Yeah, yeah, fire. Social media was ablaze on Saturday, as Eurovision fans settled in for another #EurovisionAgain rewatch. This time, it was the turn of Eurovision 2018 to be dusted off and taken out of the vaults.
And while all the performances remained the exact same, viewers voted for a new winner — Cyprus’ Eleni Foureira with “Fuego”. The real-life champion — Israel’s Netta with “Toy” — finished in second place.
Scroll down to watch Eurovision 2018
Eleni Foureira wins #EurovisionAgain 2018
Listed below are the results for #EurovisionAgain 2018. The rankings are based on the votes of those who decided to vote for their favourites while rewatching the Eurovision 2018 grand final on Saturday 6 June.
In brackets, we’ve included the differences between the new fan vote and the original result from two years ago.
#EurovisionAgain 2018 results
- Cyprus: Eleni Foureira “Fuego” (+1)
- Israel: Netta “Toy” (-1)
- France: Madame Monsieur “Mercy” (+10)
- Finland: Saara Aalto “Monsters” (+21)
- United Kingdom: SuRie “Storm” (+19)
- Moldova: DoReDoS “My Lucky Day” (+4)
- Czech Republic: Mikolas Josef “Lie to Me” (-1)
- Ireland: Ryan O’Shaughnessy “Together” (+8)
- Italy: Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro “Non mi avete fatto niente” (-4)
- Austria: Cesár Sampson “Nobody but You” (-7)
- Ukraine: Mélovin “Under the Ladder” (+6)
- Estonia: Elina Nechayeva “La forza” (-4)
- Bulgaria: Equinox “Bones” (+1)
- Germany: Michael Schulte “You Let Me Walk Alone” (-10)
- Denmark: Rasmussen “Higher Ground” (-6)
- Australia: Jessica Mauboy “We Got Love” (+4)
- Albania: Eugent Bushpepa “Mall” (-6)
- Sweden: Benjamin Ingrosso “Dance You Off” (-11)
- Portugal: Cláudia Pascoal “O jardim” (+7)
- Hungary: AWS “Viszlát nyár”(+1)
- Lithuania: Ieva Zasimauskaitė “When We’re Old” (-9)
- Slovenia: Lea Sirk “Hvala, ne!” (=)
- Norway: Alexander Rybak “That’s How You Write a Song” (-8)
- Serbia: Sanja Ilić & Balkanika “Nova deca” (-5)
- Spain: Amaia & Alfred “Tu canción” (-2)
- Netherlands: Waylon “Outlaw in ‘Em” (-8)
?? RESULTS ? ?
Votes have been checked and verified by Dr @Ellie_Made EurovisionAgain Executive Supervisor, @RobHolley and @JRawson’s chihuahua ?
Here are the scores from the Lisbon 2018 Twitter jury ??:
A #EurovisionAgain upset! Congrats @foureira_eleni and Cyprus! ?? pic.twitter.com/ajNkwDpLr1
— #EurovisionAgain (@EurovisionAgain) June 6, 2020
Watch Eurovision 2018 online
#EurovisionAgain may be over for now, but the Eurovision 2018 grand final remains online. You can watch the full show on the official Eurovision YouTube channel.
#EurovisionAgain is scheduled to return on Saturday 13 June at 21:00 CEST.
What is #EurovisionAgain
For the past several weeks, since the COVID-19 pandemic first took hold, the Eurovision Again team has been organising mass rewatchings of classic contests on Saturday evenings. The EBU soon came on board and began publishing previously unavailable entire show uploads on its YouTube channel.
As well as organising rewatches, the Eurovision Again team has also added a fundraising element for various LGBT+ charities. Details can be found here.
What do you think? Did Eleni deserve to win the rewatch? Has “Fuego” aged better than “Toy”? Let us know in the comments.
