For the first time in Eurovision history, viewers from non-participating countries were given a chance to vote during the song contest. The so-called Rest of World vote was calculated as a single country, giving artists lucky enough to be loved a top up of points. Israel’s Noa Kirel proved to be the big winner, nabbing 12 points from the Rest of the World in both Semi-Final 1 and the grand final with her song “Unicorn.” Here’s how things shook out…
Israel wins Rest of World Vote during the Eurovision 2023 grand final
Grand final vote – Rest of World
12 Israel
10 Finland
8 Armenia
7 Sweden
6 Albania
5 Ukraine
4 Norway
3 Croatia
2 Spain
1 France
During the grand final, Israel’s Noa Kirel placed fifth in the public vote. That accounts for the public voting in the other 36 participating countries plus the Rest of World vote.
But if we look at the RoW slice of that, Israel actually won the day — outperforming public vote winner Finland (who came second with RoW).
Armenia’s Brunette did extremely well with the rest of the world as well, placing third (despite coming 13th overall in the public vote)
Eurovision 2012 and 2023 winner Loreen from Sweden placed fourth in the RoW vote (she came second in the overall public vote).
Semi-Final 1 vote — Rest of World
12 Israel
10 Finland
8 Latvia
7 Sweden
6 Portugal
5 Czechia
4 Moldova
3 Croatia
2 Serbia
1 Malta
Israel also topped the public vote for the Rest of the World during Semi-Final 1. Once again she beat Finland’s Käärijä, who won the semi-final but finished second with the RoW.
Sweden’s Loreen — who placed second overall in this semi — came fourth with Rest of World here, just like she did in the semi-final.
Latvia, who sadly finished 11th overall, managed to come third with the global RoW audience.
Semi-Final 2 vote — Rest of World
12 Albania
10 Armenia
8 Austria
7 Australia
6 Slovenia
5 Belgium
4 Lithuania
3 Iceland
2 Estonia
1 Georgia
In Semi-Final 2, Albania’s Albina and Familja Kelmendi topped the Rest of World vote. That’s a huge improvement on their overall televote score in the semi-final (where they ranked 9th).
Armenia’s Brunette placed sixth in the overall public vote in this semi, but managed to come second with RoW.
What do you think explains Israel’s success in the Rest of World vote? And what explains Australia’s failure? Let us know down below…
what are the rankings in the ROW vote from 11 till last?
Sweden – It was amazing let’s be honest! next level.. Finland – It is Crazy & Party, well deserve. Israel – She is.. OMG! everything about that was professional! great result! Italy – This man is just a dream’ the vocal the looks.. so emotional! Norway – she is queen of kings! WONDERFUL performance! I am very happy for Israel, Especially due to the fact that they didn’t qualify for the finals last year. When Israel takes the competition seriously, sends good singers and good songs and invests money in the performances, they achieves amazing results! Hopefully a good representative… Read more »
From California and all my votes went to Sweden only.
Great taste!
I have some queries and thoughts. 1) Is there any way we can see the demographic/geographical breakdown from which countries people voted for the participating countries in the 3 shows for ‘the rest of the world’? It would be interesting to know. Also how many voted? 2) I am curious to know , how much people voting in participating countries, paid for their votes by phone? The rest of the world’s vote cost was 0.99 Euros per vote. More affluent people would have voted because of the cost. This is indeed expensive. 3) Looking at the results we can see… Read more »
There’s only 37 televotes too. San Marino don’t have one, but still somehow managed to give 12 to Finland. That’s fine, though, nobody complains about that.
thanks, still a little confusing but not important now the show is over. If you count the number of countries voting in the first part there are 37 juries. In the second part the public vote there are 36 televoting countries and then san marino’s jury or what seems to be an aggregate score from them and then the rest of the world. The total is 38. My maths tell me its 49% jury , 51% televoting (including san marinos juries scores and rest of the world. This isn’t balanced to be honest. And a little biased for Sweden, but… Read more »
I’ve never really been too concerned about an exact 50/50. When televoting first came in, only about seven countries used it. Even after televoting came in fully, there still needed to be the occasional back-up jury used.
Just wondering: How does Kosovo vote? Do Kosovan televotes combine with Serbian votes usually or do Kosovo have a seperate telesystem and therefore eligible for the Rest-Of-the-World vote?
Kosovo has it’s own country code, so Kosovo can’t actually vote by telephone as a non-participant. The North Side of Kosovo might still have the Serbian country code 381 and thus be able to vote as Serbia but in general, Kosovo is not eligible.
What kind of question is that. This has nothing to do with the Serbian country
RoW vote was all done via the internet, either by app or a website. The EBU used IP tracing to determine if the voter was in a qualifying area.
