The first Eurodrama of the Eurovision 2017 season has just exploded in Spain.
Following Barei’s unfortunate 22nd place finish at Eurovision 2016, Spanish fans have ripped into Federico Llano, the Spanish Head of Delegation (HoD), and Toñi Prieto, the Entertainment director at RTVE.
They’re using the rather direct hashtag #FedeyToñiFueradeEurovision (Federico and Toñi out of Eurovision) to ask for their resignation.
Barei – Say Yay live at Eurovision 2016
Right after Saturday’s final, Federico gave a series of interviews to Spanish media. According to Vertele, Llano expressed his “annoyance” with the result, and claimed that Spain’s poor result was because of the voting system. That’s how you shift blame, y’all.
In his opinion, the system is fair until 10th place, and from then on the countries with the most neighbours place better. That’s why Croatia — thought to have a strong song and performer — ended 23rd, for example.
Prieto took a different approach and openly asked whether Spain would have done better if she and Llano weren’t in charge.
HoD’s proposal: A new voting system
Llano also explained that the Spanish delegation are devising a new voting system, which they claim would be more fair than the existing one.
He explained that he has “done the numbers” and that this change is a possibility, as there is support among other broadcasters and even factions within the EBU. However, Spain’s HoD did not explain what this system is all about…nor how Spain would have fared with it.
Fans react
Spanish fans have not reacted well to the comments. Using the hashtag #FedeyToñiFueradeEurovision, they have flooded Twitter demanding that officials account for Spain’s rather dire finishes of late.
Un "equipo" q en 16 años sólo han conseguido cinco top10 y q cada año ponen problemas con la tv organizadora… #FedeYToñiFueraDeEurovisión
— Toni Lliteras (@ToniLliteras) May 15, 2016
Francia en 3 años había conseguido 15 puntos y en2016 se queda a punto de entrar al top5 con cambio de directiva #fedeytoñifueradeeurovision
— HeartbeatBreaker (@Alvaro_Wilder) May 15, 2016
Como vamos a ganar el festival teniendo a estos manejando el cotarro @FedericoLlanoTV #FedeYToniFueraDeEurovision pic.twitter.com/HCHS09n4eN
— RuBen (@ruben_garcia95) May 15, 2016
Tenemos al enemigo en casa. Hay que tener poca vergüenza. pic.twitter.com/717wuIYWUJ
— Javi Tali (@TaliJavi) May 15, 2016
TVE MAÑANA SE PONE MANOS A LA OBRA CON SU AMBICIOSÍSISISISIMO OBJETIVO PARA EUROVISIÓN 2017: VOLVER AL TOP 20 #FedeYToñiFueraDeEurovision
— Eurofans talifans (@eurofan_talifan) May 14, 2016
Y si nos dejamos de pagar una pasta para estar en Big 5 y nos curramos una representacion como dios manda? #FedeYToñiFueraDeEurovision
— #Valencianes! #1ÒCt (@EsElMoment_) May 14, 2016
#FedeYToñiFueraDeEurovision el año que viene habrá dedazo y como les ha jodido que Barei haya ido en inglés, iremos en español.
— Marina (@MarinaEnVans) May 14, 2016
https://twitter.com/DanielRSanchez_/status/731620638243364864
Estamos hartos de que siempre echéis balones fuera cuando la culpa de todo es vuestra. #FedeYToñiFueraDeEurovision
— Claufflepuff? (@Clausintx) May 14, 2016
To sum up, the Spaniards want change.
Barei: “I can only apologize”
The Spanish representative also had something to say on Saturday night.
After receiving only 10 points from the televoting public, Barei told reporters that she could only apologize for her placing (as reported by Formula TV).
Speaking about RTVE, Barei thanked them for “getting more modern” this year.
Barei also said that she has never thought that Eurovision is about politics.
In her mind Jamala won because of her amazing voice, her original song and because the message of “1944” touched people. End of story.
Do you think Spain should re-cast its delegation ahead of 2017? What must Spain to do get out of the Eurovision doldrums? Let us know in the comments section below!
Guys, the cameras, the dress, the lights and more details would have change the result in 1%…………….. The problem is the political influence in every country (professional and televote). Take a look at the graphic, change countries and you can fast know which countries always get the votes from…… Spain only have sea, Portugal and Italy, where the most quantity of spanish people live. No way for Spain to get political points.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/eurovision-2016-how-country-bias-affects-the-result/
@Alex
Barei was a “nobody” in Spain 3 months ago. She should have left staging responsabilities in hands of experts, instead she brought an underwhelming concert performance for the biggest audiovisual show in the world.
Spanish HoD also had the responsability to demand something more suitable for an audiovisual contest like Eurovision.
When compared to the rest of acts, Barei’s “minimalism” quickly turned into easiness, cheapness and deficiency.
