Norway‘s Head of Delegation, Stig Karlsen, recently made an appearance on the Hungarian podcast Eurovíziós Podcast, hosted by Szűcs Viktor, a former member of the Hungarian Eurovision delegation. Their conversation covered topics including Hungary’s potential return to the competition, the evolving role of the Eurovision jury system, and the success of countries like Norway, Sweden, and Italy at the contest.
Hungary’s Eurovision Return
Stig Karlsen expressed his belief that the time is right for Hungary to return to the competition following their last participation in 2019. He emphasized the value of unity that the competition brings and stressed the significance of having as many countries as possible involved. Karlsen specifically mentioned being impressed by the participation of the Hungarian rock band AWS. He stated that the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) certainly wants Hungary to return and expressed hope that discussions between the Hungarian delegation and the EBU could result in a comeback for Hungary, possibly not in 2024 but hopefully in 2025.
Norway’s participation in Eurovision is overseen and decided by executives who consider it a significant tradition. Public demand and opinion influences their decision-making. Hungary continues to generate enthusiasm among Hungarian Eurovision fans, even though the competition is not televised in their country anymore. This is evident through the numerous performances and songs from Eurovision that trend on platforms like YouTube and Spotify in Hungary. Stig Karlsen strongly believes that Hungary should return to Eurovision due to the public’s demand, considering it the most crucial aspect to be respected. As a potential solution, he suggests improving communication with the Hungarian public, actively engaging with them on various social media platforms (where fans persist in demanding a return), and giving their voice the attention it deserves, as this might help influence Hungary’s return by putting pressure on decision-makers.
How to succeed at Eurovision
Norway has achieved considerable success in Eurovision over the past decade, ranking as the 5th most successful country, with three wins and consistent placements in the Grand Final. Stig Karlsen revealed that the key to Norway’s success lies in selecting songs that are both familiar and catchy, allowing people to instantly hum along. But he emphasized the importance of daring to be unique and outside the box. According to Karlsen, people desire songs they can sing along to, but they also crave quality rather than generic pop music.
The conversation also touched on Sweden and Italy, two countries known for consistently delivering high-quality hits. Karlsen believes that the common factor among Norway, Sweden, Italy, and other successful countries in Eurovision is the amount of time invested in preparing for their national selections, meticulously selecting artists and songs.
On the topic of Denmark, Karlsen expressed his view that they no longer prioritize Eurovision, as their production of the show is good but they still have to work on the artists and the songs. While Denmark consistently produces good music, he suggested that they need to allocate more time and effort into choosing the right artists and songs for Eurovision to achieve better results.
The Big Nordic Drama and the issue of the jury
After the final of Eurovision 2023, a dramatic situation unfolded between Sweden and Finland. Sweden emerged as the winner, securing first place in the jury vote, while Finland, despite being the public’s favorite, did not win. This outcome left many Eurovision fans upset. Stig Karlsen acknowledges the significance of maintaining a balance between the jury vote and the public vote, as it adds excitement to the television show, particularly during the results announcement sequence, where the jury votes are revealed first, followed by the public votes.
However, Karlsen expresses concern that if the public’s favourites consistently fail to win, it might lead to a decline in public interest. To address this issue, he suggests modifying the voting system to allocate 70% of the voting weight to the public’s vote and only 30% to the jury’s vote, thus giving more power to the audience. Norway intends to propose this change during a meeting with EBU in September. Karlsen emphasizes the importance of maintaining the presence of the jury as well, as it helps counterbalance the influence of countries voting for their neighbours.
Auto-tune in MGP
Norway has already commenced preparations for their national selection, Melodi Grand Prix (MGP), in search of the finest artists, producers, and songwriters for the upcoming edition. They find inspiration in Alessandra’s success on streaming platforms, as her song has become one of the most popular MGP hits in terms of streams, following in the footsteps of Alexander Rybak’s “Fairytale.”
Regarding the use of auto-tune in MGP, which is prohibited in Eurovision, Stig Karlsen clarifies that its application during live performances is often misconstrued by the public. Norway ensures that all selected artists showcase exceptional live singing abilities through auditions, with auto-tune serving as a technical tool for minor corrections, enhancing the overall professionalism of the performance. Karlsen firmly believes that in the coming years, auto-tune may also find a place in Eurovision.
You can check the full podcast on YouTube for even more insights about the next MGP edition and the innovations that they will bring.