I think I understand your question. Many people in Kosovo would have voted via the app as ‘rest of the world’ because Kosovo telecom provider is attached (interestingly) to Monaco’s server. Monaco is not a participating country. There are several internet providers in Kosovo, attached to either Monaco (the main one), Slovenia (2nd main one) and of course other affiliated to Serbia. Kosovo does not have its own domain yet, because of its international recognition. This must have contributed to the fact Albania won the rest of the world voting in the 2nd semi final and 5th in the final.… Read more »
Thank you for the most explanatory reply. This was what I was wondering yes.
Kosovo is not tied to Serbia, that would be against its independence. They vote as Rest of World, just as I voted from New Zealand.
I think it would’ve been nice to see a clip or something about the RoW voting during the shows. I also was expecting something like a map with little beating hearts at the places where the votes were coming from (idk if it was possible to know).
Israel’s rotw vote could also be explained by how it has a very Kpop vibe in music and visuals and the genre is huge in Asia
Given the timezone difference I doubt many Asian fans would be waking up at 4am to vote for a kpop style song, similar reason to how Reiley flopped in the ROTW televote despite his Korean fans
Their votes came from the USA and Russia mainly . Massive diaspora/affiliation/dual nationality in both countries.
Russia was not eligible to vote. And in Usa there is much bigger diaspora of other countrys , israel is a small country and in the usa there are less then 1 million israelis. even if you count all jewish people in the world- there are like 15 million only. So i dont think this would be the main reason.
I’m honestly curious if there was a case before for a winning entry to not receive a single douze points from the public. I mean, since 12 points were introduced, obviously. Somewhat I think Loreen has made history with that too.
Bc she is icon SND she changed Contest in 2012 🙂
Interesting. When the jury helped Norway in 2014, 2015 and 2017 they didn’t say a single bad word about the jury system.
Why do some countries only have 4 jurors instead of 5? (Latvia and Ireland for example?)
They seem to be the only two. Maybe Juror No. 5 tested positive for Covid, or came down with some other illness. They all watch together in a locked room at their broadcaster, I think.
This makes expanding the jury a problem, because if a lot of small population countries can’t even fill a five person limit, how can they fill it with 10 or jurors?
Maybe there should be a back-up jury on standby.
Who will back up the back-up jury?
AI
Just let AI decide all the future results and then we can pettily discuss it each year.
I will. 😛
It’s good to volunteer…
As tribute?
There were 12 jurors in the pre televote era so ghat is of NO problem.
Different rules for jurors back then. Then it was stated to be a representative sample of the population, not just music industry professionals.
I swear we had more jurors in our national selection (irish btw)
I just remembered that Cazzi Opeia is now a Eurovision winner.
Oh yes! For co-writing “Tattoo.” Wow, congrats!
She’s also an American Song Contest winner, she co-wrote AleXa’s “Wonderland”
I’m just curious, so if you’d like to share… how many times to you all vote? Do you use up all twenty on just one song, or spread it out over you few favourites?
Do
Your
I used all my votes, but I did spread them out among a few different acts. I’m not decisive enough to spam like that. Lol
I voted for my top 5, and twice for my number one
Same
In the final, my votes went 5-4-4-2-1-1-1-1-1. I didn’t have it planned out like in the semis. I just threw everybody I loved a vote.
Thanks, all. I was actually surprised when I first realized that people voted the max 20 times.
I’m surprised that surprised you.
Perhaps even more surpising to consider, some people have more than one smartphone, and possibly a landline as well, giving at least a max of 40 or 60 votes.
I knew some people did, some passionate stans, but I didn’t realise it is the norm.
Because of the cost of voting where I am (.99 Euro is about $1.50 in Canadian dollars), I started slow, putting 4 votes per semifinal (2 each on Switzerland and Netherlands in SF1, 2 each on Belgium and Slovenia in SF2). But because I had the money to pull it off, I used all 20 of my votes for the final (10 each on Belgium and France)
How does Albania have such a big diaspora vote? Such a small country and I don’t assume so many Albanians are spread over the world? Or is their song the taste of the world ..
That big vocal at the begining might have gained some traction with the muslim grandparent demographic who would recognize that as very traditional-sounding for Arabic music as well. So it might not be specifically the Albanian diaspora that snagged the votes. Not to mention people might have thought the whole family being on stage was sweet regardless of nationality.
I also cast a couple votes in thier direction and I’m the sort of American that isn’t anything diaspora at this point. I just thought Eurofans underrated the song and wanted them to qualify.
Exactly as you mentioned. The big vocals at the beginning and even the instruments used in the song are so native to the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa, that she probably picked up some votes from those regions.
quick wikipedia search tells me a good number live in Turkey, a country that would be more familiar with Eurovision compared to most other non-competitors.