@Enzo: that’s not ego, that’s being an artist… not everybody can be Mika Newton and make their entry into a sand art exhibition, disregarding themselves entirely.
@Al Gonzalez Brilliant post. Camera work was bound to be bad because the song wasn’t defined by a concrete theme on stage. What was the leitmotif of the performance? She previously hinted us about 3 emotions staging. I still fail to see where they are. Every top 10 song remarked their high-pitch melodic moments with scenography effects, the spanish act did not. She pretended to make everybody emotional just by herself, I think she failed miserably. Use the staging resources please, don’t play a hero-artist role. So almost all the camera shots were about Barei and her footstep. At some… Read more »
Good point, Enzo.
Mans started this trend in 2015 and those six countries in the top 10 you mentioned did the same this year.
Both Juries and televoters appreciate this added difficulty for the artist to be sinchronized with what happens on stage.
Guys, this is the new Eurovision and in 2017 we can expect lots of interaction between visuals and performers.
Barei said in the post interview she wanted to maintain her artist’s traits and because of that, didn’t want to become a “dummy” (maniquí) on stage.
I guess she was saying that because lots of singers that finished in the top 10 were interacting with their scenographic elements (Ukraine, Australia, Russia, France, Armenia, Lithuania)
Oh poor little Barei, lack of understanding Eurovision, lack of big stage experience (and some excess of ego) made you miss a very nice opportunity for Spain to be at the top.
Someone should’ve reminded her she was representing Spain, not just herself.
But nothing compared to Pastora Soler 10th place in 2012. …One of the best songs , best voice , best staging….ever seen in ESC…18th place by televoters (5th by professional ) …Most underrated song ever by televoters
There was one main talking point in the Spanish media a few days before the event that illustrates perfectly for me what the whole problem with Spain’s Eurovision entries is in general. Nothing seemed more interesting to commentators than whatever dress Barei would wear in the performance. Not the staging… Not that… that was… well… do you need one? Actually, as a matter of fact you do RTVE! And a truly sleek and polished one at that! No one here has mentioned camera work. Spain’s was also abysmal and felt improvised on the very night. It is camera work that… Read more »
Barei deserved a better place. Televoting: Most of the countries ranked her in top 15 places (11th to 15th). Just a few countries ranked her between 16th -20th place but none of them under 20 th…. Anyway in my opinion it was a top 10 song at least (like Odds showed after her performance ) but there are some reasons to explain Spains flopping: – Staging : she was amazing, but staging was not amazing at all…It should be a true song contest but unfortunately televoters like to see high quality effects and great staging shows….This song deserved something different.… Read more »
@TT She apologized (she didn’t need to) but that’s not what I expect as a aftermath of her candidacy. I want to know, what’s missing or where we fell short and what we have to do better for 2017 considering where this contest is moving to. Barei is the most indicated one to give a credible analysis. If we keep looking the other way around, lots of poor results are ahead of us. Spain deserves better, we should not take this contest as a little country that goes there, just for the sake of participating. @Alvaro What you are revealing… Read more »
@Miguel… “she didn’t make any kind of self-criticism or post-analysis”? Are you kidding? Please watch the first video after the show, that one in which she ask for forgiveness (to all of us). It is available on many pages around the web.
I actually feel sorry for Spain, tbh. They’ve sent really decent songs to the contest. Pastora was superb and deserved a top 3, Edurne also had a really good song, but the stage presentation simply did not work for me. Barei’s also been good this year, so I do understand Spanish fans are upset. I just don’t know if they’re looking in the right direction to blame someone, to be honest.
The problem with being Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest is that you have to be *absolutely perfect* or you won’t do well at all. There were no issues whatsoever with Barei’s vocal performance. She was superb. To me, Spain and Latvia were casualties of a year where staging was overemphasized and where the new voting system arguably boosted region voting by boosting major popular entries in the televote. Spain also had to go immediately after Russia, the televote winner, which is a fate that nobody wants. Just look at what happened to Switzerland in the semis last year and… Read more »
A friend of mine that is involved in the entertainment department of RTVE and I, we both had a conversation some weeks ago about this year’s spanish candidacy. He revealed me some interesting facts. RTVE does not have the economical resources to host the Eurovision Contest but at the same time they don’t want to lose Eurovision broadcasting rights because it’s an important part of their every year gains. For now (in this economical crisis period they are in) they just send artists to help them in their musical careers (Edurne’s case last year) but they don’t have any intention… Read more »
I watched the Spanish National final this year since I so much loooove the language, and ALL songs were mediocre. Barei was the best out of a terrible bunch, but it just wasn’t enough. Suerte Espana!!!
I don’t get why everybody gets so upset when Spain sings in English and they don’t give a f*ck about other countries singing in a language that isn’t theirs.