I’m really happy that Eleni won as i think that it was the better overall package , same for Finland as I can’t think of a reason it placed second to last or France 13th?!? but i think that Germany was hugely underatted here : one of the most heartwarming messages in Eurovision with great vocals and amazing staging gave germany their best result since 2010 but Moldova ended up higher , yea i love “My Lucky Day” but no way that was better then Germany
Most people will chuck hate at me for this but I’m so bored of Fuego now. People have been showering Eleni Foureira with hype for 2 years now all for a good but fairly cheap pop song and a dance routine with some pyrotechnics. I’ve had enough to be honest. 2018 has so many great acts tha deserve recognition but they all just get tossed aside for this one woman…
This is nothing against Eleni btw. I’m sure she is lovely but give some of the other artists a chance to shine too…
Right? When’s the last time you saw fans being this hooked on one dance song? I get it with “Euphoria,” but this is basically at the same level as “Wild Dances” or “Secret Combination” and you don’t see fans losing their minds about those anymore.
Slovenia is still underrated!!!
You know, when I was checking up on the Eurovision youtube channel, I was confused that I didn’t see a past contest up so I had assumed that it stopped doing #EurovisionAgain. Turned out it’s the 2018, which despite it being my favorite contest, I could not see due to it being geo-blocked in America (seriously, you couldn’t lift it for just one week like when you upload pre-2004 contests for a week). Speaking of which, I wonder if the reason we’ve got a recent contest up is being negotiations for uploading a past contest are still in progress.… Read more »
It still saddens me Netta won. Yeah, her song was the catchiest of the bunch and she seems to be a good sport. But I really don’t wan’t Eurovision to be that joke of a contest where a song containing chicken noises actually ends up winning. And don’t bother me with the ‘political message’ of the song – I seriously doubt a song with lyrics such as ‘I’m taking my Pikachu home’ was even supposed to convey anything meaningful. Talking about meaningful messages, France and Italy would have been worthy winners. Netta, instead, might have thrown Eurovision back because… Read more »
I feel like the following two years have been pretty solid proof that if anything, the average quality of songs has continued to go up. 2020 would’ve been a very strong balance of ballads and uptempo numbers.
I think France would have succeeded better if they had LDS to illustrate the story they were telling.
Yeah yeah of course, Requiem, J’ai cherché, or Moustache were boring , lol only in Tibor’s world maybe….
What’s so interesting is how “Non mi avete fatto niente” didn’t do well with the juries (who I’d imagine would have some kind of resource to give them background on all the songs, like the programs they hand out) who had time to sit and think on it but absolutely smashed the televote when they could only sporadically understand it if they didn’t speak Italian.
This was the last song performed with a lot of angry shouting so it probably stuck in the minds of Joe Public (not you Joe!)
Why Goodbye a shocker Una? For me one of the best songs Romania has ever sent.
Surely Una the staging and PR would not have impacted so negatively? For me it beggared belief that the likes of Hvala Ne qualified comfortably yet this and a number of others were cast aside.
Thanks for the full and frank explanation. Was meant to go Bucharest Saturday for EURO 2020, off as you know. Maybe I’ll ask them next year!
France in top 3 as it should be
2018 was one of my favorite years, if not the favorite. Not only that I have a record number of 10/10 songs, but these songs come from different genres and styles. My 10s: CZECH REPUBLIC ESTONIA FRANCE GERMANY HUNGARY ITALY LITHUANIA MONTENEGRO Needless to say, sorting them out was a very difficult task, as each could’ve been my winner in some other year. Some things have changed in my ratings since I just very recently re-listened to it all. Most of the songs this year were good, with my 7s spanning all the way to the… Read more »
Finland doing well in this is something that isn’t so surprising since it was OGAE’s 3rd place winner in 2018. Sweden’s live performance wasn’t so good and of course it shows, there’s no jury here to help
Other than that I really like Israel as a winner, I just liked it from the first time I heard it and it’s still good
It is still blocked in Latin America :c
This was a strong year. My favorites were Australia and Bulgaria and the results left me sad/mad for weeks and I am still salty
Johnny Manuel (Equinox) is now on The Voice Australia!
In the hindsight, I’m really glad Israel won in 2018. The live performance of “Toy” may not have been impeccable, but that victory led to Netta releasing many brilliant tracks afterwards and it gained her the popularity she deserves.
