On Saturday 22 May, a new statistic entered the Eurovision record books. An astonishing four countries — Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom — received the infamous nil points from the public televote.
But the stars aren’t dwelling in disappointment. On social media, Jendrik, Blas Cantó and James Newman have all released statements to encourage positivity following their Eurovision appearances.
Eurovision 2021 stars release statements after getting zero points from the public
Germany’s Jendrik
Jendrik ended the night in 25th place with just three points from the jury vote and zero points from the public.
On Instagram, the “I Don’t Feel Hate” singer posted a photo of himself wearing a “sh*t happens” t-shirt upon returning to his home in Germany.
“You all! Don’t you worry about me, I flew home and have a slight headache today (never doing drunk interviews again in my life).
I am truly happy, of course three points is not a lot at all like it’s very little but I am happy that I reached a few of you out there.
I feel like this journey has just started and cannot wait to start new projects. Thank you Eurovision!”
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Spain’s Blas Cantó
Blas Cantó’s emotional Eurovision journey ended with a 24th place finish. The “Voy a quedarme” singer received just six points from the jury vote, while the public gave him nada.
But now Spain’s shining star has shared his feelings about bringing such a personal story to the Eurovision stage. On Instagram, he wrote:
“I turned pain into music and the music made my heart beat again. This trip through Eurovision has taught me that discipline is the only tool to maintain a career.
You have given me ‘the moment’ of my life. I have represented Spain, my country, for two years in a row. It is something that I dreamed of when I was a child and once again the universe wanted to grant me the wish.
It has probably been the most difficult challenge of my entire life. I have shown myself to the world when I felt most vulnerable, trying to contain my emotions at every moment, from the moment I got out of bed to bedtime.
I have always been an open book and if my story has helped someone in some corner of the planet, I am more than satisfied.
Mother of my soul, mother of my life, mother of my heart… we did it. And nothing and no one can erase it.”
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United Kingdom’s James Newman
James Newman made Eurovision history this year. Since the introduction of the split televote and jury results in 2016, “Embers” is the first song to receive zero points from both.
But James Newman isn’t letting the result get to him. The Settle-born singer-songwriter thanked fans for the Eurovision experience, writing on Twitter and Instagram:
“I want to focus on the positives of this amazing experience. I stood on a stage and sang to hundreds of millions of people with a song that I wrote and love.
I’ve learnt so much from the amazing people who gave everything to help me live my dream, the dancers, my choreographer, my vocal coach, everyone from my label, my manager and the BBC and all the people behind the scenes at Eurovision and the arena. All these people are the best in the business and I got the chance to work with them and share this crazy experience that I’m so lucky to have had the chance to do.”
“The thing about writing songs is that there is no guarantee that a song you think will connect with people will connect with an audience.
Thank you to all the amazing dedicated fans who have supported me through the whole thing made it all worth it. Because at the end of the day they are the people who you do this all for.
I just want to say a huge massive thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has been on this journey with me, supported me, listened to my music and filled my life with positivity and love.
The times when it doesn’t play out how you hoped it might, teach you how to pick yourself up and be stronger.”
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James’ brother John Newman responded by singing his praises. “So so so proud of what you have achieved!”, the singer-songwriter wrote. “On to the next bucket list tick to you and take only the positives with you as these are what make you a better person.”
Many fans have praised James’ classy handling of the result. Upon hearing he had received zero points from the public, the “Embers” singer stood to rally the Rotterdam Ahoy crowd. He then received an uproar of applause and cheers from the audience.
What do you think of the stars’ statements? Was nil points a justified result for the United Kingdom? Let us know in the comments below.
Nothing but respect for these artists and how they handle the painful nil points. However, the BBC especially are just a disgusting broadcaster full of misplaced sarcasm and snarky comments on other countries and artists.
You want to do better than max 20 points or less every year? Send something good, like any other country does.
The fans don’t vote based on brexit. They vote based on what a song does to them and truth be told the bland salad of melodies sent by the UK does not much to most people on the other side of the pond.
I don’t think that it’s a good idea to send people who are suffering the real life tragedy to Eurovision. It’s not good both for singer and for the country which tries to make points on people’s emotions and empathy. It’s kinda… cruel, I don’t know. Hope, he’ll feel better.
And you know something else? I think Jeangu and his team did themselves in on the televote side. With a song as up-tempo as “Birth Of A New Age”, it didn’t make sense to me for him to have only 3 other people (ONE dancer) on stage with him. He and his team had the option to fill the stage with six (two more dancers, or maybe another dancer and a musician), to give the appearance of more activity on the stage, and they didn’t take it. And again, I think he would have placed top-15 last year with “Grow”.
