all numbers in the same way, due to the way they are linked up or something. So if you couldn’t get through to vote for Ace, you wouldn’t be able to vote for Sanna either.
ace is so gracious, i love her! album soon please 😀