Conchita Wurst secured 12 points from 13 countries, including the UK and Ireland. Bizarrely, Germany did not show its neighbour as much love. It wasn’t the public’s fault—they gave Conchita top marks—but rather the professional jury. Booooo.
On Monday Andreas Bourani, one of the five German jurors, performed his new single “Auf uns” on the Austrian breakfast show “Cafe Puls”. He also faced some tough questions.
“Why didn’t you give Conchita any points?” asked host Johanna Setzer. Here’s how he replied.
Well the televoting result gave Conchita 12 points, but we the jury had the Austrian entry in 11th place because we had a lot of other favourites! I know the composer of Rise Like a Phoenix and the song is not bad but maybe Austria should send a more capable artist the next time…But we can see Conchita conquered Austria!
Clearly shocked by Bourani’s comment, co-host Andreas Seidl struck back: “Conchita didn’t just conquer Austria,” he said. “Europe loves her!”
Fortunately Miss Wurst didn’t need Germany’s support. She won in a landslide.
Here’s Andreas’ latest single…in case you’re actually interested.
http://youtu.be/MYNLQjrBVPo
Photo: @andreasbourani/instagram
I think the author of this article maybe mixed up different interviews wich he didn’t refer to or he misunderstood the words of Andreas Bourani. I tried to translate the part of the interview with Andreas Bourani concerning esc at Cafe Puls the author referred to and the Society-TV-Interview he linked: CP: Now that you‘re with us, we need to talk about our music export par excellence, Conchita Wurst, and the German voting that was not quite perfect for us. You were part of the jury… AB: Yes, exactly. CP: …and you did not give us your 12 points. AB:… Read more »
Let’s NOT forget that the austrian jury did the same… i mean they “buried” Germany in the voting by placing Elaiza very low in the ranking while the public voted for “Is It Right”. So don’t complain!
Personally I agree witH the Judge. I thought the song was good but Conchita’s performance was not that great. I don’t think he would have won without the beard gimmick. On the subject of the jury v the televote – the UK public gave first place to Poland but the Jury ranked it around 25th so we have the situation where the UK public’s number 1 choice was given nil points. (Conchita was ranked 3rd by both and got the douze points). I suppose you could say this is outrageous but given the nature of the Polnad song perhaps this… Read more »
Who actually cares about this … he still won … what’s the big deal? You cannot really expect everybody to like Conchita that is just dumb … if he hadn’t performed as a drag queen, if he hadn’t carried the gay message that sadly is urgent due to eastern countries’ homophobia or France’s noise against gay marriage, Conchita’s message would never had the impact it had that night had it been performed by a regular singer … It’s the “gay” in the whole of this that is bringing all sorts of feelings: gay defensive from the LGBT and hateful ones… Read more »
The ranking system is at fault. All it takes is one juror to rank a country very low and they can fall out of the overall top 10 and more averagely-ranked countries make it in instead. The jurors should just give 12, 10, 8, etc points like they did in 2009-12. Under that system a few countries would have gathered enough points to stay in the top 10 rather than be pushed out and lose points because one or two jurors ranked them low – even if other jurors ranked them highly.
It is not the point that they didn’t give 12 points to Austria – the problem occurred when Mr. Bouranis said Austria should send a more capable singer. Apparently, winning the Eurovision was not enough, according to him. That is like saying that the a country that just won Miss World pageant should send more beautiful girl next time.
Wow, how inappropriate. So if anyone (inclusing a professional jury) does not like Conchita or the song, that person must be booed by Wiwibloggs? How intolerant is that… So strange that the ‘we need more tolerance-character’ of Conchita Wurst attracks the most intolerant kind of people…
That juror should know that it is a song contest, not a singer contest. He should have judged the song on it’s merit.
It was a rude remark from him, but in the end Austria got 7 points from Germany, which is not bad at all. It’s not like the jury have zeroed the televote winner.
It was pretty obvious the German jury wouldn’t give Conchita any points from the moment they were announced. All of them are pretty negative towards her, especially Sido.
But what worries more is the bizzare jury vote in general, pretty much in line like the ex-Soviet juries and for some reason the chose to hype Denmark like no one else.
Well, it’s obvious, they had a lot of chitchat together, those judges.
not surprising as Andreas bourani is an immigrant and he looks like he’s a muslim as well.
Well maybe Andreas was a little blunt, but I don’t think 11th place with the German jury was the result of hate/prejudice towards Conchita. I thought of maybe top 10 for Conchita before the final, but no way I imagined 1st place. It did not bother me she won, as my favorite (Hungary) ended up in 5th place, so somehow far from 1st place. Then I’m no fan of country music (i.e. Netherlands) and not crazy about Sweden’s song either, so Conchita was OK for me. But I think Germany gave her above average scores and all jury members did… Read more »
I just watched Leto Svet. This is exactly the sort of “song” the juries kick out of the competition, and a good thing too. The juries are important & must stay.
He didn’t slam Conchita, he just stated his opinion. It’d be different if he completely insulted her but he didn’t, he said it the nicest way possible. Sorry but this article is kinda annoying me.
Hey, Diane. I agree. The juries will keep a check on Latvian pirates, Swiss vampires & British flight attendants. You can include Irish turkeys too. Too bad the Russian grannies slipped through the net.
But I don’t think it’s appropriate to say “you should send more capable artist next time” in front of the public. He should’ve said that in a diplomatic way rather than straight to the point..