Also performing before Italy didn’t help them either. Such a shame, I really liked the song
There needs to be a discussion for which artists (those who were carried over from last year) and which countries fared better or worse following last year’s cancellation and hiatus. Needless to say, Italy came out for the better. I figured Diodato for top 5 but not the win with “Fai Rumore”. Very few people liked Tom Leeb’s “Mon Alliée (The Best In Me)”; so, France benefited greatly from the layoff. Gjon’s “Répondez-Moi” was good enough that he still would have placed top-3 and probably could have won. James Newman would not have gone home completely empty last year with… Read more »
Other countries: Norway – certainly better. Ulrikke was a fan favourite, Attention was excellent jury bait and Ulrikke can connect emotionally. I can see the televoters who gravitated towards Barbara rewarding her. Top 6-7 definitely, could place third if she ended up nabbing a jury victory. Australia – certainly better. Don’t Break Me walked the line between indie and mainstream, and thus had more broad appeal for jurors and voters than Technicolour in a semi. Yes, the performance in February was messy, but so was the first run of Technicolour at Mardi Gras and she sounded very good in her… Read more »
While I am very proud that Lithuania did make the top 10 this year at eighth Place, I think on fire would’ve absolutely given them a top-five finish. Granted, I don’t know Juries would’ve liked on fire more than they did with discotheque, but I could see it get a decent fourth or fifth place from juries and they could’ve gotten a high enough televote score to cinch the victory or top 3.
Iceland was running for a win last year, and although they were close this year, I’d predict a top 3 place for last year Bulgaria def. dropped this year. Overall, I thought that Growing old was the worst song of the selection, Ugly Cry and Imaginary Friend would do MUCH better. The selection was better, but the ultimate choice was bad in my opinion. Albania was probably not going to qualify last year. Although it was all dependant on the staging Moldova was a non-qualifier last year. Roxen defenitely qualifies with Alcohol you. Mostly because the staging wouldn’t be as… Read more »
If Newman were to come back with a song of resilience at a future contest, I reckon he could do well. It could be the big idea he was lacking this time round.
Great idea! Invite him back in a few years time (in a different role, like songwriter or producer) for a shot at redemption!
can he pick a genre that suits his voice better too? and send him on tour to get some experience of interacting with the audience and cameras. His eyes were half closed on his performance so there is no connection with the viewers.
Also whoever decided to have him dressed in black when the LED screen behind was also black for most of the performance needs the sack.
Have you heard the duet Voy a quedarme with Blas Canto and J.Newman? wonderful, amazing, stunning. Did they really deserve o points?i can not believe it. Other underrated songs: Chypre; Malta and overall San marino. Ukraine was good but not to be 2 in televoting.Spain is always underrated: Soraya, Edurne or Barey did not deserve to be in bottom
Cyprus was overrated all the time,but now we found out it was “A much ado about nothing” from unconditional fans. A clon, copy, collage and paste song and contestant don’t deserve to be in the top 10… so… Finally she got what she deserved. San Marino? really? come on!! (well, play San Marino and not Cyprus, please!) Malta: OK, great voice, but try to sing like the Ukrainian. Surprisingly you forgot Serbia. Eurovision doesn’t have to be a festival of boom boom girls, it’s much more than Fiesta Pachanga. My X file is why Greece and Norway got what they… Read more »
It’s always very sad to see someone receiving 0 points… Personally, I really like “Embers” and “Birth of the new age”, they were one of my favorites this year and I will definitely continue listening to them. But that’s Eurovision, someone needs to come last. Even though, we are all so obsessed about the results, I think that participation alone really matters, too. There are songs who did poorly or even failed to qualify but are still remembered and for many people they are their all-time favorites. All artists who participated will forever be a part of the big Eurovision… Read more »
And three of those countries are the same.
I think I was more surprised about the other “zeroes” than I was about the UK. The song was…fine, I suppose, but that was all it was. The singer was a better songwriter than he was singer, and the staging was bland, to say the least. Not surprised that neither the juries nor the public liked it. It was simply just fine. Nothing special about it. Everyone knows the the UK can do better than this though, hence they expect more from them. Se also: Spain, also a very forgetful song – can hardly remember it now. Germany was special… Read more »
James Newman is a good sport. He is obviously better than his experience and outcome on the Eurovision stage, especially given that he is one one of the more prolific go-to vocalists from none other than ARMIN VAN BUUREN. His career will survive this contest’s first-ever double-bagel; unlike his zero-point U.K. predecessors Jemini, who were dropped by their record label the sooner they came home from Riga with zero, and theirs was quite a hideous performance (unless I missed something). And again, I ask, would he have fared much better with “My Last Breath”, against last year’s competition, had the… Read more »
I think the juries at least would have shown ‘My last breath’ a bit of love. It was a more credible entry.