Personally I thought it was mid-tier for the finals but I can understand how it might otherwise have appeal to some people though
I’m not Albanian but I am diaspora of a neighboring country, and I voted for it. Not in the final, but I did in the semi-final.
Albania does have a large diaspora, across Western Europe mainly. 1.5 million who migrated from Albania, and then we also have Kosovo, where some of the internet providers are attached to Slovenia’s phone network in Kosovo; hence this is why Slovenia gave 12 points in the semi-final and 7 in the final.
There are more Albanians outside of Albania than there are in Albania. In neighbouring Kosovo, 92% of its 1.8 million citizens are Albanian. In neighbouring North Macedonia, 24% of the population is Albanian. In Greece, 450,000-600,000 Albanians reside. In Italy, another 600,000+. Not to mention the over 1 million of Albanian ancestry in Turkey. And the rest of the world. They have a large diaspora and one of the largest out of Europe.
I’m wondering about the diaspora votes why is it working in some countries but not in others? Denmark has a large Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish diaspora, but I think the majority of Danes votes for these countries anyway, and more often Sweden than Iceland even though there are more Icelanders. There are as many icelanders living in Denmark as the population of Reykjavik. Then there is the large Polish diaspora but Poland never gets any points from Denmark, but UK and Germany almost always give points to Poland and blame the diaspora. Then there is the large German minotity leaving… Read more »
Diaspora votes rely a lot on how people are raised, Germany and Turkey would be good examples for this with their 80 million populations each: Germany had a strong nationalistic hold on it’s people, but after the WW2 these views turned into shame and it’s almost seen criminal to praise your own country’s effors, like an ESC entry. Northern-European culture isn’t so much into public shows of affectiong and such and being modest seems common for most. Turkish dispora isn’t anything new, and that is solely the reason why they got their best results on the 00s, children are raised… Read more »
OFF TOPIC: Israel is considering choosing the singer “Mergui” to represent Israel in Eurovision 2024. He is Noa Kirel’s Ex….Israel loves drama! hahaha
You can listen to his song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__tkmSPJdp8
Isn’t this the singer who was beated by Netta in Hashir whatever thing ?
If was in charge , i’d choose Agam Buhbut (Not considering Anna Zak bc she can’t sing)
That’s the one. Both Agam and Anna lack the charisma to win I think. I’d personally love Israel to send an ethnic pop entry with Miri Mesika who will destroy the stage
You know , it could be still ethnic but a ballad this time? (They’ve been sending ethnic pop for years) Nasreen Qadri could do that. A big name , powerful vocalist , Arab roots etc..
She’s a wonderful singer. Unfortunately, this will never happen, not in the foreseeable future.
Why , because she’s too big for ESC ? I don’t think so.. Because of her ethnicity ?
He was Israel’s second choice if Noa would have said No to Eurovision. So, no surprise and no drama. He came 2nd in Israel NF 2018, too?
He actually won the public vote in the NF but the judges preferred Netta, because they thought she will bring more uniqueness to the contest and has a better chance to stand out.
How many viewers watched Eurovision in total this year ? Do we have any data ?
Honestly, my favorite was Finland and I still thought that Sweden will win. Funny, but true. Just like majority of people who wanted Finland to win, I was very optimistic about his performance and viewers reaction to the same. And I hoped Loreen will somehow struggle and finish below him in the rankings. I am still happy for her victory, and I am glad she is now the second person to win twice and I am happy Sweden is now sharing the most victories record with Ireland. But I would be more happy for Finland. Not trying to hide that.… Read more »
Oh, that would be interesting to see! I doubt those votes will be released though, as they weren’t ultimately used.
Guys, the British diaspora in Canada alone is bigger than the whole Jewish diaspora all together. So give this silly theory a rest, the actual numbers won’t support it.
Also, in comparison to many other countries, Israel has zero regional/ethnic allies that traditionally spoil it with point regardless of the song they are sending. So getting mad over a one time thing unbased theory in this context is kinda hypocritical
I’m surprised there’s no points to Italy from the RoW.
Latvia deservedly got 8 points in semi 1
As to why Australia only got 21 points from the public after winning the semi final must be due to the much greater audience who are not regular fans of eurovision and they do not vote for Australia as it is not in Europe. It should have been explained by the presenters before the vote. The diehard ESC fans who vote in semis mostly understand and came to terms with Australias contribution after initial reluctance, years ago.
I hope we, Australia, are invited again for next year. We need to know soon, why not tell us.