I think I agree with most of the comments, you know the juries were there to rate the songs, and apparently they found another better songs than Conchita’s and rank them higher. That’s it. Simple as that. Don’t make such a fuss about it. And I still believe that we should keep the jury voting because like someone mentioned earlier, we should remember those times when televoting rules and the “song contest” itself is not the main part of the show. All participating countries will do anything to attract votes by doing cheap gimmicks and all that stuffs and put… Read more »
You can also say that Belgium didn´t gave the Netherlands 12 points, and Portugal didn´t give ANY points to Spain… what´s the problem? :O And besides, a jury is there to rate the SONG. I know everyone loves Conchita, and I don´t mind about that! But still, the song isn´t winner worthy. I´m sure that over one or two years some people will say: “Which song won the ESC 2014?” They´ll say “That one with the woman with the beard!” Austria´s victory just isn´t about the song, and even the biggest Conchitamaniacs have got to admit that. And besides… complaining… Read more »
A big boooo from Germany to Germany
What I think wiwibloggs truthfully points out is that he says it like he “voted against” conchita as a person. If he ment that or not is irrelevant as the comment came out that way….
you dont vote against or for a singer.. you vote for the song..
Juries are a mess. While televoting allow you to predict some of the votes (neighbors, diaspora) juries are the the power tool that is capable of manipulating the entire contest. Fortunately they haven’t decided the winner yet. It will most probably be their end.
There’s nothing wrong in not liking a song, it’s the fact that the judge’s criticism is questioning the capability of the artist, which raises very legitimate questions about his capability as a judge, which is far more doubtful than Conchita’s capabilities as an artist ! The fact he makes it worse by being in denial about Conchita conquering europe as a whole rather than just Austria, only stretches his lack of credibility further. Conchita is also a female character created by Tom. Therefore should be referred to as female when talking about the character. Noone is trying to claim she… Read more »
Since when is conchita a woman?
For all I know he still has a….( you know what I mean:)
So Its Mr Conchita ofcourse…when you have a dress on it does not make you a woman you know!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The juries, and in particular the German jury create more problems than they solve.
Do you know what the word “Sendungsbewustsein” means? It means operating in a mindset where you assume that you _must_ convert others to your convictions. The German music industry is like that. They think that it is their duty (hah!) to shape the taste of the unwashed masses (that’s us).
They devalue the contest and they need to go. ASAP.
What’s wrong with anyone not liking a song? A jury member, as well as any well-meaning member of the public voting on the hight of the show, certainly have a right to their liking and their opinion… Wiwibloggs!
And besides, it’s not like he placed Conchita last place.
Hey guess who are also neighbours of Germany? The Netherlands, way to make it sound like NL getting Douze point is such a bad thing. And like said, seems like his words are completely twisted. Juries are there to rate songs, not to think what the mass audience would love. They didn’t like Austria as much as the audience.. big deal? That’s why they are there right.
What a tosser ! To imply Conchita isn’t a capable artist just shows what an incapable judge he is. Not even fit to judge a sausage contest !
he didn’t say anything offensive you imbeciles!
the jury was there to judge, and they all voted conchita fairly high
they are all entitled to their own opinion and i feel as though there is a double standard against heterosexual acts now, and austria shouldn’t have won by such a big margin, i think that the Netherlands brought something new and ingenious and they should have won, with austria a close second.
i’m heterosexual and proud!
I understand that jury’s decisions are often questionable, but for all those who demand to get rid of them, I ask them to remember how things were back in 2008, when bloc voting and diaspora voting were son rampant that everybody could predict every single country’s voting.
I can’t see anything wrong in a jury member exercising his right of not liking a song
@Dhani – I really hated your Helena thingy, but I completely agree with you on this one. Strange thing, indeed.
Way to misrepresent about everything in this story! You link to another interview (the one for cafe puls is http://m.puls4.com/videos/video/?id=5821252 ) and all the guy says is that he judged the songwriting rather than the performance. He then says “maybe next year they should ask someone else”, meaning himself and the other jury members, Pretty humble guy in what I can take from his interviews…
Were they obligated to give Austria 12 points? I mean, Austria won, great, she did really well, but they were not obligated to give Austria 12 points. I’m surprised nobody discusses all controversies that are arising with the juries cheating:
1. Georgia – facing disqualification because of the juries;
2. Azerbaijan and Belarus – Jury vote variation almost identical
3. Belgium – Giving Armenia the last 25th place whereas TV viewers had him first both on the semifinal and on the final.
Juries proved to be more corrupt than people who voted for their neighbors.
LOL why is it so bad that they didn’t give 12 points to austria?? You want every country to give 12 points to austria and have a boring voting??
And i see what you do with this article, you take a little comment from a german jury and try to make up some drama. Because you love drama, especially when eurovision has passed and everything in esc-world is boring.
Wiwibloggs is pathetic
Is there any democratic way to get the “professional” juries out of the ESC? I dunno. Who really decides? Can we, like, send emails protesting or sign somewhere in order to have the ESC bosses get rid of the juries?
I was shocked and ashamed for my country when Helene Fischer (BTW: my apologies for that annual akward “look at all those people celebrating behind me” moment) couldn’t give 12 points to Conchita.
A few minutes later, this feeling of shame turned into rage towards our jury, when I found out that those five were the ones responsible for this national desaster.
Juries are wankers, it’s as simple as that. EBU should undo them NOW.