Funny, I would’ve thought my last breath would’ve suffered Last year because he had the risk of being forgotten about, but then again I didn’t think embers to do this badly
People still talking about BBC getting “established artists” after you put Flo Rida 22nd, do you really think any “established artist” is going to touch this thing with a barge pole?
That’s true. But they should still make an effort to get the right people on the right place. Songwriters, choreographers, set designers, stage designers, producers etc. Quality behind will lead to quality performance and music.
But I guess most importantly Britain may need to stop thinking about the ESC as a joke and really put an effort to this. This is if they want more than double o’s that is
By established artists, they’re talking about the likes of Freya Ridings, Paloma Faith, Jess Glynne etc – experienced singers who are famous but not THAT famous.
Err, weren’t Måneskin “established”? They’d already released a string of singles. Destiny, despite being 18, is also vastly experienced. So yes, there are already loads of established artists touching this thing, and they’re the ones who usually do well.
I think you are right, not only because of reputation, but many top UK artists earn massive amounts of money, the BBC (and licence fee payers) wouldn’t tolerate spending triple the amount they already do on an artist / song that could still flop at eurovision.
its not like paying an artist for a one off appearance on a TV show, its two full weeks out of their life, plus all the pre preparation and PR.
You’re right. The UK’s established artists, other than has-beens like Bonnie Tyler and Englebert Humperdinck, wouldn’t go anywhere near the ESC. They know it doesn’t matter how well known, how great a song or how well they perform, they’re more than likely going to do badly. The bad publicity they would get isn’t worth the hassle, and the UK’s results have nothing to do with music. James Newman’s song was OK, performance OK (that coat, though, was a bad choice and would turn vegetarians and vegans off straight away as it looked like leather), and visuals were lacking, but it… Read more »
James and Embers is awesome and deserved top 10.
PART 3: UNITED KINGDOM. Right off the bat, the main issue here is the attitude. Not from the performers (as James, Michael, and SuRie have all been more than wonderful representatives of their country), but mainly from the broadcaster and reporters. If I get to hear one more snarky remark from the British reporter about how ESC is a ”parade of kitsch”, and that ”everyone hates the UK for the Brexit”… *Some* juries might take that into consideration (although it’s unlikely), but I’m telling you this: If Dark Side was the British entry, they would’ve likely scored the similar amount… Read more »
I always thought BBC Introducing was the right direction, it’s a great resource of untapped talent looking for the big opportunity. Shame they didn’t try it again despite the disappointing result. The Marketing has been a big problem for the UK, for years and years now, they just want to reinforce this outdated image. Scott Mills claims to love the contest, but he’s such a half hearted commentator. If he really loves the contest, why not get more involved with finding a UK entry? He has clout and contracts, there’s so much more he could be doing. Big thing is,… Read more »
I’ve thought the same re Welsh, Scottish Gaelic.
Just saying the most embarrassing thing for me as someone from the UK was Amanda Holden giving the points, highlighting lack of understanding of language, wearing a god awful dress and talking about herself. THAT was more shameful than anything. Well done James for being a good sport and being a positive influence.
Never liked her and even more so now. She’s one of those phony ITV people. Should of had Danny Wallace!
Good thing I was watching the sbow with Spanish commentary on so I didn’t hear her embarrass herself on live television.
Yes, that is a brilliant idea. Welsh is a beautiful language and Wales has some amazing singers. If there is any anti UK feeling in Europe it is against the English so a Welsh entry would not be affected.
UK, Spain and The Netherlands ( + France) were the 4 winners of the ESC 1969 and now UK, Spain and The Netherlands ( + Germany) are the 4 countries that received 0 points from the televoters. Tables are indeed turning, especially in the ESC
I am fed up with moaning, twisty and probably non-Eurovision watchers who are saying that the UK is being victimised and we should leave the contest. Firstly, I doubt the contest would suffer greatly if we no longer took part. We are honoured to get a pass into the final every year when other much better songs are eliminated. Stop the big five paying in and share the cost among the 40 plus countries…..it’s not much when shared out ! Our song was average at best, sung barely adequately and had terrible cheap staging. If the juries and televoters preferred… Read more »
That would mean the entry fee would have to rise in order to cover the gap left by big 5 and that could lead to some countries not taking part because they cant afford it.