That note though
True that! I still think the GF performance was a vast improvement over the hot mess we saw in the semi (and I feel like the televote results mirrored that to some extent).
Evidently, she nailed it in the semi-final jury show, didn’t nail it quite so much in the live semi and the jury final, and rocked it in the actual final. (How else to explain juries like Belarus and Cyprus giving her strong marks in the semi and nothing in the final? Cyprus gave her a 12, for chrissake! Over Greece!)
Belarus juries were a mess. All jurors had Eleni almost last in SF and 4 days later.. they had her 1st and 12 points. Juries change their mind or mood. It’s not artists’ fault or if they had a stronger or not performance compared to SF or GF. Many factors play
Belarus’ jury might be corrupt? (Casual glance at the news about the Head of Delegation freaking out that they couldn’t give Russia 12 points last year) You don’t say…
(That being said, the only jury in the semi-final they gave a decent mark to that gave them a decent mark in return was Albania. Azerbaijan gave them 12 and they gave them zip).
All of the jury rehearsals from recent years are available online (the full 2018 jury show here: https://ok.ru/video/690048928265 and many other jury shows, including semi finals, can also be found on this website).
I agree that Netta’s live final performance was by far the best, but the jury semi final and jury final performances weren’t so different for such discrepancies. I think in Cyprus’ case it was about eliminating the competition, which has become a common practice for juries in recent years (e.g. Israel in 2018, Portugal and Bulgaria in 2017). No idea what made Belarus flip.
Netta deserved the win. Totally love Eleni but netta’s song was more than just chicken noises. We have to remember that in 2018, the #METOO movement was very popular and on trend. This song was about more than amazing choreography and hair flips (no shade intended). The song was important for everyone that felt different, and as Eurovision fans, lots of us feel different. The spirit of Eurovision is to spread love and compassion across countries and the hate that she has received on social media platforms just because die hard eleni fans were upset, is not what the contest… Read more »
Hear hear! Well said.
Fuego had no soul, it was just a typical dance song we’ve all heard before. But Toy was very memorable and had an important message. People make fun of this song because of the chicken noises but it’s much deeper than Fuego.
Well it’s cool that Cyprus, Portugal etc got the places they deserved, but underrated: Sweden. Overrated: UK, Finland
I wish i could’ve watched it. stupid geoblock.
That’s the magic of VPNs!
the only computer in the house with one is the family computer 🙁
What a good consolation for those gays who still can’t move on from 2018. Live with this delusion and fantasy. 🙂
How incredibly prejudiced and disgusting of you, Ana. You seem like a great person.
That’s not the point, nobody would dispute that. Why is their sexuality relevant? It’s not what defines them, or anyone.
And remember if 2018 is too recent of a show to watch, then watch a different one like I did. It was the first time for me watching the 2000 edition and seeing the Olsen Brothers win (and unbelievably Russia coming in second with Going Solo….not sure what voters liked about that song). Watch what you want to watch and do your own #EurovisionAgain.
Unfortunately all copies of the 2000 contest on YT look as if they were recorded with a potato. (Unless you have a good quality link, then please share it.)
You definitely have to dig to find quality versions of most pre-2004 contests. This is the first one that comes up for 2000 – not fantastic but there’s no commentary:
https://youtu.be/Kgj9e4qDjsI
Just as a service to my fellow fans, here are the highest quality versions I could find of some pre-2004 contests. It’s collaborative so if anyone knows about better copies they can add to it:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNuIIhMpWSple9QMgxIXfxmNKRs1oJOQ-
The 1994 contest in great quality
https://vimeo.com/420631140/72bc286b5e
Yeah, looks like we more or less have the same copy for 1994 – only difference is yours has the Irish commentary with the Polish video. (Interesting that I thought Terry Wogan saying Noel Kelehan conducted “Rock and Roll Kids” was a mistake since I didn’t think the orchestra figured into it at all, but then Pat Kenny says the same thing).
I have all of the contests on my hard drives. Agree that you sometimes have to search hard for decent copies. And some copies are incomplete, parts muted, deleted interval acts, etc. 1999, 2000 and 2001 however are three years that are impossible to find in decent quality.
