It’s not easy being a microstate at Eurovision. And San Marino feel their struggles were made even worse last night. In a statement released on Friday, broadcaster RTV accused the Italian broadcaster’s commentary team of spreading “fake news” about the microstate.
RTV state that Italian commentators Carolina Di Domenico and Saverio Raimondo made “offensive statements” with regards to last year’s result. They’re reported to have suggested that Francesco Gabbani failed to win “because of the San Marino vote”.
To make matters worse, RTV say that the commentary team called San Marino “infamous”.
And with Italy able to vote in last night’s semi-final, the implication is that the Italian viewers were told not to vote for San Marino. In RTV’s words, “the damage during the live show has now been done, regardless of whether it helped or hindered San Marino”.
Indeed, last night saw San Marino’s Jessika feat. Jenifer Brening fail to make it out of the second semi-final. San Marino have still only made the final on one occasion, back in 2014 with Valentina Monetta.
RTV also point out that San Marino has “never commented” that Italy have failed to award the microstate “anything more than 6 points”…
San Marino’s Head of Delegation, Alessandro Capicchioni, says that he will meet with the Director General of RTV today to “solicit an evaluation from the EBU regarding what has happened”.
We’ll keep you updated with any further statements from RTV, RAI or the EBU on this topic.
Do you think that the Italian commentary team were out of line? Will their statements have hurt San Marino’s chances? Let us know all your thoughts in the comments section below.
May be Mr. Cappichioni is serving too long as a Head of the San Marino ESC-Delegation? They were neither able to understand a successful Italian joke nor able to select a Singer for the ESC semi-final, who had the best Chance to come in the final Last Weekend. With the objective and legal winner of 1in360, Sara de Blue, San Marino would have been in the final! But with the Don Allessandro’s Choice, San Marino was at the last position in all representative esc-odds over weeks and weeks… How long does Mr. Cappichioni intend actually to carry on working as… Read more »
Such a childish complaint by Alessandro Capicchioni is a way to insult the audience by indirectly saying that people don’t have their own brain and would do everything as per the humorous remark of a commentator. Actually San Marino lost just because they robbed Sara de Blue. And now see the Law of Karma !
I understand him, but he takes this too seriously.
Similar stuff happens in all countries i suspect.
This year in Portugal we have a good commentator.
But last year we had two idiots who spent the whole time bragging about how good our song was and how we were going to win instead of talking about the songs. Even during the songs recap which was pretty annoying…
Also according to them all the songs were pop or pop-rock. At least they are not rude.
Those commentators are petty idiots. There was a 424 points difference between Italy and Portugal so these comments are 100% pettyness
Similar things happen in every country I think. I’m from Poland and I prefer watching Eurovision on the Internet instead TV, because our commentator Artur Orzech (same for about 20 years perhaps) is simply annoying and very harsh about performances that he doesn’t like. Anyone has its own taste, but commentator should be fair for all contestants. This year, he said about Eleni from Cyprus that it’s “vacuumed Beyonce”. It’s just mad.
I’m not a fan of Orzech either. I felt like he was all professional and respectable towards performers early on but then he decided all of a sudden to do it the way Terry Wogan did it. While Logan madewitty and funny comments (that certainly paved the way UK viewers treat ESC nowadays), Orzech can usually be downright nasty which doesn’t suit him. He also doesn’t hesitate towards saying OVER and OVER AGAIN which acts he likes the most. In SF2 it was Hungary and Slovenia, IIRC. I find him incompetent too. He told Polish people in Ireland to vote… Read more »
Commentators are terrible. Like for example in France they called polish entry it’s David GHETTO with description of Polish-Israeli diplomatic relations. Unacceptable… Before they say something they should to think what does it mean. How is it allowed?!
Eurovision is celebration of music, not political relations!
Israeli commentators praised Netta and threw shade on all the others
One also sais we’ve got all the gay people to support us, nice stereotypes……
She got fired but I think Israel shouldn’t have commentators anyway
They are so not into Eurovision nor professional
Said*
I agree…
It’s the only one reason why I watch Eurovision on YouTube channel.
