After five heats and two semi-finals, the American Song Contest reached its climax with the grand final on Monday night. Ten acts performed one last time, but only one state or territory could emerge victorious and receive bragging rights as having the best original song.
After the public and jury votes were counted, it was Oklahoma’s AleXa who emerged victorious with her song “Wonderland”.
American Song Contest grand final
Public voting for the grand final opened on Sunday 8 May at 17:00 EDT. This was to allow all states and territories the chance to vote since they do not all air the show at the same time.
The voting was closed after the last act performed during the live show in EDT. These public votes were then combined with the jury’s score to determine the winner, which was revealed live during the show.
Jury results
- Washington: Allen Stone – “A Bit of Both” (105 points)
- Tennessee: Tyler Braden – “Seventeen” (88 points)
- Kentucky: Jordan Smith – “Sparrow” (79 points)
- Alabama: Ni/Co – “The Difference” (60 points)
- Oklahoma: AleXa – “Wonderland” (56 points)
- North Dakota: Chloe Fredericks – “Can’t Make You Love Me” (48 points)
- Texas: Grant Knoche – “Mr. Independent” (42 points)
- Connecticut: Michael Bolton – “Beautiful World” (40 points)
- American Samoa: Tenelle – “Full Circle” (37 points)
- Colorado: Riker Lynch – “Feel The Love” (25 points)
Public vote results
- Oklahoma: AleXa – “Wonderland” (654 points)
- Colorado: Riker Lynch – “Feel The Love” (478 points)
- Kentucky: Jordan Smith – “Sparrow” (328 points)
- Texas: Grant Knoche – “Mr. Independent” (324 points)
- American Samoa: Tenelle – “Full Circle” (305 points)
- Connecticut: Michael Bolton – “Beautiful World” (298 points)
- Washington: Allen Stone – “A Bit of Both” (254 points)
- Alabama: Ni/Co – “The Difference” (225 points)
- North Dakota: Chloe Fredericks – “Can’t Make You Love Me” (219 points)
- Tennessee: Tyler Braden – “Seventeen” (163 points)
Final results
- Oklahoma: AleXa – “Wonderland” (710 points)
- Colorado: Riker Lynch – “Feel The Love” (503 points)
- Kentucky: Jordan Smith – “Sparrow” (407 points)
- Texas: Grant Knoche – “Mr. Independent” (366 points)
- Washington: Allen Stone – “A Bit of Both” (359 points)
- American Samoa: Tenelle – “Full Circle” (342 points)
- Connecticut: Michael Bolton – “Beautiful World” (338 points)
- Alabama: Ni/Co – “The Difference” (285 points)
- North Dakota: Chloe Fredericks – “Can’t Make You Love Me” (267 points)
- Tennessee: Tyler Braden – “Seventeen” (251 points)
Are you happy that Oklahoma’s AleXa won the American Song Contest grand final? Did anyone up their game for the finale? Let us know in the comments below.
American here. Posting a little late – sorry! I completely agree with most of the criticisms. One thing that I really enjoyed was getting my very suburban and politically centrist family and relatives into the show. They became dedicated streamers, and we regularly compared votes and preferences at family events. It was fun watching them get so invested! In my liberal Seattle bubble, however, no friends were aware of it, and I saw no news coverage…and we’re in Washington! This is totally anecdotal, but I wonder if there’s a market for Americans that watch for the more wholesome, uplifting aspects?… Read more »
I started watching this but lost interest. It felt like a poorly executed melodifestivalen with too many overproduced act but low budget at the same time lol. I felt like i was watching something from the 2000s. Song selection was very weird. Few acts with real chances to make it to the charts. Just bad. God just remove these producers, they killed everything great about eurovision.