And yes, Spanish HOD should just leave already. It’s been too long, Spain needs young, fresh, new people to take care of Eurovision!
For all those saying Say Yay was a crap and Pastora was muuuuuch better, the latter ranked 18th in the televote and 5th bt the jury. Are you sure Europe televoting doesn’t have any problem voting for Spain?
[Continued] I forgot to mention that I would also get rid of the present vote restriction to countries foreign to the phone line in the televote (not so in the jury vote).
IMO, they should ditch the current score system (12, 10, 8,…1) and replace it with a ranking system in preferential order (1st, 2nd,… 26th). Averaging the rankings of each song from all the juries they would get the final ranking. Then proceed likewise with the televote. The song with more votes would rank in 1st position, and so on. I would get rid of the compartmentalisation of the votes by country. All the popular votes from all the countries would be added together to determine the televote ranking. Finally you could combine both jury and televote ranking with a particular… Read more »
Just watched last Barei’s periscope (from today) she talked about the experience and I’m a bit disappointed she didn’t make any kind of self-criticism or post-analysis.
I was hoping she would give us some kind of afterthought from her POV of what Spain has to do better to get better results, but she thinks everything is fine…so let’s keep achieving mediocre or pathetic results.
Instead she thanked everyone for the great work, including those two from RTVE. Guess she’s just protecting her artist’s reputation but this is not helping Spain getting better in Eurovision.
Waste of a year.
According to the televoting results, the noisy-ramdom song from Georgia or the utterly boring song from Lithuania were better than the Spanish one, or the Maltese, or the Czech… I wasn’t expecting Barei to win but I think that another country would have scored better with the same song (and the same for the beautiful Czech song). Some of you talked about Pastora Soler, but she was ranked 5th by the juries but 18th (!!) by the televoting, so the problem is not that Spain sends bad songs. The problem is Spain being Spain, not the songs, nor the voting… Read more »
Rafa: “RTVE is our state-owned public corporation. They just can’t produce a very competitive performance because they only get financed by public subsidies. Limited budget.” — Spot on, although the reason for which they can’t produce a competitive performance isn’t a “limited budget” but the lack of incentive to deliver. They face no real competition. As you pointed out, RTVE is a “public” entity, something even worse than private monopoly. A private monopoly/oligopoly (like the few TV networks with broadcasting concessions in Spain’s territory, a duopoly de facto) still requires to persuade enough customers to operate and make a profit.… Read more »
I just wanna say what problem is in you. In 2014 had Brequett, but you choose what? dancing in the rain was better???? In 2010 had Coral Segovia, but you choose? crazy boy with crazy song. And is only some what i remember. So problem is in you not in rtve.
I understand Spanish fans. Spain is one of the most underrated countries at the ESC, but I think they’ve chosen the wrong year for this, because Barei simply wasn’t that good and her song was so and so. Edurne’s song last year was amazing and they destroyed it with a terrible stage presentation. Anyway, I hope things get better for you guys in Spain
It’s just so much fun reading people who say Say Yay has been on the itunes chart all over Europe. Do you actually know the amount of purchases you need to enter the itunes chart in the majority of countries? In some countries you just need 3. You can check yourselves on DIGITAL SALES DATA. That’s no indication of success whatsoever. The televoting is much wider on the night and therefore more difficult.
Say yay was an utter piece of crap. GET OVER IT Spain!
Guys, you don’t understand what people in Spain are saying! We have a lot of problems with rehearsals EVERY YEAR.
Spanish delegation prepare EVERYTHING two months before the contest. On the other hand the eurovision plan of other countries for 2017 is already starting! The artists complained every year because they have to prepare EVERYTHING in two months! Actually, this year, when the preselection started, the songs were not finished! This is insane! We want real changes now! I don’t know if a new delegation… BUT REAL CHANGES!
@Pollaski: Preach the gospel, my friend. The UK music scene does NOT need Eurovision, but boy, does Eurovision need the UK……’s money. The big British acts aren’t going to compete in Eurovision. Neither are the biggest Spanish musical acts. They don’t need to! They have a HUGE Latin American market. Scratch that- they have a huge market from the U.S.-Canadian border on down (and hell, there is a growing Latin American population in Canada, too). You could even argue that the bigger Italian acts don’t need to do Eurovision, either. Nek, Il Volo, Laura Pausini are have big fanbases in… Read more »
It’s still hard to believe that Barei was almost last. She was energetic and she had catchy song with a great dance-routine. “Say Yay” has been on the charts all over the Europe, so where all the televotes disappeared?
Spanish people should chill… their song was bad that’s why it failed.
we are angry with Toñi and Federico. Because they are the delegates and they don´t care about eurovision. Spanish eurofans we are tired of everything the do is done wrong.