I hope you’re back too! I’m sure you will be 🙂
Until today “why Australia is in Eurovision” still in mind of a lot people, so i get that’s why they always have poor televote point…
Kate Miller scored 131 points in the grand final, dami im also did extremely well. I think Australia did poorly with the audience because they were now facing far stronger competition than in the semi, where they also had a perfect spot in the running order.
And if only diehard fans voted in the semis, Georgia would have qualified.
Both Dami and Kate would have gotten 100 points more if they were representing a European country. 200 more if Sweden lol.
However Australia is happy without win in top 10. We could not host it anyway according to agreement.
True though.
2019 is because we had exceptional staging with a very televote friendly performance- enough to get over the “we’re not Europe” thing. Also in 2016 there was still the novelty of Australia being brand new to the contest
The fact that Dami only scored less than 200 points is a crime.
Sadly “Rest of the world” will be even more a diaspora vote. Give it a try for 2 more years and if the big diaspora countries always score highest even if they have unpopular entries overall, then remove them again. We ESC fans gave to become more militant and demand a say.
It is another cash vow for EBU.
That’s always been a problem with the televote. It’s probably the biggest reason why neighbouring countries vote for each other.
Yes, sure, because Latvia has HUGE diaspora in non participating countries and that got them 8 points in the semi
I want to keep on voting, waited 20 years to do so! My only bias, I admit, is San Marino (it’s in my ancestry). We only give 12 points, it’s not a big deal! Just please lower the price a bit for us Latin Americans, I could only afford 5 votes…
It most definitely is a cash cow for the EBU which is also why they willnever get rid of it. I personally don’t have a huge problem with it since it only totals one country in terms of votes but it should never be any more than that.
It´s half a country, we don´t have a jury. Our influence is minimal while giving us the opportunity to participate in some way.
exactly. For the people who complain about it, it just seems like the littlest thing they could possibly complain about for me. It’s especially ridiculous when they single out the ROTW as being Americans.
No, Americans aren’t going to mess up the results. They’re a small fraction of a small fraction.
What in the results exactly makes you think that? Unlike many of the entries, Israel’s was way more ‘American’ and accustomed to the ear of the general non-European listener who’s not familiar with Eurovision’s delightful quirkiness. Moreover, Noa Kirel’s career has already been on the path trying to achieve international pop star status before the Eurovision and she has already released quite a few singles in English and has a large following on social media (probably one of the largest amongt contestants if not the largest). Honestly, some of the automatic ‘Jews of the world united’ theories here don’t smell… Read more »
Do realise that if someone from the rest of the world is bothered enough to spend money to vote, than we are very likely someone who is pretty familiar with the contest, along with its quirks. Israel gets more votes from the world simply because it is catchy, sexy, and in English. It does not need an “American sound” to win. for if it does, Finland would not be second, and Albania won’t be winning the other semi-final. Sweden would have sounded like any typical American ballad, and no, she did not do that well with us either despite the… Read more »
Personally, I think she may have snagged a bunch of votes from East and South East Asia. The big dancebreak is reminiscent of trends among idols in that region in a way most of the other performances this year weren’t. China may have had their official broadcasting rights revoked, but I’m pretty sure they can watch on youtube. So that’s a lot of potential votes. Sure it would be very early in the morning for them, but the Australians are doing it, so why not?
I am so confused by the dig at Australia the end saying that we failed Wiwiblogs? Yes we didn’t make it onto the rest of the world vote in the grand final but I would consider that because of the others in Semi final 1 and the big 5 were added to the mix. We won our semi final fairly, I don’t think that as a failure, Voyager did us proud and we made the Top 10. Also I don’t understand how the rest of world vote translates into the final result because it was said that Malta got 0… Read more »
Voyager were absolutely fantastic!! Much to be proud of!
Yes very proud of them. So why did they say at the end of this article “what explains Australia’s failure”?
Because they won massively the televote in semi final and got only 21 televotes in final.
This has happened before. Alexander Ryback won his semi in 2018 and only placed 15th or something in the grand final. Kate Miller Heidke from Australia also won her semi in 2019 and came 09th in grand final and Destiny from Malta won her semi in 2021 and came 07th in the grand final.
To be fair Kate Miller Heidke was the highest placed SF1 qualifier that year.
Who cares what wiwi said 🙂 They were the real deal, their final performance brought them to be my 2nd favorite entry
malta didn’t get 0 points, but they got last in the semi final.
I stand corrected, I was wrong about Malta. I think I might have mixed up the scores from Semi 2 where some countries got 0.
what’s the delay with the ebu on releasing the full voting results?
I want to see who ranked 11th – 26 in each countries jury/televote!