ASC’s format doesn’t work because of how protracted NBC made the contest and because of the crazy amount of commercials. For it it work, it needs to be run like ESC. First, take it of the hands of NBC, and give it to PBS. Let’s not forget that the EBU is a syndicate of government-funded public television stations. NBC’s motivation to make money by inserting countless commercial breaks ruined the contest. It could have been done all in a week: 3 preliminary rounds with top 10 from each round advancing to a final. Also, that 15-85 vote allocation was ridiculous.… Read more »
It’s not in PBS’s best interests nor that of the viewers who pledge monetary support to the public service broadcaster to produce this type of large-scale production. The show was heavily sponsored so commercials were only a minute or so long. They had a lot of commercial breaks yes, but the adverts were not that many to begin with.
Some people over on the ASC subreddit (yes, there’s an ASC subreddit) seem to be a bit confused by how the voting system in the Final worked, even though I kept explaining that it’s pretty much the Junior Eurovision voting system. I think what confused them the most was how the public vote points are allocated (which to me seemed more fair given how the ASC’s public vote is conducted compared to Eurovision). Unlike Junior Eurovision, though, it wasn’t a true 50/50 system because the pool of available points from the public was much larger than the one used for… Read more »
Damn, I live in the U.S. and didn’t know anything about this. LOL We had a Eurovision like song contest in America and no one knew about it.
You didn’t miss much
The kpop stans basically admitted on twitter to flooding the vote after creating community support from the entire fandom. (I won’t say they used bots or rigged the votes, but it’s telling that it’s SO much higher than all the others). And that’s not a bad thing, similar things have happened in ESC. But if ASC comes back next year, they gotta do way better on all front. This was barely advertised in the US, not a lot of support. And they will have to do something to fight the mass stan voting from social media, because it can definitely… Read more »
So many thoughts. [American and longtime ESC viewer here] I worry that the producers will look at the show’s reception and think “oh look, Eurovision is too European to be imported into the US” rather than the actual thought they should have that “oh look, even Americans can get turned off by Americanized, corporate, overproduced competition shows with vague/unclear rules that seem to change week-to-week.” Why not have the vote split be 50-50 in the final? How do you have a show planned for years that ends up feeling like the rules and the program are being decided on the… Read more »
Not sure about your claim that no artists can compete with Kpop artists because of their fandom. I think non-Kpop stans can just be as “rabid” as their Kpop counterpart.
But if that’s true, that will be a great strategy for Azerbaijan to start buying songs from South Korea…
Funny enough, many KPop songs have writers from the US and Europe.
They get around.
It was a Swedish conceptual idea. But then the American team took over. And the Swedish team got a real headache when things couldn’t be planned way in advance. The artists and songs were decided late. The deals with who should host were not set until very short before they were to film a promo for the contest. The Swedish team would have planned everything in detail, but this was not how it was dealt with in the US.
I did not watch most of this final, but word has it that Allen Stone could not perform live last night, because of personal reasons…
…So, like Dadi Freyr and Gagnamagnid from Iceland last year, they used pre-recorded footage.
I’m wondering if the public noticed, and it cost Allen, especially if they didn’t announce the news of a pre-recorded performance beforehand, the way ESC did when a member of Dadi’s band caught the virus.
That is true. He and his wife watched remotely from what I presume is their home. They didn’t state the exact reason why he had to bow out from the live show, but in the remote shot it’s very clear that his wife is pregnant and she may be far along enough that she could have gone into labor at any point and he needed to be there for her. It’s completely understandable that he’d be there with her. Even if they hadn’t disclosed this beforehand, it would have still been obvious because he wasn’t in the green room with… Read more »
Next year (if there IS a next year), let’s see if they can put on this contest with a maximum of 6 people on stage at any one time, the way it is done at Eurovision. Apply this rule across the board, and let’s see who will adapt or die.
No wonder someone from Semi 1 won. People had so much time to get used to the song, of course it had to win. After so many weeks that song got liked by people more and more. Why have 5 Semis anyway?
I said from the beginning they should have started smaller. Even in the jury rankings in the final they divided the us into regions instead of states. The us public didn’t I will what they would get. If they liked it the competition could have grown into more heats, to please the public demand. No one asked for 8 episodes.