There are definitely a few years I’d kill to find decent versions of. At least one account is posting very HQ videos of different songs, but not whole contests. And yes, those three years are very difficult. ’00’s voting sequence is on (naturally) the DK website with Danish commentary, but that’s about it.
Ahhh Waylon: I really like “Outlaw In ‘Em” as a song, but that whole staging concept was a hot mess. And I don’t wanna talk about his outfit anymore. Thankfully Ilse was there in 2014 xD
I’ve had enough of Eurovision gays who overhype Fuego and Eleni Foureira like it’s the only good song ever.
My favorites before rehearsals was Israel.
After rehearsals , My TOP 5
1.Italy
2.Bulgaria
3.Estonia
4.Cyprus
5.Germany
I do have to agree that the results are skewed towards ‘bangers’ which makes them slightly predictable.
I’d say “this is why it isn’t just the televote anymore,” but the televote has also been more open to slower songs lately than these fan polls. Anyway, I’ll admit I find “Outlaw in ‘Em” very catchy, but it does virtually everything wrong in terms of staging that “Calm After the Storm” did right (and I found it distasteful then and even more so now). Can’t even blame Hans Pannecouke for it – poor guy was dealing with two very strong-willed performers in 2018, but Duncan the next year showed what he could do at his best.
One thing that has made me uncomfortable with EurovisionAgain has been the love for Carola. I think she’s now what you would call ‘problematic’ especially with regard to her views on homosexuality. And yes, I understand the separation between Carola the singer and Carola the religious nut, but I don’t see how any gay man could be supportive of her (and even if not for her view on homosexuality, some of her other views are unpleasant too.) But it looks to me that it’s fine to be supportive of her, because she sends ‘bops’ and ‘bangers.’
Just what are her views on homosexuality? It’s not something she ever speaks much about publicly. She certainly never campaigns against gay rights. I think this perception is something largely based on her well-known religious devotion. The gay people she has worked with have spoken up in her favour.
From this very website:
2001: In an interview with LGBT magazine QX, Carola raised eyebrows by calling homosexuality unnatural. “I don’t have any homophobia, and my gay fans’ love is returned,” she said. “Of course, I have become a bit more open minded in my attitude towards homosexuals, but homosexuality for me will always be unnatural. I don’t believe homosexuality is an illness. But I know people who have become straight afterwards.”
She apologised for this, but has in a number of interviews since dodged the gay question.
Okay, that’s bad – but still, she’s not the only Swedish Eurovision winner to make such remarks, and people have forgiven the other one. Maybe her views have changed in the almost twenty years since. If she’s apologized, and meant it – I forgive her. I do understand why doubts might remain, though.
2015
If you wanna talk about problematic faves from Nordic countries: the woman who sang “Oculis Videre” just defended JK Rowling’s super transphobic Tweets.
Serbia and slovenia underrated
I think that’s always going to happen in these #Eurovisionagain contests.
Why would they publish 2018 again? I want to watch contests from the past…
The show was viewed last night by 54.000 unique IP addresses. So probably a few thousands votes.
https://twitter.com/stijnsmulders/status/1269400204169674752
You can also add up all the points and divide it by 58. (don’t know If voters have to give the entire set of points from 12 to 1 though).
Don’t forget, they can’t just show any year, pre-2004 there would be a lot of issues with rights etc and if the host broadcasters who hold the rights for pre-2004 contests don’t want to unlock, then the EurovisionAgain people don’t really have a choice but to go recent.
Also, the guy who organises EurovisionAgain received a lot of unkind tweets last night about showing 2018, and that’s not really acceptable. He’s not paid to do this!
I admit I wasn’t thrilled with it being 2018, but it was still fun rewatch, and thanks to EurovisionAgain.