They released it.
at this point to be honest i want to see 11-15/16th positions of each country in the semi final- something tells me Romania may have been last with all countries
As an Armenian, I’m so disgusted by reading some of comments on here. The fandom has gone from open-minded force to toxic trolls. Time for us to leave this contest. I haven’t even watched ESC this year (only some highlights). Haven’t followed influencers too due to constant hypocrisy and non-ability to criticise acts if they frankly believe the acts are bad.
Why are you commenting if you didn’t watch the show? Brunette was forgettable and she’s ranked 3rd in the RofTW voting? Diaspora votes, that’s what it is! Same for israel and Croatia, but at least Israel entry was fire.
Stop it. Brunette was great. Better than some songs that did better overall. Its not all about the results!
For the first time EVER the UK and Irish juries (or public) gave Armenia points (6&3 respectively). How would you explain that? I don’t say Brunette’s song was good, did I? I said just the opposite. But influencers were so positive about it that some Armenian youth and diaspora perhaps thought she is strong contender and need a little push-up. Had influencers been honest, expectations wouldn’t have flier high and that would have influenced their voting.
Wow, your examples really changed my mind about Brunette’s boring performance. Guess it wasn’t that annoying since the UK and Ireland voted for it.
I’m from the US and have no connection to Armenia but gave Brunette many votes because she was one of my favorites of the night… Some people just like different songs
And the ESC fandom being open-minded? What a joke. Those mtf all are narrow-minded and toxic. That’s not new.
You sound a bit toxic yourself now truth be told…
Yes I am. All the fandom is anyway.
Very toxic. I’m shocked how they went from Loreen’s diehard fans to haters. They don’t even care about being rude to anyone who has a different opinion. Gutted
I’m not a fan of Loreen. And I’m not hating. Armenia benefits votes from the Armenian diaspora all around Europe. Don’t play the ignorant guy, we all noticed it for years. They even rigged insignificant poll on Wiwibloggs just to put Armenia in the top, like Croats. That’s not new. That’s facts.
That’s just ludicrous. Many people care for esc, it’s not like Armenians are the only ones who care for Eurovision.
Their people more than the others. They’re very patriotic, just like Israelis. Whi can blame them to want their countries to shine internationally? No one I must say, but they’re rigging the results and should have really been.
Leave the fandom, not the contest. Eurovision is great, too bad some people take it as a channel to release aggressions and hate.
Why would gay people, who should know a thing or two about discrimination and bigotry, choose to express racism, antisemitism and xenophobia? who knows
Well at least the semi final 2 points went to Albania!
They seemed to give Albania and Spain a lot of their points! It would be interesting to know the demographic percentages of the viewers here? Are they all Eastern bloc countries not in Eurovision or is it mostly Americans?
I’m in the US (I am not latino though) and 5 of the 20 points i gave in the final were to Spain simply because I thought her song and performance were unique and impressive Maybe a little bit of that Spain vote can be chalked up to Latin America, but it’s also I think worth keeping in mind that people watching the show from non-participating countries are more like to be fandom people (like the types who frequent this website), and as you know our little fandom bubble sometimes has differing opinions from the general public (as explaining why… Read more »
About Albania it’s definitely because the Albanian diaspora is concentrated in non participating nations like Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, and Montenegro- and Albanians are REALLY passionate about Duje and it’s message so it makes sense they came out in droves to vote. They would probably get the 12 in the final if voting wasn’t so expensive compared to the incomes of those nations
The Albanian Diaspora does not include Kosovo or Macedonia. They are natively inhabited by Albanians. But Turkey, Montenegro, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and beyond, yes. They went out in full force.
Hi, I voted from Argentina for Spain, Italy, Czechia, Australia and France. Never in a million years I thought I would vote for Spain because I usually despise their entries but this year I thought they were fantastic and authentic. I would say Italy is an obvious choice for an Argentinian since the cultural affinity is strong. But honestly, I tried to go with the most honest impression, without any conscious bias. Maybe others did the same and just went with what they liked since we have no real horse in this race?
Does anybody know how many votes did they receive from ROTW?
Next year let’s call it Diaspora Vote
I disagree about Israel being so high but ROW voters literally have more taste than the average Eurovision jury voter.
And the televoters themselves. How can you rank Croatia higher than Spain? That’s nonsense
That’s why we need jury
At least my 20 euros-worth of votes for Spain paid off somewhat. Without the ROTW vote Blanca Paloma would have had 3 points… I thought Spain would be getting more points from ROTW because of Latin America, but maybe the contest hasn’t had much influence in the region (yet—if that spinoff is still happening).
For most of the Latín American countries it is expensive to vote .. That’s why she did not have more support
It’s very expensive! But regardless I wouldn’t necessarily count on the Latin-American vote always favoring Spain. I´ve been watching for 20 years and only this year I chose Spain as one of my favorites (finally they were authentic).