A lot of countries have pulled out because they can’t afford the cost as it is, subsidized by the big 5.
We’re not ‘honoured to get a pass into the final every year’, we pay for it with the other 4 of the ‘Big Five’! The UK, through the BBC (and from our licence fee) pays substantially more to enter ESC than most other countries. An article at ESC Daily, “The cost of not having the ‘Big 4/5’”, estimates the Big 5 each pay the equivalent of 5 other countries’ entrance fees. If the big 5 stopped paying that, then you basically have the cost of 20 (5 x 4 countries) entrance fees to split between roughly 40 countries. The 50%… Read more »
I’m really gutted for James, as I was so delighted when I first heard Embers, and thought it was a step in the right direction(especially after the good but uncompetitive My Last Breath). Also, I used to live in the Netherlands and have fond memories of going to the Ahoy. As the final built up I was realising that a lot of uptempo songs would make it harder to stand out and that he might not be much of a performer. I was very unconvinced by the rehearsals and thought the big trumpets were an unnecessary gimmick. Also, the choreography… Read more »
Obvioulsy, none of those 4 deserved the null points. But since it happened, what if we follow James’ lead and take it as an opportunity to end the stigma of ending last or getting zero points? Anybody that knows a little about the scoring system also knows that it’s not accurate to decide who’ll be 21st, 23rd or dead last. So I’m glad James reacted so beautifully to it, which definitely made the situation way less awkward for Jendrik, Blas and Jeangu, who also poured their lovely personalities into their reactions. Even Alex Callier, who’s not exactly known for his… Read more »
OK, but we had worst songs than the Dutch, the British and the Spanish (I won’t defend the German, because it’s really not my thing) getting points in finals. Even in times when each country only could give points to 10 others. The thing is that finals aren’t normally that strong, what made those 4 struggle with the fact the scoring system works decently to measure the top of the scoreboard, but not for the bottom, where bad songs with strong allies tend to do better than good-but-not-great songs coming from countries left outside of voting blocs.
Voting for neighbors is a root problem at voting, but IDK how to work the way around it. The big issue is the pressure from the press and the audiences. You wouldn’t believe it, but some newspapers actually *called out* the Croatian jury for giving Hurricane “only 7 points”. They called it a snub. They didn’t require 12 points from Estonia, Cyprus or France. Only from Croatia. Like it’s a given. It makes me very angry! But how to work around it?
PART 2: SPAIN. Let me just put it out there – I *like* the majority of newer Spanish acts. Still, analyzing them, I found one trait they share: Most of them feel like what one would expect from Spain to send. That’s certainly not a bad thing on its own. Spanish fans, don’t hate me, I will explain. Before you go and point out the French chanson which finished second, let me revert you to songs like J’ai cherche, Requiem, and even Roi, which preceded it. Voila came and re-introduced us to the genre which was almost long forgotten on… Read more »
they should just surrender to puerto rico and send a reggaeton song as they almost did in 2018 with lo malo… that’s what people are consuming now not telenovela ballads and songs like la vendN/A
That’s a nice idea too. 🙂
Puerto Rico would defacto mean the US will take part too.
2003 was an amaaaaaaaazing entry for Spain. Bring back the Spanish guitar ^_^
I agree 100% with this, you summarized it perfectly
I think if Spain had sent a modern flamenco-inspired song like something from Rosalia, it would do very well. The problem with their entries is that they’re unremarkable. Okay but not something anyone would vote for or put in their top 10 (maybe top 15)
may this be a wake up call for the respective broadcasters that selected these unworthy songs (a 120 strong jury did that for germany lmfaooo). i’m sorry but i wasn’t surprised at all they got 0. spain is especially hard to justify, it’s almost like the rtve eurovision committee is made up of 60 year olds who are completely out of touch with reality.
Blas wrote it, it wasn’t just handed down to him.
Been from UK I salute James on he’s gracious defeat, it might be hard been a Eurovision fan from my country but we plod on on hope, one day the BBC will get it right just waiting for that day, hold your head high James you did us proud with your attitude alone As for Germany and Spain they are in the same boat as us really they need to review everything and start again, national finals for all 3 would be great, I think we hear in UK should go back to what they did for Molly Smitten Downs… Read more »
yes but Germany won in 2010 and got a great result in 2018….Spain and Uk are almost always in trouble at eurovision
Don’t forget Germany 2012, Standing Still finished 8th 🙂
I think UK’s best result was 2011 when they sent Blue
Germany from 2010-2012 was an impressive streak. They deserve credit for one of the better placing host entries as well.