I know it would be harder, but they’ve done it already 🙂
Mean tweets are just mean and I condemn them
I really appreciate their work there at the EBU and the Eurovision channel, but there’s no need in publishing contests like 2018 again xD
I personally rewatched it a week or two ago as well
My three favorites in 2018 are: Denmark, Finland, and Georgia. Denmark: It felt as though the 2018 Eurovision stage was created just for Rasmussen’s performance. The ship-like aesthetic of the stage was just so superbly suited to the ‘higher ground’ theme. I adore the message of this song, as well as the viking looks of the guys on stage, and overall anthemic feel. My absolute favorite moments are those wide shots showing the full stage up to the ceiling, and I get so emotional when the white flag is waved at the end. Jurors really did this entry dirty! Finland:… Read more »
I couldn’t agree more on Iriao. Such a gem of a song.
Waylon was already that guy in 2014. The success of TCL was because of Ilse. Waylon however was the perfect figurant. That being said, there are a lot of things that rub me the wrong way with those revotes, especially with a recent contest like the 2018 one and I don’t understand why EBU cooperates with it. As if those past votes needed a correction. And while SuRie is a wonderful singer, she would never have gotten this revote result without the stage invader. An incident which was carefully edited out of this broadcast. I wished EBU would stop with… Read more »
Honestly Calm after the storm is my winner grom 2014 and I didn’t even remember Waylon when he returned. Ilse carried him to that 2nd place.
I was supportive of them using Surie’s jury final performance, why give that idiot more attention?
I agree the man was a moron, but the one thing I liked about the invasion was that it gave more power to the lyrics of the song and SuRie sold the whole point even better.
Yeah. I just meant that SuRie really covered herself in glory during that unfortunate moment – I thought the reason she didn’t repeat the song on the night was for the reasons I suggested above.
She had the strength and focus of mind to pick up the microphone off the floor, resume the song from the correct point and perform with even more passion than before. Glory.
Justice for Eleni, Surie and a deserved last place for Waylon.. And I’m Dutch ?
I feel like we should’ve been lucky to have qualified. But wow, how much I hate(d) our entry… and Waylon.
Thank god for the original results and not this one!!!
Again , these are typical fans votingFinland 4th? Uk 5th? Yeah, sure..)
People voted, we got an official result. This is die hard fans that can’t get over that Fuego didn’t win or that the very generic Monsters was’t a bigger hit with voters.
It did feel a bit too soon to be watching 2018 again, but what the hell! Having seen so much of Toy and Fuego I was more interested to hear some other performances again, and I was blown away by Serbia, that was fantastic, and I really enjoyed Australia, Jessica’s performance was authentic and endearing. There were many amazing songs, and Portugal did a great job, but the show felt very flabby. The build up to the voting results was interminable. Contrast this to the show from 1976 from a few weeks ago, that was much tighter and succinct, even… Read more »
What should have actually happened! If the juries had voted for Cyprus (who ended up second in the televote) instead of Austria, it would have been Nicosia 2019. But the juries decided it was more important to vote for a black man representing a country with an anti-immigration government because of virtue signalling.
Oh, you can speak for the 5 people on each jury in the 43 countries can you? Oh thanks.
IMO the juries have too much power over the final results, but I think your virtue-signaling claim is baseless and kinda silly.
At the end of the day, Netta not only scored higher than Eleni with the juries – she also won the televote by a large margin, so it was consistent and not even a close call.
Eleni got a lot of success, love and recognition over the last two years, I bet she got over not winning by now. And if she got over it, so can you.
BTW your math is wrong.
Even if it was Cyprus who had topped the jury vote with 271 points instead of Austria, after the public votes were added Israel would still have been the overall winner.
No it doesn’t. It just shows you can imagine any scenario where your favorite song wins.
“If in 2017 the juries had voted for Bulgaria (who ended up second in the televote) instead of Portugal, it would have been Sofia 2018” – see how easy that was?
Obviously the juries have a big impact over the final result (too big if you ask me), as they determine 50% of it, but Netta didn’t win because the juries heavily influenced in her favor – she won despite the jury vote and due to the public vote.
Tbh Estonia was and will always be my second place in 2018. Criminally underrated by the fandom
Justice for Portugal!
Finally justice!
Austria, Germany and Italy deserved the placing they got in the actual results
Yes, yes and no
For sure
You’re right. Italy should’ve finished higher.