*know
I think the regional juries were 5 or 6 states/territories each? They could have done the qualifiers as regionals with two regions per heat, and jurors from the regions taking part in each qualifier would be barred from voting in that particular heat. Although that would probably stack a lot of country songs into a couple of heats. Hmm…
I hope for next year we get to listen to the complete songs months in advance like the ESC. That way I have time to connect with songs and have songs grow on me. I didn’t like hearing a song for the first time just 1 week before the performances.
It was set up to be disaster outside of USA when we found out it’s going to air at the same time when actual ESC takes place.
Why did they put so much value in the jury results for every round EXCEPT the final, losing several fan favourites along the way for jury songs that tanked?
I agree. As I was watching the results, I couldn’t believe it. I really think the voting method needs to be consistent through all the heats and semi finals, up through the final. If the voting system were the same, I’m sure we would’ve had a very different-looking final and quite frankly, a more enjoyable one.
My best guess: They needed someone to go through at the end of each heat. Because they can’t air live across the nation and have a live voting until the final, they’d have the other qualifiers announce on the next show.
American here. Didn’t watch just because dog how overproduced it felt. The show just seems like a copy of Idol, XFactor, all generic shows. The vocals seemed way too layered and I didn’t hear the live aspect of it. Which is why I like Eurovision.
The way they revealed the results were pretty similar to Eurovision! I liked the contest, it was a mashup of Melodifestivalen and ESC! Some changes for next year that would make it more like Eurovision, is having 6 songs of the 5 heats go to the semi-finals, with each semi-final having 15 songs, and then narrows down to 20 songs for the final. I think they tried to stick to 10-12 songs per week, but it eliminated so many songs that could have done so well. It’s also funny how Wiwibloggs interviewed Alexa only from ASC, maybe they knew she… Read more »
Yes, but you have to remember that time for commercials has to be taken into consideration. I’d personally prefer 4 qualifying heats with 14 songs each (either by adding an extra half hour or hour to the run time or shortening the video packages that run in between performances), with that fifth week being turned into a Second Chance round with the songs that just missed out on a spot in the Semis (and maybe a couple of wildcards chosen by the producers) competing for a handful of remaining spots in the Semifinals. I also think this needed a separate… Read more »
i didn’t expect the televoting to have so much power (i wish it would be like this at eurovision too). deserved winner, saved us from the snooze juries tried to force on us.
I’m satisfied and in agreement with OK winning and TN finishing last. It was a solid Top 10 and congratulations to all artists for bringing some diversity to America’s main stream channels. Next year I would do a complete revamp of the iHeartradio jury which had a bias for Nashville-like performances. It has been refreshing to listen to Tenelle, AleXa, Grant, Ryder, etc. I’m hoping that next year, the producers will find the recipe to build excitement like the Eurovision has done (at least for a target audience).
Yeah, those judges were too biased and don’t have a clue what the actual viewers and listeners like anymore.
I meant Riker.
Nobody careeeees
You cared enough to comment.
Judging by the results the jury vote plays absolutely no part in the outcome of this whatsoever. Televoting is so heavily weighted. Yet another poorly thought out component of this complete farce of a show. I can’t see this concept lasting much longer. Congrats to Alexa though who was great
Airplay for a week IIRC, and actual performance slot at Billboard Music Awards.
And Eurovision winners only got a handshake from Osterdahl.
Ugh the trophy is pretty similar to ours and doesn’t look so bad really. Furthermore it visually conveys Eurovision’s tradition.
Don’t care about this.
They why bother to comment ? lol…
I love Eurovision but had to watch ASC no matter how others liked or disliked it. At least the ASC didn’t have failed staging like the Sun in Turin ??
Exactly. To be honest, I’m having a good laugh at the expense of the people who mocked ASC…who are now panicking about the staging in Turin.
Eurovision will forever feel a lot more special than ASC, even with the floppy stage.
from day one we knew she would win
Amazing! Now let’s stop caring about this sheetshow…
OK
Awful, Allen Stone with Washington had a much better song. No interest in watching again.