Again I have to say that it was initiated by the audience. The section behind where James was sat, stood up and cheered for him, his reaction was great yes, but it was because of the support he got from the audience.
Jeanguuuuuu. Watch how much people loved it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqGFN3_uQcs
It was a weird year because like 6-8 countries received the most televotes so a lot of countries were left out. UK had a cute song but not special or interesting enough. I think the song needed a hot performer who can dance to elevate it but James could not support that. He would have been better with Last Breath. A shame Ireland/Malta could not give UK some points. Netherlands was expected to flop….. Grow was better.. they should have done an internal selection this year! Germany: i thought it would do better with televoters but when i watched the… Read more »
PART 1: GERMANY. Despite all the problems they got with S!sters, Levina, and so on, I think they at least have some semblance on how to Eurovision right. Their 2018 song was simply stunning, and it paid off. Their 2020 song was well received, and probably would’ve done well. Their 2021 song was at least *risky*. Personally, I love it, but I see why so many do not. It’s approach to humor is probably not as contemporary as they hoped. People nowadays mostly enjoy ”joke acts” with a bit slicker productions and a more subtle humor (e.i. Lithuania, Iceland, even… Read more »
Germany 2021 came across as obnoxious and irritable . The musical version of SJWs.
People don’t need patronising
It was the musical equivalent of telling an angry person to calm down.
Shame because Jendrik is likeable.
I do admire Jendrik and his entry for be risky. I’m a bit biased since I really like the song and the guy’s personality, but AQ’s playing it safe is a common criticism in recent years, so I also agree that Germany is the right direction in that regard.
However, I also see that NDR needs to focus on competitiveness as well as impact/message if they want to get a high or even mid-table score. A format similar to ESCZ sounds like an awesome idea.
Everyone seems to forget that the highest scores of the televote imply that the other countries will receive less points. All these zeros come from the fact that EACH country had three bangers in its top 10 : Italy, France, Ukraine…
And Finland got zero points from one country in the televote – Georgia. So practically 4 countries got into everybodys top 10 and that did not left many points to the others.
Others have said and I think too. 26 songs in a final means too many miss out when only 10 get a score. Like in 2017 when 6 or so countries got all the points leaving very low scores for everyone else.
The right question isn’t is any of these songs worth a 0/10 result (the answer is a straightforward ”no”), but why weren’t they in anyone’s top ten choices in the finals. Or, should we say, not to a lot of people, as all of them probably received thousands of votes scattered through countries. My vote for Jendrik wasn’t nearly enough for Germany to get a single point from Croatia. That’s how it goes. Still, there wasn’t a mass appeal for these songs. I’ll leave Netherlands out of this, since they won last time, and have been systematically qualifying almost every… Read more »
The BBC is 1000000% the one at fault here. James was the singular best ambassador the UK ever had at the Eurovision Song Contest. He was charming, warm, personable, engaging, endearing and a realist. He didn’t by into the “It’s all political” BS that the UK spouts every time they deservedly come Bottom 5 with a song that quite frankly deserved it. In the past 10 years, if the UK had to qualify I would say that; Blue 2011, Molly 2014 and Lucie 2017 would of qualified for the final, everyone else ran the risk of finishing in the Bottom… Read more »
James composed a very good song, just didn’t get the help he needed to put together a convincing staging and performance. I think Jendrik, our candidate for Germany deserved the last place and got robbed from James. What Jendrik said in an interview after the show made me very angry. I won’t repeat it here because it is embarrassing. I have lost all hope that the public broadcaster we as German citizens have to pay for every month will ever stop wasting a lot of money for chosing and presenting our candidate. We are such a big and wealthy country… Read more »
You‘re SO right.. NDR should drop the responsibility for Eurovision and give it another broadcaster as fast as possible 🙁 Side note: They didn’t even invite Ben Dolic to their Eurovision PreShow.. He was really angry and didn’t understand the ignorance of NDR..
Writing a song for Eurovision seem to have its plusses and minuses because what we get as a result are songs coming off as very typical ESC-fare. Bringing in tracks that were made without the contest in mind during their creation does seem to provide that much needed shot in the arm that makes the line-up every year a little something more than the typical.
I always end up saying a lot here, don’t I? Personally, I think they should just get rid of the Big Five, and only have the host country and any debuting countries directly qualify to the Final. The Big Five countries have only won twice since the exemption from relegation was introduced in 1999. How many of their songs would have qualified to the Final on merit after the semifinals were introduced? Not to mention that the Big Five are at a huge disadvantage at building a voting base because the first time we actually get to see their performances… Read more »
I agree that big 5 automatic qualification should go but that will also mean equal funding of the contest by all participants. Remember, automatic qualification is reward for taking the lions share of the cost of the competition.