I like Israels’s song more as a winner, but Cyprus is good too. Seeing Sweden not getting such a high score is quite fair, song is good but it just doesn’t sound so well live.
We all knew Finland was goin to be high in this, it was even OGAE’s 3rd in 2018 and fans are the one’s who watch these Eurovision Again shows, I doubt no one who isn’t much of a fan would even know about these happening
Hopefully next week we go a bit further away and watch something that is not so new, like 2001
Finally some recognition and justice for France!!! Together with Bulgaria the best entries of 2018! Putting Bulgaria still outside the top 10 is a crime! Austria dropping 6 places in favor of The United Kingdom, seriously, and Finland, for crying out loud is one of the biggest jokes ever. Come on they don’t even deserve to be in the top 10. Other jokes is putting The Netherlands on the last place, Germany dropping 10 places and putting Estonia outside the top 10,come on people! Israel 2nd and Cyprus 1st.now there’s a shocker!!! Israel remains one of the worst winners ever,… Read more »
Had us in the first half, not gonna lie
Lol @ Surie being 5th, her song was terrible and if it hadn’t been for that incident nobody would care about her
Way to be negative… if you actually look at the results, it’s based on what everyone is feeling atm. We Got Love and Storm are higher than their actual scores is because they’re about LOVE. We need that so of course they’re gonna be popular songs… 2020 is not a good year
Eurovision fans are the ones exclusively voting on Eurovisionagain and most Eurovision fans really like SuRie and Saara Aalto so they’re high up here because of that, not because of their songs.
Voting because they ‘like the artist’ instead of voting for the song defeats the entire purpose of Eurovision Again, does it not?
Same thing happens in actual ESC and noone gives a damn. Lets look at this year. People liked Vincent’s song but then an article about his view on “traditional family” came up and suddenly majority of the fandom had his song in bottom 10, sometimes bottom 5. Or that some artists pretend to be together or that they care about something to get more points. Its a same but it happens
UK so high just because of the stage invasion otherwise still botom 5 in the Eurovision fandom. Same would happened for France 2020 in cas of stage invasion in a Covid-21 virtual world.
You can be hateful for how long you want but Storm and Surie are both amazing.. Period
To you. Meanwhile, nobody was checking for Surie before the incident, and that’s a fact
How can the UK be 5th? I remember that everyone hated the song and predicted it to finish last… Btw I liked Surie’s song so I’m not mad but just curious. Also a bit surprised that France and Finland got Top 5 results here.
Don’t forget, the main audience of Eurovision Again is in the UK. Plus people genuinely are supportive of her after what happened.
Because “storms don’t last forever”?
Am I the only one who think Storm’s chorus sounds similar to fun.’s Sone nights?
Other than for “for-e-e-ever” and “to-ni-hi-hi-hight” I don’t see any similarity. But I think stretching some syllables is a really common thing to do, isn’t it?
I like the actual results better. Cyprus was very good, but not a winner.
France being top 3 is nice though
I just want to get back to actual vintage contests though. 2016 and 2018 were already on YouTube. 2018 is a very nostalgic contest for me since it was the first I followed from start to finish, but other than that I’m more interested in seeing high-quality editions of contests from the twentieth century. We haven’t even gotten to the ’80s yet! I’d kill to see a year like 1981 or 1985 in good quality!
A trip to the 1980s is overdue, but I guess it’s all about rights. If NOS/ARD/RTL/SVT/NRK/RTBF and SRG-SSR don’t want to unlock the rights to the (pre-2004) shows they hosted, then there’s not much that can be done.
I’ve excluded RTE and BBC from the above list, they’ve already done their share and each unlocked one of their hosting years.
If they could even convince RAI, I’d be surprised if the others were feeling stingy.
Yes, I’m surprised RAI haven’t insisted on destroying all copies of 1991.