If I ever stop watching Eurovision when the best song loses, I’d have stop watching the show at 2011.
lol right? in pretty much every year, my favorite has lost and won of my least faves won hahaha
But he did not have the best song lol… he had the best voice and this is not the voice, there were plenty of better songs than his tbh… American Samoa for example
I know who was the favourite and now finally won the thing but I’ve had no interest in following ASC. And I probobly never will. And I’m from Sweden. Sorry Christer, but this was not the best idea imo. It will never ever be as good as ESC, because America.. well.. is America. American’s have their own criterias for how contests and shows are supposed to be. Big and bombasic with hosts that look so fake with shiny white teeth. I could go on and on. I don’t like american shows 😀
That’s a lot of opinion for someone who doesn’t watch the show. Thanks for the constructive criticism, I guess. ?
and why are you so mad with Americans? lol….
I can’t express myself how I want here, but I just can’t stand some things about America.
I wonder when we’ll find out if it’ll happen again
It’s May sweeps period in the US so whether we hear any news of its renewal or cancelation will likely coincide with NBC’s annual drop of announcements about its new and returning shows.
Also a likelihood that they could silently make an announcement about its fate at a later date.
Oh one more thing, ASC producers – LET WEST COAST PEOPLE WATCH THE SHOW LIVE. Thanks!
HEY!! What happened? You got the delayed telecast out West, and you got word of the outcome even before CA, OR and WA televised the show?
If that was the case, a monumentally sloppy move for Bjorkman and NBC. It’s late-morning in Australia, and they get the ESC live! If NBC didn’t telecast the ASC live out West, I’m not surprised. Some people in those boardrooms here are just too lazy or stingy to make any changes, whether it’s the simplest of moves or a hard move that is necessary.
We’ve been talking about poor viewership ever since the show premieres. I think they did the right thing by not showing the show live coast-to-coast because even if they do, only a handful will watch it anyway.
completely agree, the timeshifting completely destroyed the pace of the contest. Hearing only of the qualifiers when you’re focused on the next qualifiers made most of the show kinda disinteresting. Broadcasting live to the whole country at once would drive interest.
The Pacific territories would have had the show airing at late morning live. They’re the most inconvenienced.
But by then they would have known who the winner was HOURS before the broadcast. That would prompt many would-be viewers, who were fans of another contender, to tune out. Result: Low viewership.
Hence the way they have their voting windows open for a couple of days across several platforms. With a country as large and widespread as the United States, it takes some maneuvering to get everyone involved, unlike most American competition shows that allows public, it tends to be exclusive to the mainland plus Alaska and Hawaii (and sometimes Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands).
Other than sporting events, very few shows get live coast to coast presentation. ASC is no Oscars or Superbowl, unlike Eurovision which has become a cultural institution over 60+ years. Also, unlike Eurovision, there was no months of build up, no state (national) finals to select a state’s entry. For most Americans it was just another competition/game show they had never heard of, with hosts they’ve seen too much of.
NBC can’t do that. The local affiliates in the Mountain and Pacific time zones wouldn’t put up with it. That’s their local newscast/syndication time, when they make most of their profits.
An American’s opinion here. Congratulations to Oklahoma and AleXa. The song could be more memorable, but no doubt it was a great performance. I really never got the jury or fan support for Washington, so while the jury-televote split would in most contexts be absurd, honestly I’m thankful for it this time around. And that’s accepting that the televote did bury Tennessee, which I actually enjoyed despite the lyrics being a bit unremarkable. Next time, the 50/50 jury/televote split would make sense provided that the jury at all knew what they were doing. The jury needs fewer iHeartRadio people, and… Read more »
Alexas performance did not look it was live, was it live?
Allen Stone’s performance wasn’t live. He was out for personal reasons and they had to pull an Iceland maneuver with pre-recorded footage.
The performance was live. 97% of the audible vocals were not.
For being the first edition and given how big and complex the US is, I think they did a good job adapting the format and putting on the show.