I disagree on the big 5. I love the big 5. If they weren’t there it would be a finale between Nordic countries and former Soviet Republik countries . I have to admit I usually hate the UK entries but I love to see UK in the finale.
The UK didn’t deserve zero points on both. However once again the staging did the UK act dirty (Although 100000% better then “Bigger then Us”). The song is called “Embers” and it talks about fire, the focus was on trumpets… The dancers didn’t do anything for the production except pretend to play instruments. James was on a dark stage and the style him in all black, blending into the background. The podium his was on was too far back and getting James to come off exposed his struggle moving while performing. They should have surrounded the stage with fire (Think… Read more »
I keep thinking how brave all the acts are to perform live infront of hundreds of millions. I could never do it in 100 lifetimes. All of them have my respect.
Do we really want these zero point announcements? If they just announced the televote points of the countries they know are in the ultimate top 12, it would not only save the embarrassment of the low scorers, but also make it impossible to work out how many points are left. And therefore remove any chance of spoilers. The remaining places and scores can then be published later, as with the semi-final results.
At a minimum they should have never recorded their reactions, that was painful and unnecessary and cruel. They didn’t do that pre Israel and they shouldn’t be doing that. Only record if you had a Keinno, Ukraine, Blind Channel moment where they get alot of televotes.
Tbh is even prefer of they scrap the new televote method and go back the old, lowest to highest because the televote winner deserves to be told they won the televote.
The old system, while probably more fair in highlighting the televote winner, leads to less suspense when you have one country dominating both (Portugal 2017)
Sorry, but that’s a really terrible idea. Let alone the felt lack of transparency.
Where there are winners, there also are losers. All of them knew beforehand and – at least on the surface – took their nil points very well. Also, we’ve got 60+ years of precedents, so they can really keep their heads up high.
Also, Spain, UK and Germany already got used to these results. So it’s not like any of the artists will be smeared on a personal level. If there’s a backlash, then it’s that the people criticise their respective broadcasters for their incompetence.
well classy responses, however whilst not nice to see zero pointers due to the voting processes and reasons these songs performed poorly. I do not think Embers was a great song (opinions vary of course) and anyway did not stand out. However James performed poorly and seemed out of breath .on ocassions. Of course the staging was hardly inspiring but not the main reason in my view,politcal factors being blamed but basically just an excuse and minor factor. Found Jendrik’s entry to be a bit of a novelty song even if he put a lot into it but some may… Read more »
James – if you so happen to ever stumble across this and read this – you did us proud!!! I really think the fault lies with the BBC – its time they gave us better. – Our staging was pants compare to other countries (shout out to Bulgaria – that for me was the best staging!) Maybe its time the BBC gave Eurovision to ITV or Channel 4???… Who can afford to spend more because its not public funded – and can be sponsored like most of their shows. The UK need a huge shake up. But – I really… Read more »
I’ll be honest with my personal opinion. watching that night, UK’s artist lost connection to its very song and it does not charmed me as an audience that’s why I know a bad fate is coming for UK while Germany Jendrik song is actually is my favorite but he mess up so badly, out of tune, diction and tempo, Spain I found Blas as amazing as Gjons of Switzerland I don’t know but I believe Spain does not deserve zero points and for Netherlands I’m neutral.
The public sure was brutal this year. The only one that I feel didn’t deserve the nul point at all was Jeangu. His song was catchy, earnest, well staged and well performed, and the message was so important and so brave. Kudos to the Netherlands for sending it, God knows many other countries wouldn’t dare.
Now, the BBC and TVE need to immediately overhaul their whole entire Eurovision work methodology, because it very clearly sucks.
I agree with your comment about the BBC…is it time for the BBC to retire from Eurovision and pass the rights to ITV or Channel 4???
Funnily enough Switzerland, which adopted the same method from Germany, seem to have done well with their approach.
And didn’t didn’t method produce Germany 2020 song which was amazing
Too bad he would never had the ability to sing it live . He’s a dreadful performer
How is it even possible that four countries got zero points? Are there even that many zeros to hand out?
actually BBC has been doing a worse job..
I don’t know if anyone else noticed it, but I think that the Polish jury’s results had been wrongly summed up. If I count it right, the Uk should received 2 points, Russia 0 and other minor changes.