What are your thoughts about Hungary returning to Eurovision? Do you believe that the public’s vote should have more power than the jury’s vote? Let us know in the comments below.
“Karlsen emphasizes the importance of maintaining the presence of the jury as well, as it helps counterbalance the influence of countries voting for their neighbours.” Karlsen is WRONG here as most juries still vote for neighbours for political reasons. But the one thing juries ARE good for is that they counterbalance diaspora voting and also in less degree get affected by running order of songs. Juries do almost nothing to counterbalance neighbouring voting (except for maybe in the Nordics as Norway rarely gets neighbouring points and also, Norway jury rarely give their 12 points to a neighbouring country these days,… Read more »
Wiwiblog answer me One Question , Why must you Delete my comments but no others ? I have a right to Speak my Voice ?? I have tried being Kindness and Respectful with my Opinions and if it Triggers the Leftists maybe its just too Bad so Sad
Bc you’re insufferable, that’s why
Personal Bias isnt Reason to Punish me
Five of Sweden’s wins have been decided by juries, and the latest win made people see their scheming history. EBU even wanted to ban them from Eurovision 2001, because their song was stolen, but Svante Stockselius (Swede) backed them.
Sweden seems to have become a liability for the contest
Sure. Writing great songs is a real liability. ?
The thing is, they’re not great songs, they’re mid most of the time
“ five of Sweden’s wins have been decided by juries”. Well, so were the first 40+ winners before the televote was introduced in the late 90s! By your standards, we may as well invalidate any country that only won Eurovision pre-1997, because all their victories were determined by the juries. France, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, better return those trophies, because you didn’t win by televote!
Did I say we should not see these wins as valid? No.
Take example Portugal, Finland, Norway or Greece which competed in those years where only juries decided winners, we’re these countries sending trash or did around 50 people in these juries overall think they’re bad, because none of them got that good results previously.
RUSSIA AND AZERBAIJAN IS WORSE
Not true about 2001
Svante was not EBU scrutineer in 2001, it was Christine Marchal-Ortiz
Sweden was disqualified, but Svante being responsible for Sweden at ESC, having being head of the entertainment for SVT for years as well as Executive producer for ESC 2000 demanded another vote for Sweden’s participation.
That time he was already considered as one of the options for the next Executive supervisor, so they had to vote again as EBU was keen on getting him to work for them.
Sweden got to participate as 4/7 voted yes on their right to participate, but only after Svante’s lobbying.
https://esctoday.com/53/svt_friends_disqualified_but_saved/
Jealous much? ?
Why would someone be jealous about this? This is vile corruption!
As for Hungary, the EBU affiliated broadcasters in every country are the state funded public broadcasters. Even if it says they are independent, they never are, not the BBC nor any other. Their top decision makers play to the tune of the politicians in power, otherwise they lose their job. If Orban does not like ESC then they will not take part or broadcast it.
“Karlsen emphasizes the importance of maintaining the presence of the jury as well, as it helps counterbalance the influence of countries voting for their neighbours.”
So many people say this but i found the juries voted for their neighbours mostly the same as the public – if not more so. It was the first time that Greece did not give Cyprus 12 points, probably only because the jury did not consider the Australian as a Greek.
Get rid of juries, let the people decide, but no more than 5 votes to prevent gross manipulation.
Sweden won , get used to it and yes it was a great song. No need to hate. It’s always about the math. So what if Sweden didn’t get a single 12 points from a country in the voting, they still came second out of 26. Keep the voting the way it is with 50/50: The EBU should change the format and selection for jury have more people join the jury from each country , still too much bias from the juries with only a few . However, it’s a song contest after all and those that sing well always… Read more »
Sadly wrong forum to write anything positive about Sweden, the win, Loreen or Swedes in general.
There is only one winner on here and its not Sweden. But write negative mocking comments about Sweden and you will get upvotes.
Because Sweden manipulated and should not have won. How can 142 people decide the winner when the public pays lots of money to vote but then it does not count. It needs to be fixed – or declare the public has no say which will be the end of ESC.
Because, as Brexit has shown, especially to those of us living in the UK, the public has no idea what’s good for them.
Why all the downvotes? Childish.
Lisa: *makes an idiotic statement*
Also Lisa: Why all the downvotes?
Sweden’s jury win was disasterous, EBU knew after Friday’s Jury show – before the Grand Final on Saturday, that if anyone wants to win, even Israel with jury score of 177, they would need 406 points from televoters.
Impossible, and Sweden got zero 12 points from televoters, so it highlights how bad this win was.
