Quote from: druss on May 12, 2024, 08:38:17 AMThe pro-Israel vote is all to one person, anti-Israel is across all other contestants. Ireland weren't the only country opposing Israel.

If you think that the Israeli song was the most popular across Europe on merit then that's you're opinion, it was so average to me that I find it more plausible that there might have been some political influence on the vote. We can agree to disagree on this (Lemming raises a good point about her getting some sympathy votes too).

Agreed. I don't think anything I've said suggests I think otherwise.

There is always political voting. I just don't believe your assertion or conspiracy there will have been a big turn on of people who don't watch Eurovision who just watched to vote Israel. I think it will be the same people who watch Eurovision as they always do and I think a portion of them still feel an overriding sympathy to Israel.

I might be wrong, will have to wait for viewing figures to see if there is a marked difference to people watching but tbh I didn't even realize Eurovision was on until Wednesday of this week.

There's some very detailed voting information on the Eurovision website, with a breakdown by individual jurors https://eurovision.tv/event/malmo-2024/grand-final/results

The UK jury giving 12 points to Portugal over 10 to Switzerland essentially comes down to a single juror putting Switzerland 10th. It would require quite a deep dive to figure out how robust this judging system is but one can anticipate all sorts of anomalies.

Didn't find any televoting numbers so hard to tell if the voting demographic was different to usual. The televoting is never about the technical merits of the songs, so in that sense, this year was no different.

to win this, or at least finish in the top 5, you need to be the best in your field (solo female, solo male, group, ballad, banger), have shedloads of camp, a large pinch of ridiculousness and be sung from the heart.

Britain, like last year, went for a safe option and was also a bit "cool". how could Olly Alexander compare to the Nemo kid in a pink skirt rotating on a massive disc, singing in near falsetto about being non binary?

loved Ireland's entry for just being so different. that's what you have to aim for to do well

Quote from: Ruben Remus on May 12, 2024, 08:48:08 AMThe immediate issue with this is that a large proportion of the people opposing Israel's participation on anti-genocide grounds will have been boycotting the event entirely.

Doubt there was any boycott significant. People generally don't boycott TV shows for any reason other than it being shit. Singers who were openly weeping at Israel being in the competition couldn't organize a boycott amongst themselves, maybe that would have got one going but really, people would watch to bust their outrage porn nut.

Fwiw I quite liked the Swiss song, and even if I didn't, I can see it had the standout power to attract votes. Which I can't say for Sweden's entry last year, which to my ears was a very unremarkable middle-of-the-road pop effort. Not sure there is a simple formula for winning Eurovision.

Quote from: Blinder Data on May 12, 2024, 08:58:18 AMto win this, or at least finish in the top 5, you need to be the best in your field (solo female, solo male, group, ballad, banger), have shedloads of camp, a large pinch of ridiculousness and be sung from the heart.

Britain, like last year, went for a safe option and was also a bit "cool". how could Olly Alexander compare to the Nemo kid in a pink skirt rotating on a massive disc, singing in near falsetto about being non binary?

loved Ireland's entry for just being so different. that's what you have to aim for to do well

Olly Alexander felt a bit 'we got Nemo at home'.

Quote from: Brian Dunklefun on May 12, 2024, 09:02:19 AMPeople generally don't boycott TV shows for any reason other than it being shit.

I did, a lot of my friends did, people on here did.

Still think it's almost wilfully naive to think that a) people not even watching wouldn't spam the app with Israel votes, and b) this so called "sympathy vote" resulted in Israel almost taking first place in the public vote.

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on May 12, 2024, 03:32:21 AMI thought Switzerland's was fine.

I've not paid the closest attention recently, but how common is it for countries to get zero points in the public vote?

Since the reintroduction of juries in 2015, it has happened a few times:

Austria 2015
Czech Republic 2016
Austria 2017
Germany 2019
UK, Spain, Germany, Netherlands 2021
Switzerland 2022
UK 2024

There have also been countries with zero public votes in semi-finals too.