Moreover, I kind of expected Alexa to win. I like her song and I’d like it to make it to the BB Hot 100, but the televote exaggeratedly overpowering the jury vote was quite jarring nonetheless lol
10 jury scores vs. 56 televote scores was a lopsided result in the making (15.2% vs. 84.8%). Had there been 56 jury scores, against 56 televote scores, the winning score would have been over 1,000, with the margin somewhat closer, given all the 12-point jury scores Allen Stone had.
I’d like to see how each state and territory voted individually in the jury category, before they were combined into several regions.
Expectable and I’m totally ok with it, despite Washington, my favorite, finishing only just 5th. 🙂
What’s the point of even having a jury if the televote just massively overpowers it?
Part of the prize is that the winning song will be played on the radio. It will be awkward I guess if a song which is not the most popular ends up winning and everyone will be forced to listen to it.
I’m gonna double down on my comment lol.
ASC producers, if y’all reading this–I think the heats should have even 50% jury-50% public voting. The semis 25% jury-75% public voting. And the finale should be purely public voting.
Wait I thought this was tomorrow!?!? AleXa won!? HELL YES! I’M SO HAPPY!! I hope they could fly her to Turin as an interval act! : )
I don’t hope so. For me interval acts are there to show the organizing country.
That’s laudable, but with rehearsals now over in Turin and the semi-finals starting, there’d be no way for the folks on the ground in Turin to prepare for that performance.
This was a little watched, poorly executed production made by Swedes who have no sense of what drives American interest and tastes. This was a mess right down to the lopsided victor who just galvanized the k-pop fandom in the US. They are small but rabid.
Based on recent televotes in Eurovision, Swedes don’t have much more sense of what drives European interest and tastes either. 😉
Well since the new voting system was introduced in 2016 Sweden has been top 10 with televoters 2016, 2017 and 2019 and last year they just missed out and ended up 11th in the televoting (and was more popular with televoters than the jury groups) so I don’t see how that is doing poorly with the European public?
Well, she’s literally a k-pop idol, I don’t know what else could’ve happened lol. But she has every right to be in the ASC, being a born and raised American so… K-pop fans behind her or not, she did well and deserved the win. And I’m saying this, considering she isn’t really a big name in k-pop so I honestly don’t think that there were that many fans voting for her.
I enjoyed he show, for as much as the stream I’m watching i from was able. I liked how they deliver the points, and as I suspected, they divided the delivery of the jury points according to region. I htink the right song won and the right song deservedly placed last. Whether this comes back for another season is now in NBC’s hands but regardless whether it is renewed or not, ASC got me introduced to a new slew artists to check out in the future. And Alexa reportedly gets to perform at the BBMA’s so that’s nice on top… Read more »
I think her song also gets to be used for a t-mobile commercial and I also heard her song will be added to JustDance 2023 but, idk if that part is true or not.
A worthy first (a hopefully not the only) winner of American Song Contest.
Let’s fly her to Turin this weekend. We need some Kpop in ESC, stat.
please, not that way. I think there’s some Korean diaspora in Europe, most notably Germany. I remember one Korean-descent contestant taking part in The Voice of Germany.
She might have her shot at the Finale, I guess
Unfortunately she can’t. She has to be on the billboard awards in 15 and eurovision final is on 14. Probably she will get 30 seconds of act and 30 seconds of speech in some interval.
The timing just didn’t work out. In an ideal world with more spacing between the two contests, we would’ve had Måneskin perform at the ASC final instead of that one country singer, and AleXa would’ve got to be an interval act at ESC.
But unfortunately we couldn’t have that work out. The most I seeESC doing is MAYBE showing the recording of AleXa’s performance at some point
If the USA were to ever participate in ESC they better internally select AleXa ASAP
No we don’t need K-pop in general. Only BTS is worth it all others are manufactured puppets with meaningless dated recycled construction noise. Even worse a bad copy or American creation like this ASC winner.