Eurovision was 100% jury: we must bring viewers vote!! Eurovision was 100% televote: we must balance it out with a jury there’s too much voting for neighbors and diaspora Eurovision is 50/50: we must find a way that juries don’t penalize certain songs Eurovision is 30/70: we must get a calculator because we will never be happy It’s not odd that some songs appeal to professionals and others appeal to public. The winner tends to be the happy medium. Why make changes to satisfy entries that have no chance of winning just so they have slightly higher placements in the… Read more »
No one wants the whole jury out, but this year Sweden got 340 points from juries, and if we’d add Finland’s televote score of 376 to anyone, no one could’ve won against Sweden.
Sweden has had several of these mega scores from juries over the years, but years like 2018 give us a big question mark on what the juries value, past merits?
Well we can ask a reverse question!
Why was Finland so good that it earned that amount of televotes? Did it offer something new? Artistic? Did he have a great voice? He relied on playback most of the time. Do the voters value anything beyond catchiness?
Yet everybody acts as if it is the best thing ever
How is any of those a reverse question, when I said that no one could’ve won, even if they’d have gotten the highest televote score instead?
Look, while blending different genres into one song is not particularly a Noble’s Prize-worthy idea, it is far above Loreen’s “Tattoo”, which is practically “putting a darker shade on Euphoria”. Let it be less alike “Euphoria”, there would have been less hate for crowning the same song twice. Literally, this year had the most “safeplay” songs in some time. Israel was gauging votes from the LGBT+ community (typical), Italy was doing Italy (ballads), Norway was sending Norway (europop), etc. The only somewhat different, out-of-the-box performances were from Finland, Croatia (as much as I don’t like the whole package), Austria, Spain,… Read more »
I’d probably add Serbia to the out-of-the-box list too, but it was more of a hypnotic parody than singing and delivering an interesting song.
I want the jury gone.
Yes, at least one thing all of us can agree is that something has to happen.
Sweden’s jury handed win was the last nail onto the coffin, there’s just a lot of resistance expecially from Swedes who themselves know their success relies on juries.
The jury wote for the best song and quality, the peoples wote for a country, Sweden hade the best song, thats it
Theoretically. However, in practice…
Too highlight one of many double standards among all fans: “it has to bee a commercial hit” Look at the figures for “Tattoo”, still going strong despite it is THREE months since the Final, But if you look att Käärijäs figures, he disapperaed very fast from Spotify top 200 Global and many other countries lists on both iTunes and Spotify after just 4 weeks after the contest, I find it very remarkable that a song that has scored a such high telvote score not doing better on lists throughout Europe It can be that his performance were more entertaining than… Read more »
My comment wasn’t Loreen vs Käärijä, it was about the megamassive jury score Sweden got. But since you want this to be like that, let’s check some things out: 1. “Tattoo” and “Snap” are sung in English, while “Cha Cha Cha” is in Finnish that is only spoken by 5,6 million people. 2. Snap started trending on TikTok, just like Norway’s entry “Queen of Kings” this year. 3. Loreen indeed has high figures on Spotify, that is largely used by Swedes and that’s why all Swedish entries get high figures there. She also won, so she gets the most highlighted.… Read more »
What a nonsense world we live now professionalism is singers who can’t sing and need autotune. Vomit….
Excuse me, but this article brings forward a misleading narrative. Norway won only once in this century and that was 2009. So, more much than ten years and certainly not in the last decade. Also, the 1995 victory is such an unique moment, but saying that Norway won three times by bringing out of the box pop is just not reigns. 2009 was not pop, 1995 was out of the box but not pop, 1985 was very much in the box and also not pop. And let’s talk about the ranking of the last places? Well, Norway ranks top 2… Read more »
I’m not saying that there aren’t changes that could be made with voting, but I don’t get the hysteria. 9 out of the last 13 contest winners were televote winner. I think we forget how much power we have, considering how much the difference can be between the both.
It’s not only about who has won the contest but the general picture. The discrepancies are beyond explainable when some 3-5 jurors have the power to humiliate dozens of countries. Some examples come to mind. Eurovision 2023: Ukraine got 15th with the jury and 4th with the audience Norway got 17th with the jury and 3rd with the audience Poland got 24th with the jury and 8th with the audience Croatia got 25th with the jury and 7th with the audience Eurovision 2022: Moldova got 13th with the jury (SF) and 2nd with the audience Romania got 14th with the… Read more »
Hungary and Turkey will not participate in the ESC 2024, because the contest is held in Sweden. Check recent facts they are both not on good terms with Sweden.