Barei do great, we love it.
OK @Terry9 that says it all (just for curiosity’s sake: what’s our clue?) And aggressive spanish eurofriends, please we must withdraw from ESC as soon as possible!!… pleaaase? 🙂
For as much as I think she’s a nice lady, her song was mediocre and so is she vocally. Good luck for next year Spain! Agree with @Rene. Pastora + Quedate conmigo was a superb representation.
Poor stage perfomance.That was the only problem.I am a big fan of the song,but when i saw the second rehearsal i was really disappointed.The same with France and Italy.And also if the Big 5 want to have better places in the contest then they should participate in the Semi Finals or send something beyond excellent.This whole thing with the straight to the final countries is annoying.
Btw… Spanish is one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and yet they prefer to be represented in English with a song entitled SAY YAY. I really don’t get it.
One of the most silly songs ever for Spain. Bring back Pastora.
Whether you like the song, loathe it or are indifferent there is no denying that the staging was very weak. Imagine if it were similar to Belgium’s – all coming strutting to the front of the stage when the chorus kicked in and doing the dance thing together with vigour. Would also have helped if the backing vocalists could actually be heard in the chorus (if they got ones who could sing that is…) The song had the potential to be a great stage show but it just fell completely flat.
tbh aggressive spanish eurofans ruined this song for me
not even the HoD, the artist, or the song itself
the spaniards
pls learn how to be polite guys :/
I called it, flop of the year.
I support you Spain. Barei was one of my favourites and after the performance was the 3rd in the Eurovision betting odds. Something dark is always hidden in the televotes which makes always and even more this year the votes not only unfair but also dark hidden and unclear that I also agree they should be much more transparent and fair for all the countries. The winner didn´t deserved this place at all.
@Terry9, we have a lot of successful artists (groups such as Mago de Öz and La Oreja de Van Gogh, which songs “Fiesta Pagana” or “El primer día del resto de mi vida”, for example, you can check) that have been proposed, but as said, no one of them wants to go, always saying the bad treatment received by the RTVE team
I loved Barei’s song and thought it should have been around 10-15 in the overall results, that would have been fair.
It’s funny as all of the Big 5 were derailed by the televoting (except for Germany which was rated last by juries) in that they received much lower points in the voting segment, dropping them all right down the order.
I dunno whether there is still some bias against the Big 5 in Europe but it’s feeling more and more than, unless you have a Lena, the act is tipped to finish towards the bottom thanks to televoting.
Just checked this FUEL FANDANGO you mention and as I said… You guys have no clue. That’d be another bottom 5 for Spain
Terry9, who? Maria Isabel? Xuxo? please be serious! We spent years proposing real and successful Spanish artists, including those who sings in spanish (f.e.Fuel Fandango), but with this disdainful treatment of Europe plus incredibly precarious and old fashioned style from TVE, nobody in Spain wants to go.
You’re wrong Shane tk, we want to withdraw for years. Hope may your wish come true (please!!) and hopefully won’t have to bear our strenuous debates and dramas too much longer 🙂
A change in the delegation would be the best for Spain. It’s just not because of Barei’s position, but being tired of their awful work every single year. “I think televoters expect these big 5 countries t send their A-class stars like Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Greece, Serbia and some other countries do.” Who knows their A-class outside of their countries? Do you think that worldwide acts like Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Iron Maiden, Muse, Coldplay, Enrique Iglesias, David Bisbal (with a career in Latin America), Pablo Alborán, Vetusta Morla, Rammstein, Bourani, Revolverheld, Daft Punk, Damien Saez, etc. would… Read more »
This festival is quite demodé, most of the songs were rubbish. The whole big5 should withdraw. Stop giving money to this stupid slaviac-vision.
@Shane Tk, when Pastora finished 10th, lot of people claimed also for a withdrawal, but RTVE didn’t want to do it (with those two people in the picture), because it was simply astonishing how could we end in 10th position with such a performance by Pastora.
In case anyone’s interested, here are my written notes on Spain’s Grand Final performance, as follows:
“Awful outfit (on Barei). First verse okay. Can’t hear backing vocalists (in bridge); lyrics therefore missing. Shoe shuffles, why? Performance stopped, why? Strong podium presence, strong vocals at the end. Crowd pleased. Overall: Okay, but could have been better.
Ok, Spanish people want to withdraw because a girl singing ‘Hurray, say yay yay and yay’ with a stupid dance routine didn’t make it to the top 10, but it never crossed their mind withdrawing when amazing Pastora Soler didn’t make it to the top 3. Something’s not quite right with these people. Anyway, withdraw if you like, we can do without your dramas for a while.
As a spaniard and eurofan since I can remember, I wouldn’t mind if Spain withdraw for a couple of years.