This comment just shows to me that winning the televote is not necessarily the public choice. Just that they have the most passionate fans, who are prepared to spend money on multiple votes. At least jurors can only vote once.
That’s why we have juries. They just need to be bigger and only pick 10 songs not rank all of them.
I agree. Broadcasters should also be careful about picking suitable people, with actual experience in music. That’s what the juries should represent – expert knowledge. The public vote represents popularity. The two things are not the same, and shouldn’t be. I’ve never understood why people have issue with this.
This notion of juries having ‘actual experience of music’ is blurry though. Quite often, juries feature radio DJs and former Eurovision entrants. These aren’t people with PhDs in music, or necessarily people who can play an instrument, sing, or produce a hit themselves. There are also plenty of people in the music industry with very little actual experience of music, and some jurors have been retired professionals with much less expereicen of, and relevance to, contemporary music. At the same time, plenty of viewers have as good an experience and understanding of music as to jury members, and probably in… Read more »
Why should “contemporary” be the metric? It’s a family show, this includes grandpa. Put him on the jury. If he’s suitable. What I would like is a range of ages, styles, experience. Orchestra members, professors, club DJs, opera, theatre, composers, concert pianists, producers, music critics, jazz players, gospel choirists, and anybody else with a good grasp of what talent is. Maybe each in different decades of their lives, a bit like the 1970s system of one juror under 25, one over. Strict instructions from the EBU to only judge the song. Not the vocals, not the costumes, not the staging.… Read more »
Why is the public vote considered the “real” result by so many people? In the days before the contest, people were saying stuff like “I’m giving all my votes to X”, so to me that should really be considered to view of just one person, not twenty.
In summation, Glory to Loreen! Praise be! A rightful winner.
Praise be, indeed!
Is this your pitch to be on a jury?
2024 rules. Half televote, half Jonas.
Come on, grandpa!
I sometimes wonder how old people here think I am.
Why do you wonder about that?
It’s not something I often think about, and not out of any sort of insecurity. I’m just occasionally curious as to how I come across. I don’t care if people think I’m a hundred.
It’s not the first time you’ve wondered about how you come across. As for being a hundred, I’d have even more questions for you Jonas if you were 🙂
Lys Assia would be a hundred on her next birthday.
Sweet Lys and her sweet sweet lists.
Many grandpa’s probably grew up with Led Zeppelin or Donna Summer or whatever each countries equivalents are. Being old doesn’t mean it’s accordion music, ballads etc.
And that’s will less than “do it for your lava” (5p)
As a Latin American (Mexican), I don’t think the price was the issue. I know the concept of cheap/expensive is extremely subjective, but 0.99€ for 1 vote (which is under 20 Mexican pesos) is really not that much. I believe the reason why Spain didn’t massive points from Latin America is simply because most people here have never even heard of Eurovision before, or they think it’s just a Will Ferrell movie. I myself have never met anyone here in Mexico City who knows and follows the contest. I assume that most of the ROTW vote consisted of non-participating European… Read more »
You just have to see Armenia that high in this poll to know it is riggued. RoTW voting is a bad idea.
I am from El Salvador and dont have any relation or connection with Armenia , my votes went to Brunette (and Finland/Australia/Germany) because I loved her song from the very first time I heard it
So Israel will now have like a new neighbor with 10/12 free points guarantee
I wouldn’t be so sure, I think it’s just because it’s Noa.
I think it might be a mix of diaspora and hardcore eurofans. I think a large portion of rest of the world voters were eurofans. I would not have any other explanation for Latvia getting 8 than the fact that there were a lot of fans saying they will give all their votes to Latvia. Latvia does not have a huge diaspora in the non participating countries. Maybe in the US, but I do not think many of them watch Eurovision, as most of them are children and grandchildren of Latvians who emigrated during world war two.
There aren’t even that many Israelis abroad compared to other countries with much bigger populations… the song was probably popular?
Could it also be possible that the beauty pageant fans voting in Asia and Latin America voted for Noa because they remember her as the opening performer for Miss Universe 2021?
She performed at Miss universe? I didn’t know that.
She was, she performed the opening number https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEVZ2CE8oeM
Noa is the runner up of tele 12 points. Maybe they just liked the song? Like many other televoters and jurors that positioned her in 3rd place
There aren’t many Israelis but there are many Jews. That’s the key. Jews will back Israel. In America alone there’s like 5 million, close to the Israeli population of Jews.
So pleased to read that Belgium was the highest placed country in the final from SF2. Well done Gustaph great song great performance
My beef with ROTW vote is that I live in a non participating country, I can vote in 2 SFs but if I live in a participating country, I can only vote in 1 SF. I don’t understand that logic.