Oh, yes, and you know that because you’ve tried listening to every existing k-pop group? It’s funny when I see people praising BTS and only BTS. They aren’t the only self-producing group but even then, they haven’t had as much creative freedom as you’d think in the last couple years. It was a mistake for them to resign their contract because HYBE is now using them as money making machines and nothing else.
Alexa WON!!! SO happy about that!
the show, if its second edition is planned, should follow the Eurovision tradition of having the winning state as the host state of the following edition/season. based on that, the 2023 edition/season of American Song Contest should surely have the finale (and hopefully also the semifinals) held in Oklahoma as the winning state. Oklahoma has Paycom Center and BOK Center as potential venues to hold the semifinals and the finale. the qualifiers, tho, can still be held in a studio or, if they really want to go HUGE next edition/season, they can make the qualifiers be a nationwide tour a… Read more »
WTF is wrong with the voting? I didn’t watch the show, but I looked up the results afterwards. It seems that the public vote had much more points to give than the juries. I read here on Wiwibloggs that the producers combined the juries to form 10 regions while televoters in all 56 states/territories still could give points independently. Why the heck would they do that? Why did they change the 50/50 voting system from the heats and semis? Did Björkman get cold feet over the fact that a boring country song could win and therefore kill the chances of… Read more »
The 56-member national jury was divided into several voting regions as it would be too long to have each juror announce their points for the final, which is only 2-hours long.
Part of undertaking an adaptation is determining if any aspect of a format has to undergo changes due to various factors in the local TV landscape so a simple copy+paste is not possible. So we ended up with a voting system that varies per round.
This can be worked going forward but that is if the show is renewed.
The odd stuff would definitely not come from Björkman. He only had a role rather as an advisor. He couldn’t influence much on some of the bizarre decisions
This has been a fun event overall! There’s obviously room for improvement, but for a first edition I’d say this has been a success. Well deserved winner too! Taste is of course subjective but the consensus seems to be Wonderland was the best song and imo it was.
I’ll say this though, the juries need to lay off the crack. Were they trying to sabotage this thing on purpose?
Oklahoma is getting so much hate in the American Song Contest Facebook group. Most members in that group seems to be Americans who have almost no basic grasps regarding the Eurovision Song Contest.
I’m writing this considering the fact that there seems to be a huge disparity of favoritism towards Oklahoma between the typical Eurovision fans and the Americans who have just heard of ESC and ASC.
As a long-time fan of Eurovision, seeing the haters’ reaction towards the winner is arguably the best part for me. I might go and check out that FB group…
It seems like most of the hateful comments and posts have been deleted/moderated by the admin considering that there are relatives of the competing artists in that group.
That’s disappointing (and also understandable).
Well, that’s a sensible measure
To my taste, Kentucky was best – sparrow is an inspiring song and this guy can flat sing!!! What vocals!
Ok This is over and Oklahoma took the trophy. Well deserved.
What was weird is how different the Jury and the Public voted. If Eurovision has show this before, American Song Contest is even weirdest!
Public vote has much more impact.
Colorado was last in the Jury but second for the Audience. He ended Second.
Texas was very low in teh Jury also and ended third.
Washington was fist with the Jury and ended seventh with tyhe public…
Weird!
Not weird. The distribution was a lopsided 84.8% for the televote (3,238 points available), against 15.2% for the jury (580 available). 56 televote territories against 10 jury regions. Had they continued to give each of the 56 jurors a scorecard for this final (in which case, there would have been 3,238 jury points available and an even 50-50 split), the outcome would have been different; and I suspect it would have been a nail-biter.
The Televote results were almost the results of the total outcome. At least the top 4 and the bottom 3 were identical. Just places 5th, 6th and 7th changed.
I totally agree with the Jury’s voting, not America’s.
Thank God that this contest had Oklahoma in it because if you took it out, you’d have an ALL-TIME bad top five for any sort of song contest right now.
I’ll say it, Oklahoma saved the ASC.