Of all broadcasters and all contests, they somehow convinced the one that’s notoriously stingy about releasing archival material to put out a contest that made their broadcaster look terrible. I have a hard time imagining many of the broadcasters being that reluctant to release the contests they hosted, considering how countries like Sweden and Norway are very proud of their Eurovision history (the latter even had very high quality versions of 1986, 1996, and most of their national finals on their website, and you can find them all floating around on YouTube). Israel’s old broadcaster also posted the two contests… Read more »
Now that I can’t answer. I’m sure they have their reasons. Perhaps it’s a lot of work as they may need permission from each songwriter to allow the show to air again, perhaps they’re embarrassed about some aspect of their presentation, perhaps it’s dated badly and some things about it would be problematic now. Perhaps national broadcasters have skeleton staff right now who have other priorities. Maybe they just don’t care.
I’m just guessing.
I hope the go back to 1988 – Céline would be a great selling point and we know RTÉ would give them permission again.
’88 is on YouTube, at the very least, in high quality and with Swiss German commentary, so obviously it’s a lot of fun to hear the commentator getting more and more nervous until the last vote (at which point you get a very triumphant “JAAAA!!!”).
Oh, I must look at that, thanks. I actually thought I saw 1988 host Pat Kenny in the commentary box last week during the 1991 one, when they kept cutting to boxes during the voting.
P.S. Did you ever see the nice message she sent Pat back in 2016 – how kind of her! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lixdjjdab4M
I do believe he did the TV commentary for all the ‘90s Eurovisions (I know ‘93 and ‘94 are both on YouTube). What stinks is that while he was a great presenter and commentator, he also said some horribly transphobic things about Dana International after she won and refused to apologize (compared to the very imperfect but mostly pretty respectful Terry Wogan).
Yes, I think he did ’91 until ’99, and Marty Whelan took over in 2000.
Never really huge fan of his, honestly light entertainment is not his forte (Terry Wogan mentions in his ’88 commentary that he is a serious broadcaster and so an odd choice as host), and he was stilted when he hosted chat shows.
If you want controversial comments from him, he was quite offensive to Dawn French a few years back, he was in quite a bit of trouble.
He did best when he was acting like a proper sports commentator, but for humor value balanced with informativeness there are better ones out there. I don’t know much of Marty Whelan’s commentary since it isn’t on YouTube but he seems good. You can actually find 1985 with the one and only Linda Martin in the booth and she actually did a great job!
It’d be interesting to see if Ireland could do better with their hosts now that there’s more of a standard formula for hosts. Ireland were the last country to really prioritize hosts who were more professional and news presenter-like as opposed to entertainers.
If it ever returned to Ireland I’m not sure who they would use. I wonder would RTE stick with newscasters or go for entertainment personalities? A few years ago, Grainne Seoige (who was the Irish spokesperson in 2012) would have been a surefire bet, she seemed to be fronting everything on RTE for a while but she has now left broadcasting and moved to South Africa. Sinead Kennedy maybe, she’s done Irish spokesperson duties a few times over the last few years. Lottie Ryan (daughter of the late 1994 host) seems pretty popular at the moment. Possibly Jennifer… Read more »
This very well could just be me, but I’d love to see Foil, Arms, and Hog involved somehow. Main presenters would almost certainly be Nicky Byrne and someone else. Guy’s got the whole Mans Zelmerlow look already. He dresses to impress. Plus, he hosts a radio show, so he knows more or less how to be an effective host (then again, you could say that about Gerry Ryan too, and while I don’t hate him, he’s not in the upper echelon of Eurovision hosts).
I was never a fan of Gerry Ryan, though he was definitely better on the radio. I always saw him a natural on the radio actually, but RTE kept pushing him on TV, even if none of his TV shows ever really worked, and I don’t recall him ever having a long running TV series. Whether RTE pushed him forward, or he asked for it, I don’t know. But he wasn’t good at Eurovision. That said, if RTE had its heart set on a duo in ’94, I’m not sure who else in RTE would have been a possible… Read more »
I honestly can’t see any of the ’80s-’90s hosts being suitable presenters now. It’s really hard to find any solo hosts pre-Petra that are anything to write home about, save for Eurovision’s Grande Dame Katie Boyle and fellow Swede Lill Lindfors.
Hm, Mary Kennedy & Fionnuala Sweeney were quite good – not much humour, but gravitas and competence. Unlike many of the later hosts.