The rest of the world have no conflicted interests, they can’t vote tactically. I’m not sure, but that could be it.
also ROTW lacks a jury vote in the final (the jury obviously has tons of problems, but still).
Also the amount of people voting in the ROTW is probably less than people might think? I’d love the see the numbers on that actually
I agree. This is ridiculous.
Turkish said it 11 years ago
Turkey only says it since they relied on diaspora votes, like Russia.
We need juries, but we can’t have them like this, where 4-5 people have as much worth giving out points as a whole country.
Either larger juries or reduced power, personally I’d like larger juries such as 10-15 people in each.
My country would’ve qualified too , if juries weren’t removed from the semi finals.
Let me just express my deep respect for the effort Iceland is making in Eurovision. For such a small population, the number of talented musicians you have is incredible. I wish you a long awaited Eurovision victory soon!
Let’s be honest though- Iceland was nowhere near Estonia in the semi final rankings and we do not know how Power would have done with jurors. I doubt you would have qualified when the only song I could realistically see you overtaking would be Duje
How can you know that?
Why People think that having more jurors would change anything ? It’s magic, the EBU selected the only right 5 people that loved Sweden. The 5 more would have all ranked Finland 1st and Sweden no points ??
5 more juries could be from different fields/genres to finally bring some diversity. But yeah I fear it would just continue to be bias towards bland English pop and ballad for instance. Having different age groups too could be good. But looking how some countries didn’t even bother sending 5 juries this year, I doubt they would change anything…
well to be honest it’s not like it’s any different for Norway- their niche for the last few years has been sending songs made to appeal to televoters especially after the 2016 NQ. No wonder the HoD says this
The real crime of the juries this year was all the points given to Unicorn. Thank God the Nordic televotes were there to balance things out.
Technically Israel’s performance was very strong – her vocals and dancing were excellent. Given that, a better question would be how could some juries NOT give her higher points!? Some juries gave her no points, which is actually mind blowing!
Tastes are individual. In my world, unicorns don’t have much power. So the lyrics are just as silly as any other joke act. Then she makes a looser sign “L” on her forehead as a signature. Does she understand it’s silly? Is she embracing sillyness? It doesn’t work for me at least.
Its silly when you dont look at the subtext…
Unicorn does represent things even if its not a real animal…for example big high tech companies are named unicorns….so its not somthing that was not done before, using the name unicorn to describe an idea, you just dont want to open your mind, which is fine, you dont have to
HAHAHAHA in your world? Are you living in a different world? are unicorns not unique in your world? no metaphors? such a childish reaction. “In my world bla bla bla and therefore I totally discard all her perfect performance”
They judge the song as well, not just vocals and dancing.
Unicorn was the best show of the evening by far. Noa Kirel was amazing. All on point: Vocals, dancing, staging.. What are you even talking about? Maybe *YOU* didn’t like the song, but saying that it was a “crime” haha well, please relax and drink some water. Apparently, the people at home think differently 🙂
I agree Noa performed well. I talked about the “song” – hente Unicorn, not Noa. The composition is a mess. Sounds like quaters of four different songs put radomly together plus a dance section. Oddly enough the dance section was the part they used to highligt in the recap. I find that weird in a song contest. Also the people “at home” in the north (where I live) clearly wasn’t impressed. No points from Danmark, Sweden, Finland, iceland, Germany or Estonia.
Israel had a great song, but the fact that Israel and Armenia do so well with a world jury should come as no surprise. The two countries have very large diasporas outside the Eurovision area.
We’ve gone back to the early 2010s, when songs with no staying power (that sound like they’ve got no shelf life at all outside of the ESC context) manage to finish in the top 5 even, like Israel and Norway, reminding me of such incredibly overrated entries like Azerbaijan 2011, Sweden 2011, Ukraine 2011, Azerbaijan 2013 or Russia 2013…
I won’t be surprised if next year we might see more female artist doing ‘dance breaks’ during their performance
Glad at least Cha Cha Cha will be playing for long time
Hey! Sweden 2011 and Azerbaijan 2013 were actually good!
Really??
Israel, Armenia and Albania (performers were from Kosovo) don’t surprise here, since they literally have large diaspora even in other countries and nationalism is huge from these type of people for some reason. Homeland pround and such.
“For some reason”, bra, read the history of Jews, Armenians and Albanians and then you’ll have “many reasons”.
I really like the ROW votes, the two vote system is not working so well (jury televote 50/50) so it’s a great idea with a third factor too and it brings something different to the competition.
ROTW*
Not quite, if it turns out to be Israel every year.