Hungary participated the last two times Sweden hosted. But, yes, I don’t expect them to return.
They did before participate , but this is 2023 /24 and Sweden and Denmark are in a mess with their current diplomatic relations with countries in and out of Europe . Expect no Morocco return either . Absolutely no way will they engage .
Is it though? What has changed?
Hungarians love to be being conservatives so don’t expect them to return to a diverse contest.
To a political cringefest
But they enjoy being in diverse EU whose money they milk
It’s about time Hungary gets kicked out of EU
Yeah…more queerphobic and far-right countries…things the world doesn’t need at all.
Rather Auto-tune that pre-recorded vocals.
But how about neither?
I think the voting system needs an overhaul change. The composition of vote could be 50/25/25 where 50% stands for public vote and 25% stand for music experts (such as critics, producers, and vocal teachers) and show business representatives (such as journalists, music artists, and dancers) respectively. I believe the right combination is needed to please the broader audience and to keep up the contest professional. Needless to say that both groups of 25% require more than 3 people each. Nine would be ideal, but I guess, countries like San Marino, Luxembourg, or Malta would struggle to find 9 experts… Read more »
Leave it to the HoD of a country who gets slightly hindered by the juries to be complaining about ’em. Also autotune in ESC? Hell no
2019 was more than “slightly hindered” by the juries. Televote winner in the final but NQ if it was up to the juries…
So? If his country was more high with juries he wouldn’t cry about that
This man does not have a grip on reality.
Hungary won’t come back as long as Orbán’s around, and Hungarians seem to love the man and share his values, so I have my doubts as for the country coming back to the contest after he’s gone
Organ’s values?! He is anti-Russia and pro-Ukraine just like us. The people of Hungary aren’t defined by their government, regardless.
Your fairytale about Orban being anti-Russian doesn’t become true just by repeating it. Check my answer further below for which you didn’t find the time to reply to.
But he doesn’t support Russia, delusional idiot
Nobody likes him
I hope it’s true, all Hungarians I’ve met (not many) dislike him but even they admit they’re probably a minority
Can Sweden and Norway leave everyone alone and withdraw already?
Definitely! No one would miss them
SECTMEMBER.
No. THE SECT MEMBER 123
facts upon facts coming from this man. if the public’s favorites keep losing, than the people will lose interest and this will also have a negative impact on the ebu which will see its revenue from televote reduced. lowering the jury’s power is the only compromise between keeping the voting section entertaining and making sure that the public’s runaway winner doesn’t lose.
Interest in the contest was at an all time low during the 100% televote era. Theories are not reality.
But it won’t be 100% televote. If some song wins televoting it absolutely doesn’t mean it’s winning Eurovision if the jury still holds 30% of the votes. If we exclude Ukraine Moldova would have won televoting in 2022 and they still wouldn’t have won. This applies only to songs that were loved by televoting by far more than others like Finland 2023.
It was also really low in the 90s, when public favorites like Gina G got dashed…
Gina G was nowhere near all-time greats like Portugal, Sweden and Ireland back in 1996, she absolutely did not deserve anything more than she got with that Spice Girls wannabe track…
She was at her place
That was in the 00s when the competition had previously also dropped numbers in the 80s and 90s and the era that was in didn’t have the greatest music.
What are you talking about, it was era of legendary music, not generic crap like nowdays
It is low nowdays
Oh yes. Just like in 2022 Ukraine won politically and people at home were so fair and square.
Juries have more political results still
He said that only because his country sends televote songs
The idea could be to reduce jury points by excluding marks from 1 to 7 and only considering scores of 8, 10, and 12 points. This would decrease the jury vote to around 25%, giving the public over 75% influence. The process involves each jury member ranking the songs from 1st to 26th, with only the top 3 songs receiving points: 8, 10, and 12. Some drawbacks include more countries receiving zero points from the jury vote, but it would give the public a more decisive role. Testing this system in previous years with a 50-50 voting split showed that… Read more »
So every song except top 3 would get zero points? What if one of those songs get highest scores from audience? They would still not win ..
I would prefer a lower weight for the jury (if anything) rather than giving points only to three countries. That way there could be a whole bunch of countries getting 0 points from the jurys.
The Norwegian delegation need a reality check, nobody is forcing them to send televote-friendly meme songs every single year.
Queen of Kings was not a meme song though?