Anyway good luck tonight! Regards from PL ?
I feel whenever a country that doesn’t typically do well is a favourite, the commentators and SOME fans get obnoxious about it.
Well.. since ALL other countries vote for their neighbours, Italy hoped for more votes from San Marino last year, but of course it’s not San Marino’s fault if Francesco didn’t win. Anyway, the commentary was funny, they were not serious… they were just kidding. And Italians wouldn’t have voted for San Marino in any case.. Italy remembers ?
So people want neighbours to vote for them?
Shouldn’t it be about music, and not countries?
San Marino should blame the juries of 1in360 for not choosing Sara de Blu with Out of the Twilight
Eurodrama on full speed
Jess and Jenny B were robbed. It mustâve been the Italian televote.
And I thought they had a sense of humor…
All the commentators do sometimes criticize/make fun of the acts, but it should never be blaming one country for your country’s result.
I heard the RAI4 commentary. My god does the male commentator have an annoying and loud voice.
They weren’t gonna qualify anyway…sadly (I thought they had a dark horse chance there, ‘cuz of the robots and the rapping and whatnot. Another year, another “close but no cigar” for San Marino), but that was very tacky of the Italian commentators. For Chrissake, why make your nearest buddies a scapegoat for the fact that your song drowned in its own hype and got sabotaged by the staging? (It was good, though).
San Marino will be invaded and its inhabitants forced to listen to Il Volo for a whole week to be re-educated đ
Best comment ?
There should be a rule that commentators are not allowed to make fun of performers because it can affect the voting, seriously
Yup, Polish commentator kept repeating that Hungarian song is an actual contestant, like if no one ever listened to metal
And completely missed Malta’s postcard and saying things about her, because Malta was after Poland, so he said, that if someone’s watching from a different country they can vote for Poland
In my opinion some commentators try to force their opinions so that people don’t vote for certain countries
Doesnt always the polsih commentators try to tell the diaspora to vote for Poland? it seems that way. Thank god they didnt listen.
Last year BBC comment saying “Italy Go home, you are drunk” too. I´ve read that one of this year’s commentator in Italy is a comedian and he was trying to make a joke, but in general even Italian fans didn’t like the overall approach of the locution during the two semi-finals. This year even British fans complain about the comedia act made by RTP using the character of David Attenborough… I think is just people trying to made bad comedy…
haha BBC ALWAYS trash Eurovision. Terry Wogan said rude things to everyone. So i think they can take the sketch. UK will never win with the attitude they have for the contest. they just make fun of it and send crap songs. Not last year but this year again.
Offensive comments are probably kind of common, but blaming another country for your country’s previous results is clearly crossing the line from my point of view. Not to mention how arrogant it is to think that you are entitled to your small neighbor’s points
i mean.
italy are flops anyway and they deserve it especially for this like Israel and Bulgaria: A R R O G A N T.
San Marino were better than at least 6/7 other songs on Thursday
They did very well, itâs true. I wanted them to qualify.
They didnât deserve all the hatred.
I think the BBC has the worst and offensive commentary. But that’s just my opinion. Sometimes I just cringe when they talk lol
HONESTLY. They know nothing, insult artists dress sense. i feel like it has an influence on the voting.
Well, it probably wouldn’t change anything for San Marino but it wasn’t a nice thing to say anyway. I hate how everyone seems to be obsessed with the voting. On one hand everyone criticizes politcal voting, on the other hand people get mad when they neighbour countries don’t vote for them and accuse them of lack of support… Eurovision is about music, not about nationalities…
They were reading tweets with hashtag #escita and one of them called San Marino “infamous” as a joke. They overreacted. I think they were more rude to Georgia. The commentator for some reasons disliked Georgia and at some point he said “Come on! Vote! Otherwise don’t complain if some countries like Georgia win” đ
Honestly, the male commentator’s voice is THE most annoying male voice I have ever heard in my life, thank god I have the option to which off the commentators.
Our commentators are lame, the whole Italy knows that.