Polish jury didn´t give anything to its neighbour Ukraine, whose song and performance had tons of cultural codes and is catchy asf and a big amount of people who are working there came from Ukraine. It didn’t look realistic. Unless Polish government wants to say something to Ukraine.
I think they just got along with San Marino jury, but it’s still too strange they didn’t give Go_A any point
I don’t think none of them deserved zero points, they weren’t that bad. But at the end of the day they took it with a laugh and enjoyed themselves and stood on a stage, and that¨s what matters. That said, I do hope that BBC at least now can change strategy. I mean they can’t get lower than double zero, can they? Hire someone who can properly stage songs and find more risky interesting songs, and not something that fits Steve Wright’s afternoon show. Europe loves British music, give us grime, alternative rock, folk-pop, the kind of music we love… Read more »
James handled the whole thing like a pro. I seem to remember when The Makemakes got zero points representing the host country, they took it in stride, singing “We are the zeroes of our time!”
Over on Twitter, James even told off Piers Morgan after he was running his mouth again.
I’m tempted to campaign for James to win the Barbara Dex Award just so the UK can win something. He didn’t wear the “Diggi Loo Diggi Ley” gold suit for the Final, but that coat still wasn’t the most flattering on him.
What had Piers Moran been saying? I’ve deliberately avoided all the media today as they’ll be spouting the usual crap
I’m surprised he didn’t blame Harry and Meghan for the nul points
dump bbc and let itv do the stuff with esc. bbc are in their deathtrows anyway. haiie the bbc and their attitude. commentry and joke and not funny but running down decent acts
ITV would be a lot worse. BBC is overall a credible broadcaster with some of the best dramas and documentaries in the world. ITV gave us Love Island.
I noticed something (not really related to this except that it concerns automatic qualifiers)…Hungary didn’t participate in 2010 and 2021 – the only two editions to be won by big 5 countries since the big 4/5 concept was introduced!
Every shred of blame lies at the feet of the BBC. James has nothing to be ashamed of and I’m glad he isn’t.
Joe! 🙂
Joeeee, I missed you
I figured I’d stop by again! Hey gang. Great contest this year, right? Sure, San Marino was absolutely robbed by the televote, but the Dutch did an excellent job and that top five is excellent.
Robbed indeed, I was shocked! I’m surprised just how many others scored more points over Senhit. She rocked the arena with Flo, and gave such a great climax to the show’s main performances!
And I’m glad you stopped by again 🙂 – where were you in the meantime?
(something I’d wanted to say to you before, I’ve also met the two British guys in Eurovision union jack suits – they’re married now! They got married in their suits 🙂 )
School (I graduated college!), plus the comments section here was getting a bit too toxic amidst all the seriously-hyped entries and whatnot. Losing the spirit of the contest. Now that the…ahem…embers are dying down and we’re in the off-season (all the hype, none of the actual competition), I’m gonna try and stop by more often. And that’s so sweet! I hope they weren’t too disappointed by the results this year. Honestly, not a single fan I’ve talked to from the nil-points countries has been (Brits and Spaniards saw it coming and are livid at the broadcasters, Germans knew they weren’t… Read more »
This time in 2019, Michael Rice was blaming Brexit, so James Newman has gone up in my estimation with his reaction. What I will say is that I think both he and his team underestimated the quality of the opposition. In the UK, we’re conditioned by the media to think all continental pop music is rubbish. There’s almost no national music diversity on UK radio. It’s all US or UK acts. That doesn’t help us in the Eurovision arena.
I was saying to my mom that it was designed with UK pop radio in mind. We agreed that radio filler pop that works in the UK is fine, but you can’t ask the entire continent to think of it as a competitive song.
Eurovision is not a radio show though. It’s a TV show. James is not the artist for a banger like Embers…. He’s better with slower songs.
I agree. “My Last Breath” probably would’ve done OK, but seeing as “Embers” was a decent studio track that was murdered by the incompetent staging, I can’t tell if that one would’ve been screwed over too. It’d be like if the USA was taking part, and we sent something like…I dunno, “Sit Still, Look Pretty” by Daya. We probably wouldn’t score anything either, or at least very little, because that’s a song designed for pop radio and the Spotify algorithm. It’s not a big banger stand-out track, or anything competitive whatsoever. But it doesn’t outright suck either. It’s just not… Read more »
A bit unrelated, but did Scooch blame politics/neighbour voting for losing in 2007, or did I imagine that? Very disappointing and ignorant of them if they did, and a certain way to reinforce negative stereotypes
A lot of delegations were unhappy in 2007, which lead to the change of 2 semi finals to be introduced sooner than anticipated.