A TikTok meme song
It was, if it was sang by overweight woman it wasn’t meme, but if rain Alexander sang it it would become meme
It was stolen…
Too much homophobia in Hungary for a return.
So are all Hungarians Homophobic? What about the rest of Eastern Europe that are behind?
Well, they are not very nice people … gypsy lead
Where is homophobia, a dal 2022 winner is open lesbianbwith song about lgbt
Jury could have 10 members or the change to 30/70 voting could be put into place, maybe even both?
This year was such a let down in the end, that the viewing figures might go down for next year, since the general public feels like their votes don’t matter.
The viewing figures wont go down. And I’ll tell you many viewers were happy Loreen won in the end because the Finland fans in the audience were just so obnoxius and disgusting.
According to your dislikes you are right (no)
The songs that gets the most televotes by far (if the difference in televotes between first and second place is over 100 points) should win Eurovision, if several songs are super tight in televoting then the song that performs the best with jury would win. That seems to me as the best compromise where more power is given to public, but jury plays important role and jury winner still gets the recignition. Go for it!
“Karlsen firmly believes that in the coming years, auto-tune may also find a place in Eurovision.” CANCEL HIM RIGHT NOW.
Was going through the article thinking about how much sense the man was speaking and then came to that….
That would really destroy the reputation of Eurovision. If you wanna compete at Eurovision you need to be able to sing. Period.
Is it the Eurovision singing contest?
Auto tune is fine if as Karlsen says, is only used to Polish final vocals but even then, he’s listening to the people and will probably U-turn on that if enough people write to him.
Dude woke up and decided to give some of the worst takes he could come up with
Really off-topic but for everyone wanting Turkey’s return to the contest need to only look back 49 years ago for the devastating invasion on Cyprus and the subsequent occupation – not unlike the Ukrainian situation.
In 1976 Greece sang about this invasion and basically a hymn to Cyprus in the song contest and nobody cared, as they don’t now either.
Even if you way not understand what is being sung, it truly is an emotional performance.
https://youtu.be/HiHObibSvmc
Never forget.
This is the esc not united Nation . Nobody care who invaded what 70 years ago , just listen to the music and stop with this Politik
Then why was Russia expelled? When Russia invaded Ukraine what was the song about, and who voted for it?
We can’t sit here and say that Eurovision isn’t at least somewhat political. 49 years ago the Turks invaded Cyprus and there’s still partition on the island. Everyone remembers Berlin being divided, however Nicosia is the last divided capital on earth at the time of speaking.
Turkey has given us some great performances over the years, but that can’t be sacrificed in the face of Turkish aggression and occupation.
Like Every country has inwaded others … Next should we Ban Austria because of AustroHungarian Emire? or maybe ban all the Western Nations that colonized and destroy the World
Whataboutism much?
Is What I Said Wrong? If yes tell me how .
I am talking about 1974, the year that ABBA won in Brighton, and JUST a year later Turkey made their debut in the contest. Imagine something similar happening nowadays? No chance in hell.
The countries you claim have obviously declared war, however since 1914 or even 1939 reforms have taken place within Europe and there haven’t been any such events since 78 years ago, and all disputes have been resolved.
The situation about Cyprus is that it is up to this day occupied by foreign military, resulting in a partition of the island.
Why did Cyprus conpete with Türkiye for Many Years if this war was so devistating for them?
This is not about “putting our foot down” and saying we will not compete. Why should an aggressor have so much power over us? Just because they’re more populous and militarily powerful than us.
Turkey (and not the way you spelt it), should never have been allowed to enter the contest just ONE year after invading and occupying 39% of a foreign country’s land mass.
But because it’s Cyprus and not Ukraine, we do not have the sympathy of the world, let alone our own continent. Only our brothers in Armenia know the struggle against the Turks.
Russia and Belarus were expelled due to the influence of social media and the Twitter bubble and those who spoke out and made it trending at the time. Meanwhile, the Armenians and the Cypriots continue to suffer.
What about Azerbaijan and the Armenian thing?!
There’s been positive steps to resolve that dispute as of very recently actually. Also the Azerbaijan-Armenia situation is a dispute over a part of land if I’m not being mistaken, and not an invasion resulting to partition that’s lasted 49 years.
Agree that all participating countries should not be actively in a war against any other country, and if that means Azerbaijan needs to go then so be it. We can’t be having aggressors like Russia, Turkey etc back into a contest that claims it is about uniting us.