I believe that lacks of juries in semis actually made this final much better. Diverse acts were allowed to finals which might not go through otherwise. So finals was for all to enjoy and was not monotonous.
Fair enough and I am happy for Israel. Especially after I realized how Israel was treated by the Scandinavian televoters. Along with neighbouring Estonia, they gave:
Finland – 60 points
Norway – 47 points
Sweden – 38 points (the Finns actually gave 0 to Sweden, pretty lame)
Israel – 3 points (all from Norway)
So well done to Noa for securing 3rd place regardless and thanks “Rest of the world” 🙂
Maybe “Unicorn” wasn’t that good then.
3rd place. Stay mad.
Good for europe, just not for nordic?
Sounds like you really hate “unicorns” for some unknown reason. Clearly, she had a great performance, and she ended up in 3rd place- so after looking at these two facts and saying “Maybe it wasn’t that good” it is clear that you just really hate something behind it.
You don’t have to agree or love the song, but you at least have to honor to accept the results.
I believe your concept of the Scandinavian peninsula is misconceived. Are you talking about the Nordics?
About the unicorn song. I prefer joke acts that actually knows they are joke acts and not joke acts that think it’s serious. Power of the unicorn is such a strange phrase that is never explained. Unicorns are not what I think of when I think about power. There is no obvious lore that would explain what she means. Also making the looser “L” sign in your forehead as a signature is also very cringeworthy. I can understand why she didn’t pop.
The fact that you dont understand the message of the song or understand what it was written about its your problem
Wasn’t the whole point of Eurovision to bring Europeans together? With maybe some very closely allied states (like the Aussies).
How secure is this vote? We all know that there are governments who relentlessly try to cause conflict between European countries. Can you image what might happen if the RotW vote was the deciding factor one year?
Isn’t this a bit paranoid. It’s not like these are government elections.
It can create feelings of isolation and accentuate national sentiments though. If they weren’t useful, these kind of cultural events wouldn’t be a target of attack and we know that they are. EBU cybersecurity is incredibly developed because of that.
I don’t think governments can interfere with the results. The voting site detects both SIM card used and the country that issued credit card used, so it makes VPN practically useless.
There’s no way to detect SIM card used. The only option would be to use IP address, but that only works if no WiFi and no VPN are involved.
And I should add that card issuance country isn’t checked either. I live in non-participating country but use a German bank as my main account. I had no problems voting with a German card.
Do you mean your bank account is registered in Germany, or that you’re using a German bank that has a branch in your country? The two are different.
Someone who opened a Santander account in the UK is using a British card not a Spanish one. Someone who opened a HSBC account in Greece is using a Greek card not a British one.
When I first entered the portal last week, it instantly recognized me as a ROW country and my bank card as Canadian when I voted (likely due to my IP address)
Bank cards have international banking numbers attached to them. The system will have recognised your bank card as Canadian because it was registered in Canada, not because of your IP address.
Do you even realise what little influence the vote of ROTW really has? Let us fans who have been waiting for years to be a part of this event have some almost symbolic say in it! The results were quite interesting.
New Zealand, Monaco or Kazakhstan next??
Monaco’s new MonacoTV is set to open this September; if it becomes a member of the EBU then we could see Monaco return to the contest.
Sweden and Israel were my favourites this year!
So happy for Loreen and Noa.
Also, it’s amazing that Luxembourg is coming back. They had so classy songs back then
Classy songs from geographically disadvantaged countries do not fare well in an all-televote semi (which is a great pity).
Stop the international vote. Only 40 countries were allowed. If you allow allow all countries.
As you can see diaspora is overrepresented in the worldvote. Be it religious diaspora or refugees.
Glad to see letvia got 8 points. Still im not a fan of ROW voting.
Its only a way to earn more money and a wrong incentive to enter with more circus acts in order to win the televote.
I don’t undertand the harm. If the votes mainly come from diaspora, let it be. The migrants in European countries already vote for their countries and that was always part of Eurovision’s public voting. I don’t see the difference.
people who move away from home don’t just magically stop caring about or being a fan of the contest and wanting to take part.
If they choose to vote for their own home country…well…that’s on them. Not all of them might though, or may have completely different countries they want to support, just like everyone else does
Plus non-diaspora people may have less geographic/political bias and choose just based off tastes. You can’t point a finger at a specific place, we’re talking people scattered across continents.
Do we know how many votes have been cast in total?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the diaspora actually influenced it! i.g. Lithuania getting it from ireland, Israel from US … etc.
Europe has a lot of geopolitics like Scandinavian countries and Greece and Cyprus. The rest of the world does not play the same game so this represents a sample of unbiased votes.