Politics/neighbor voting were the only reason Scooch scored, so that’d be ironic (7 points from Ireland and that infamous 12 points from Malta, which apparently was a collective Maltese effort to protest against bloc voting – i.e. “You want us to vote for our neighbors? Fine, here’s our closest ‘neighbor,’ so to speak. Happy?”).
I don’t care about everyone hating on the songs, I think no one deserves ZERO points, not even those Estonians from 2008 (Leto Svet still haunts me)
The case with James is that his song was good! He sang well and was charming, what caused him to get Nul Points was the lack of dynamisim from the cameras and staging. He did great it was just everything around him pulled him down
The song was fine, but everything else went wrong.
Do not want to be rude but I have to now. James performance was as interesting as a drunk guy singing karaoke at the local pub…it felt unrehearsed, unprepared and felt more as a spur of the moment performance. That is probably why he got nul from both jury and viewers, then again he seems like a great guy but in the moment of truth he did not deliver…
i agree with you. he looked nervous, out of breath and there was no energy.
I am not a hater, i love him for being a great person above all, but he didn’t have stage charisma.
I wouldn’t say the song was good, it was so bland it felt like the background music of a commercial. He also didn’t sing well and said it himself, he was very out of breath and tune. Then there’s the lack of dynamism and the staging, as you said. So yeah, unfortunately I don’t know what was good except that the singer seems like a cool guy, but that’s not a miss congeniality contest.
Look it was a very weak entry I a very strong year.
Say what you want about the songs, but the artist’s responses are all class.
Best of luck to the 4 lads, they all had very different songs, they all brought their own unique brand to ESC and Atleast the 4 of them can share that bond. Onwards and upwards
The Netherlands, the UK, Spain and Germany didn’t deserve to get zero points from the public, and I felt for James getting the double zero, which really did feel unfair and harsh. At the same time, none of these performances were in my top ten and so they wouldn’t have got any points from me either. Losing is never fun, and it must be even worse to lose by such a resounding margin and on one of the most public stages imaginable, but the result isn’t as bad it seems bearing in mind that it really only means that the… Read more »
Thanks Simon Cowell
Ha, you’re welcome Dolly!
Oh grow up
Yes, i think it would have been better if James had received 2-3 points from juries (e.g. Ireland/Malta/Australia)
to all of these brits saying you guys didn’t deserve nul points… i urge you to rewatch the performance because it was totally bad. james’ vocal was pretty dodgy and he was off key, the trumpets looked cheap, and the UK really did themselves in by not going all out with pyro. i mean ffs, the song is called “embers” and it didnt occur to anyone to add pyro until they got called out for it, and even then they only did it in the last like 30 seconds of the song. sorry but 0 points was pretty deserved in… Read more »
Good thing it’s just your opinion 😉 No actual comment on the class and positivity of their responses and James’ amazing reaction to that result. People like you make me laugh sometimes. Here they are being class acts and people like you just can’t let go of that negativity, even for a moment just to appreciate those responses you can’t help yourselves. Oh and one more thing – no song deserves 0 and 0 doesn’t mean no one voted for them or they were placed in the bottom across the board. You look at the voting and you’ll see a… Read more »
0 points for the UK wasn’t justified and I may be bias to some being in Britain but the song was better than others but I’ll not name them. Running order position wasn’t brilliant in all honesty swallowed up by other top notch songs on Saturday and judging by what I’ve seen since then everyone is saying 0 points at all for the United Kingdom was harsh.
I was thinking that even though Switzerland, Iceland and Ukraine were internal selections, the whole bottom five were too. If I were the head of a delegation for sure I’d go for a national selection. Let the people decide. Unless you’re the UK and you receive a phone call from Adele, or you are Spain and Bad Bunny feels like go on holidays in Italy in May next year.
Actually, both Iceland and Ukraine had been seleected in national finals in 2020, and their entries this year weren’t that different in style, especially in Iceland’s case. Therefore, even though they were technically internally selected, they still were chosen by the public and stand in favor of national selections!
Spain and UK really need to do something about their participation at Eurovision. Their results in the last 8 years are bad :/
Except for 2017, of course.
2017 was saved by the juries…
As they should.
Before cancelling the Big 5 there will be changes to the voting system. If the Big 5 get cancelled I think Spain and the UK will think about withdrawal.
Perhaps they should. That’s what Italy did in 1998-2010. Look at them now. Though they were still doing pretty well before the break and I even think Ana Oxa’s Storie might have threatened Katrina in 1997.
they need to cancel the big 5, in this way they will put more effort for a great entry.