Sweden rules the world though, so let those far right countries like Hungary, Kazakhstan, Turkiye remain triggered and out of our lovely contest
Should Sweden unite with russia
No . Sweden should be Disallowed to the Esc until they stop the Corruption and Lobbying/Rigging . No one cares about Russia , They are banned.
Hungary won’t ever return to this contest lol
and we more need 100% Juries especially in semifinals, to weed out the troll acts and only go for quality music to advance into the final
Totally agree! 00% jury vote in Semis!
Do you think Croatia might have been “weeded out” and replaced by either Latvia or Netherlands?
Kaarija would’ve been a shock nq i think 😉 and Netherlands qualified instead of them
Latvia instead of Croatia, and probably Azerbaijan instead of Serbia
Kaarija was fourth with the jury in the final so that’s unlikely. And would the jury appreciate Latvia enough for it to qualify?
I think Serbia would have finished higher than 10th with such low marks if the jury been involved.
wow you’re boring
No.
That’s a big L
what the Norwegian head of delegation is saying is that their entries are being unfairly penalized by the juries because they have had a recent track record of poor voices particularly in jury shows and in MGP all their artists have amazing voices without a single bum note because they use the miracle of auto-tune–as the scandi music gods intended of having marketable pop entries with questionable live voices that get fixed by a stellar producer in studio
But it’s the Eurovision Song Contest NOT the Eurovision singing contest. Also, o sympathise with him because they’ve had great songs since 2016 and not ONE of them has won despite MGP being an S tier national final and Rybak coming back. Since his win in 2009, you would’ve thought they would have won the competition again right? Well think again because Sweden, their neighbours won THREE times and managed to pull off MULTIPLE top 10 placements somehow in the 2010s! I think Karlsen is right to speak up!
No, but if you cant sing in a song contest then you will not get high scores..
This is the third year in a row Norway have really bad vocals in a jury show and then he gets triggered that juries do not reward them..
Great singers should not hide behind autotune!
1. No auto-tune for Eurovision.
2. Jury voting needs changes, Sweden is a good example where they get massive jury scores constantly, while public doesn’t vote for them.
3. Hungary isn’t coming back since their government is very anti-LGBTQ+
If Sweden amongst other countries truly send good music, they have nothing to worry with changes on the jury.
I mean, Finland probably should have won this year but I think you are misrepresenting facts in #2.
Sweden DID come second with the public, so saying the public doesn’t vote for them is simply not true.
Other than that I agree. Especially juries either need less power or be instructed differently. Also, jury members need to represent a wider range of tastes and styles than they do now.
Yes Sweden did come second this year, but what about for example 2013, 2018 or 2019?
2013 – Jury 3rd – Public 18th
2018 – Jury 2nd – Public 23rd
2019 – Jury 2nd – Public 9th
We’re talking about massive gaps expecially on points, and it does seem to happen quite often.
That still does not mean nobody votes. Yes, sometimes they get more jurypoints but people still vote for Sweden enough to get top 10. Those songs were exceptions and people did not like them. But you forgot Eric Saade who got second with audience, few points behind Azerbajdzjan. Sanna Nielsen also. Frans also impressed audience. So to say Sweden only does well with juries is a lie
You made a blanket statement and are defending it by cherry picking statistics – this proves nothing except that some years the public likes Sweden, some years they don’t. That’s true for most countries. The second place even suggests that some years the public likes Sweden A LOT.
Clearly you have just made up your mind and are now ignoring anything that doesn’t support that position.
So be it. I still maintain that saying the public doesn’t vore for Sweden is factually wrong.
*public doesn’t vote Sweden – to that extend. Approved wording?
“cherry picking statistics – this proves nothing except that some years the public likes Sweden, some years they don’t. That’s true for most countries”
Could you tell some of these countries that get this high jury scores, while public completely ingnores them?
Sweden deserved 2nd place with televote. They deserved 1st spot with Juryvote too. They didn’t deserve to have such a overwhelming amount of jury votes though. You can tell it’s inflated af si?ce France and Spain got basically nothing from Juries
I don’t disagree. I am simply having an issue with someone saying the public never votes for Sweden. It’s just not true, that’s all.
Hungary WILL eventually come back. Their government has denounced their previous views, especially on LGBT people and on the war which Orban as flopped completely on! Karlsen is right when he says Hungary have had good entries and I believe they genuinely bring something to the contest!
So in other words, Norway still feels salty about the result?