Nicky Byrne would be awful, I think. All of the times he’s given the vote, he’s been flat and dull and unnatural.
Eh, you’re right. I thought it over and you’re right. She and Ronan Keating had negative chemistry though.
Mary Kennedy was a newsreader in ’95 and was quite serious and stern. After Eurovision, she went more into light entertainment and showed more humour. So she could have been less stern in ’95 and been fine. But then again, that was still the style at the time, I mean look at ’86, she was like a headmistress. Fionnuala of course went on to a great career at CNN, so serious, competent presentation was her forte. Though her reaction at getting the Dutch vote wrong showed she had natural humour she could have brought in. Nicky Byrne would… Read more »
Oh, Fionnuala was ’93! I got her confused with Carrie from ’97. Lots of white lady newscaster types. But yeah, she handled the voting well. I think all the ’90s hosts actually had their finest moments when going through the voting, seeing as they got to run the full gamut of voting sequences (neck-in-neck victory in ’93, landslide for Ireland in ’94, rapidly changing scoreboard until the bitter end in ’95, and a landslide for the UK in ’97).
Ingvild Bryn from 1996 is still a newsreader to this day, yet she provided plenty of humour – I love her!
What happened to Cynthia from 1994? She was better than her co-host. Remember he couldn’t remember Helsinki? Still, he had personality. I’m sure things seem different decades later than they did at the time anyhow.
That’s true, she was quite sparky for a newsreader.
Cynthia left showbusiness and now works in the Legal profession.
’96 had good hosts. They had good chemistry and looked like they were having fun. I remember Morten initially didn’t want to do it until they promised to let him promote his newest single, but he looked like he got into it by the end (and he seemed to be having fun chatting up the folks in the green room).
I think the biggest question for any future RTE hosting would be where it would be held, I don’t think we have an indoor arena big enough. A roof on Croke Park?
I know they did that in Copenhagen 2001, but I highly doubt a stadium would sell out for the two semi-finals. Not a good idea…
2001 was awful, but where else could they host it, I don’t think they have an indoor arena of any large size? A disused factory, as in 2014?
Or back to The Point? Now known as the 3Arena…capacity is about 13,000 so could work.
Looks like the Point was expanded when it became the 3Arena, but even back then it looked larger than most venues. (With a bit of expanding, maybe we could go back to Millstreet?)
Also, checking Wikipedia, Denmark actually has a couple of arenas now that’d be Eurovision-sized. One of them didn’t open until after the contest, though.
Unsurprisingly, the country that’d have the pick of the litter would be the UK, who have a ton of eligible venues. But of course, that would require the UK to win first. (sigh)
I think Millstreet would need a lot of work. The arena is tiny in 2000s Eurovision terms, and the town is short on facilities. It already was in 1993 (most people stayed in Killarney and most events happened there), now the crowds who attend wouldn’t tolerate a small Irish country town.
Always sad Cork City never got a chance to host, I’m sure the Opera House would have been ideal for 1971, and maybe even 1981.
Oh, I figured. Just thinking out loud, mostly. Dublin would almost certainly be the default now.
I always think that no country should feel pressured to have it in a huge venue – the 3Arena sounds more than adequate, especially given its history with the contest. It already holds the record for hosting the most times!
(Then again, Terry Wogan said some pretty nasty things about Conchita, so maybe it’s just a thing that old Irish guys not named Marty Whelan are bad at recognizing gender fluidity)
I was actually just watching Dana International speak about that incident on Irish TV from 1998 – see what she thinks at about 05.00! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgyeuqD4bY&t=532s
She was AWESOME in that interview. Drag his ass, Dana!
“I think they have personal sexuality problems” *Pat Kenny’s entire soul has left the chat*
Because when I get into something, I REALLY get into it. I’d already been doing a lot of Eurovision homework before FiK.
Surely only 2 years ago, not 4????
Better than the actual winner but the rest of the results are just horrible.
That top five is a Eurofan-induced mess. Waylon coming last is just wrong, too.
You think Waylon would come anywhere but last right now with that act?
At least it was different. Country fans Lover it, I bet
Foureira is the real winner of ESC wbk