Congratulations Alexa you angel
What drugs were those juries on. Thank God that public had 75% of say. Congratulations Oklahoma!!
Oh I’m of the opposite opinion, the public vote (apart from Oklahoma) was awful. The juries did a much better job.
From what I’m seeing right now, it looks like 80% televote, 20% jury. I think Oklahoma wins with this format.
Need I say more? AleXa just won.
What they did was combine several states into regions, and that region gets only one scorecard. If the states were separate, just as they were during the heats, the outcome would have been quite different.
They need to simplify this if there’s a second season of this. It’s been impossible to keep up with the voting changes between each of the different rounds.
It needs to be 50-50, the way MelFest and ESC are. The outcome would have been very different if EACH of the 56 jurors were given a scorecard, instead of several jurors being combined into regions.
Maybe the juries need to be abolished honestly, this was embarrassing.
Something they should have thought about BEFORE the contest started. In MelFest, it is all 100% televote until they get to the final, where it is 50-50.
Having all 56 states announce their points separately would only prolong the show so they had to be grouped.
Then they should have either made this a 3-hour show, or revealed the sum total of all the points given by all of the jurors in each region, instead of giving the each region a single card.
That is unusual for US TV. A three-hour primetime show would usually be the likes of annual events such as the Superbowl, the Olympics, other sporting events and the Oscars.
Even the higher-rated competition shows such as Survivor, Big Brother and American Idol can only air 2-hour installments at a maximum.
By US TV standards, this works best and flows better than having casual viewers who are not familiar with Eurovision sit for an hour to see the results slowly trickling in.
Not unusual. We have awards shows that go on for 3 hours or longer, and they will sit for that extended time to wait for the biggest award of the night.
I’ve already cited the Oscars i my post above.
Basically apples to oranges.
Grouping the states/territories to regions for the final was more or less part of the plan from the start because having each state to announce their points would last past the show’s 2-hour airtime.
I think, if given the chance, they should really rethink the formation of the jury vote. It’s obvious now tha we had a breakdown of votes in the final that despite the state affiliation of each of the 56 jurors, they all have similar tastes, making for a very homogenous vote.
And here it is: The states were combined into 10 regions, each getting a scorecard. The maximum number of points available was 580. Each state and territory got a scorecard; and with 56 in all, the maximum number of points available from the televote was 3,238.
The total number of points available was 3,818; but it was lopsided (by far) in favor of the televote; 84.8% to 15.2% for the jury. That’s how AleXa won.
What would have happened if each state/territory got a separate scorecard, and the decision was 50-50?
Addendum to the first paragraph…
FOR THE TELEVOTE, each state and territory got a scorecard.
From a quick look at all the points and evening them out for a jury-televote split (where we assume Juries are equally weighted by dividing televote points by ~5.58) Alexa would have still won, although it would’ve been close.
As happy as I am Alexa won, the voting system throughout the entire event was obtuse and confusing, which does little to add credibility to the first edition of the event.
Spain uses a system that gets 50% of the total score from the expert jury, 25% from a “demoscopic” jury and only 25% from the televoters. There was a time (up until 2016) when Malta used a lopsided system, where 83.3% of the total score came from the jury.
Oklahoma would’ve won REGARDLESS… and probably with a 50-50 Allen Stone would’ve been 2nd
Having watched these 10 performances my top 3 are:
12 points Texas
10 points Oklahoma
8 points Tennessee
Honorable mentions: Alabama and Wasahington
I feel sorry for Michael Bolton. Time to proudly retire so he can be remembered as the great star he is.
I mean, he doesn’t need to retire…he still sings great. I don’t even mind him doing campy shows like this and the Masked Singer since he said that he’s saying yes to a lot more things that sound like “fun” now (and after the career he’s had, definitely deserved).
I think he should try to do songs that are a bit more true to what Michael Bolton is all about though. This one (Beautiful World) started off well, but then turns into a typical, weak, Scandi-production-style puddle of mehness. Jewell had the same problem with her song, too tbf.