Hasnt this discussion been brought up every year a winner gets slighgly more jury love only to result in nothing? Besides the point with 50/ is that the winner has support from both sides, not just one. Having audience power makes the other side useless
I think nothing will change here. The 50/ 50 system adds excitemnt to the show and EBU wants a good show above all.
“Slightly more jury love” isn’t true, no country could’ve won against Sweden’s massive jury score, even if they would have gotten Finland’s 376 points instead of theirs.
And it’s not the first time Sweden has gotten massive jury score.
So? Sometimes like last year audience has more influence,others the jury. That is what happens with 50/ 50. But no one can win with only support by audience or by jury. Even if you have massive jury support you need enough audience support to take it home. If Sweden got like 90 points then she would not have won despite all that jury support. Having one side dominate would render the other one useless. You can change juries. Having more juries than just 5 maybe
i don’t think the jury is the issue here, people just go nuts when Sweden is mentioned whether it has any relation or not. so, the narrative of juries’ love is just whining at this point.
so, 50-50 Split is more than fair, EBU won’t concede anymore as they already removed the juries from the semifinal to deal with “jury love” you’re afraid of.
Sweden gets mentioned mainly because this jury love happens to them more often (in favour of them), other examples where Jury/Public disagrees are less common, but here’s other examples: Swizerland 2014 -> Jury 22nd – Televote 7th Poland 2016 -> Jury 25th – Televote 3rd Australia 2017 -> Jury 4th – Televote 25th Albania 2018 -> Jury 7th – Televote 18th Norway 2019 -> Jury 18th – Televote 1st Malta 2021 -> Jury 3rd – Televote 14th Moldova 2022 -> Jury 20th – Televote 2nd Point gaps at most 200+ between juries and public, so we can guess that these… Read more »
Norway are salty about EVERY result since 2016! Think about it, they had SO MANY great songs and they STILL haven’t won again, whilst Sweden, their neighbour, won THREE times in the last decade since Rybak won! He has a right to be salty!
So? Does whining help? Maybe if they stop sending novelty acts and autotuned singers they would do well..
Rybak huh? Who came back with a banal juvenile song not even JESC singers would compete with?
Everyone in favor of cutting down the jury influence should look up the results if we would have had it this year, and not just in regards to first and second place. The Top 10 would be different and in parts atrocious.
Also did you all forget that the jury saved the so-called fan favorites this year? Cause I remember that Spain and Austria did very, very poorly with the public this year…
Consistently loving Stig’s takes! Yes, Hungary SHOULD return this year or next! They add SO MUCH diversity to the contest in terms of their type of songs and AWS with their underrated metal entry in 2018 was a GREAT example of this! With Orban now solidly on the West’s side against Russia, Hungary have now unified with Europe and any other potential dramas can fizzle out! Stig’s propositions to the voting system are what is needed I think to strike up the balance between the public and jury. Also, the public indeed should have the final say and viewing figures… Read more »
Orban solidly on the West’s side against Russia? I’d wish.
He is now! As is the right! Putin’s been condemned as a madman after some recent decisions!
Just yesterday he predicted the EU’s economical collapse if the sanctions on Russia won’t be lifted. Please tell me how he’s not Putin’s asset.
Fook autotune. And yes, if they’re going to keep the juries, make the jury vote be worth 30%.
Well not really right about the autotune because Unami Tsunami needed it to sound good, well not really right about the reasons why Sweden and Italy have always a good score (too good compared to others), right about the fact that the audience will loose interest about a rigged and predictable show and it’s already the case in some participating countries, not right about the fact that Hungary should come back, they are so right to stay far from this circus where always the same countries have points whatever the quality of their acts, so why taking part of it,… Read more »
More power for the people it’s laughable when you know the lack of transparency and the incoherence of the votes in this contest, jury and televote both…we can’t trust them so again it would be useless to make that change in fact. Why people think it’s rigged? Think about it and make changes showing in fact it is not…if you can which I doubt, showing more transparency in the process, showing that this contest doesn’t belong to only one country…. but in any case I fear it’s too late for the reputation of this contest, the damage has been done,… Read more »
Did they? There’s was a PERFORMANCE with unique dance moves and boy and flipping energy we haven’t seen at Eurovision for a while and that makes me want them back.
Nothing against Hungary and their acts quite the opposite, but until this show gets cleaned up they are so right to not come back.
They have every right to come back, especially if Azerbaijan are still in the game and people are demanding for Turkey’s return.
If autotune will ever be allowed, I won’t follow the contest any longer. Also, those pre-produced backing vocals NEED TO GO IMMEDIATELY. Seriously, if, for example, Wild Youth’s Conor not giving a flying youknowwhat about singing during the chorus or Käärijä comfortably relying on playback for much of the runtime his song is considered progress, they can progress without me. Have we really come from fully live to ‘Let’s just pick some pretty face or good dancer and press play’? Enjoy the drop in the ratings when it will be all Blankas from 35+ countries! Also … EBU (or Norwegian… Read more »
Eurovision ‘song’ contest… NOT ‘singing’ contest.
And how good is a song supposed to be that apparently can neither be played nor sung live?
In other words… they’re still salty about their jury score which was fully justified. The voting needs no changes, aside from juries back in the semis
Juries could be one third of the final vote (and this should also apply to the semi-finals) – making it one third rather than 70/30 makes it a lot easier to display scores (we might have halve points with a 70/30 system, whereas you could just double the televote points if it’s 1/3-2/3) I don’t think there is any hope for Hungary or Turkey to return in 2024, as the contest is in Sweden and the political situation with these 2 countries is tense due to NATO, we should focus on Andorra, Monaco and the countries who withdrew after 2022… Read more »
Juries also back in the semifinals. If 50-50 is too much, than 70-30.
Honestly, my idea to try to make the juries more…subtle and fair is the Oscar Nod Method (Everyone one in a particular department votes only in their department category) Let’s make the juries more Technical-based, by breaking it in technical categories and have an expert to vote only on that category. Let’s say, five technical categories. Composition (represented by a musician or a producer) Vocals (represented by a singer or vocal coach) Staging (represented by a theatre director or cinematographer) Costume (represented by a designer) and Edit (How it looks on TV) (represented by a TV producer or an editor).… Read more »
50-50 split is fair!
Um, no. As long as Orban exists as a leader, sorry Hungary, you lose.
As long as Orban remains in power, everyone loses: Hungary, Ukraine, Europe, the EU, NATO, Eurovision. Well … everyone but his pal Putin.
You two seem to forget that Orban has praised the west and systematically CONDEMNED Russia’s invasion of Ukraine even meeting with foreign leaders and NATO and the UN to find a solution. He has very much flipped on many of his ideals.
Orban is actively campaigning against the sanctions on Russia on a large scale, gets all of Hungary’s gas from them, just signed new contracts with them, blocks Sweden from joining NATO, ‘stores’ Ukrainian prisoners of war for Putin, says Ukraine wasn’t a sovereign country, won’t let weapons for Ukraine be delivered through Hungary, made fun of Zelenskys biography, said it was ‘Ukraine’s war, not ours’, blocked an EU payment of 500 million Euros to Ukraine, praised the ‘strength’ of Russia and Putin multiple times… Do you need some more examples or do you think you’re good? Orban still is Europe’s… Read more »
Orban factually has condemned Putin’s invasion, calling him a ‘madman’. He has met with leaders around the world, including NATO, the UN and the UK. He has condemned Putin’s threats of nuclear war as has the right. He is flipping every day.
And so has done Andrés López (Mexico’s president), but they still whitewash r*ssia and buy r*ssian oil and stuff like that
Because it’s not sustainable to continue without a source of oil. No one else is doing what Russia is doing putting the world to their economic ransom.
No you.
The jury 50% vote is fine, this narrative happens every year when people’s favorites don’t win, or their country didn’t do well with the juries.
The only thing that needs to change is the actual jurors themselves. I feel like we should be introduced to the jurors and have their faces shown during the grand final. Perhaps each country could actually vote for the jurors they want to represent them, just like they would with their act.
Why should ten people have the same say as MILLIONS?
30% jury system would be great!
I think we can live without Hungary in eurovision.
https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/07/14/hungary-fines-bookstore-and-pressures-others-to-seal-lgbtq-books
And can we please not compare Italy in eurovision with Sweden/Norway. Their approach is not even comparable. Italy has a competition that is at least relevant to it’s music industry.
Idk about a 30% jury vote. I’m still for the 50/50 vote, but increase the size of the juries (with AT LEAST 10 established music journalists, critics, and music industry professionals that have extensive work in the field and a wide variety of music genre tastes). The problem isn’t the system, per se, it is the high weight that a single jury holds
and who’s going to pay for all those extra people sitting there?
None of their songs from 2019 onwards deserved to have done better than they did.
All of them are just tiktok trash or dated ethnic schlager?
Why should a jury reward that?