Quote from: Brian Dunklefun on May 12, 2024, 07:41:26 AMSome crazy takes regarding this.

People upset the Dutch contestant got kicked out after intimidating a woman? Again believe women but ofc that gets put to the side when we have an axe to grind about something else.

Anybody really thinks that people who watch Eurovision cares the winner was non binary? 10 years removed from Conchita Wurst and we still want to pretend the people who watch Eurovision, which for the last 20 years has been a gender fluid sexually open fever dream, care about that shit.


The mental gymnastics you have to go through to get to the perceived virtuous position on all this must be exhausting. To feel validated from any POV you have invalidate some community when you want to try and mire yourself in the politics of it all.

Switzerland was the best song with the best singer and it won.

I agree with the above. Switzerland's song remains stuck in my head this morning.

Didn't think the staging of it was as impressive as some said, but it was well sung, catchy and a deserved winner.

A shame Olly didn't do better, but his vocal wasn't great, and it was way too low in the mix. Which is a shame, as the song itself is a great bit of 80s PSB-style pop.

One feels that there is potential for

Quote from: https://eurovision.tv/about/voting-malmo-2024Viewers watching around the world, outside those in the participating countries, can now vote for their favourite songs for 24 hours before each Semi-Final and the Grand Final.

to have an impact on the televote. I seem to recall the televoting numbers from each country do get published at some point, but can't find anything concrete at the moment.

Israel should have won because Israel should have been the only country in it, if the rest had shown some morality.

Quote from: Brian Dunklefun on May 12, 2024, 07:41:26 AMPeople upset the Dutch contestant got kicked out after intimidating a woman? Again believe women but ofc that gets put to the side when we have an axe to grind about something else.

There have been some mental gymnastics to try and make it a conspiracy that connected it to Joost's perceived beef with Israel, which seems increasingly silly. From what I read about this incident, however, was that he didn't want to be filmed and he got a camera that went too far into his dressing room/green room to back up - now, this COULD have been a gigantic act of gender-based potential violence, or it could be that he saw a camera and didn't think who was behind it and he acted out.

I still don't think Switzerland's was the best (it has a really shit rap in it), but the last two years have turned the title of the song into a melismatic little meme ("tatto-e-hoooo", "broke the code/wo-ho-ho") and you'll be seeing quite a bit of that now.

As pointed out above, the absence of any single "anti-Israel" voting option very obviously makes it harder if not impossible for such votes to be concentrated in one direction in the way that the pro-Israel ones can.

But I'd echo what the mollusk said above that I do know actual people in real life who ordinarily watch the competition but have avoided it this year out of disgust over the accommodation of Israel. Not sure why this concept is so unbelievable tbh.

I'm shady on the maths, but if Netherlands hadn't been disqualified it would have watered down the "not Israel" vote even more, probably not enough to get them a win but who knows?

Quote from: Lemming on May 12, 2024, 07:33:34 AMPart of Israel's success in the public vote might have just come from people sympathising with the singer herself. I've not been following the build-up so I don't know if she's actually some massive atrocities cheerleader or whatever but, as someone just watching on the night, I did feel bad for her getting booed to fuck when as far as I saw she was just a young singer participating in a song contest and was being made into the face of mass murder as a result.

I imagine a lot of people just chucked Israel a vote as a show of sympathy/support to the singer, rather than as an enthusiastic endorsement of Israel as a country or of the ongoing genocide.

Eden said she was going to join the IDF after Eurovision and was very enthusiastic about it. That didn't help.

And when you've got people saying shit like 'we gave Israel 12 points because we didn't want to buy into the woke agenda', it does make you wonder. I'm one of those people who normally watches Eurovision but didn't this time. I watched MOTD instead.

Quote from: jobotic on May 12, 2024, 09:32:38 AMIsrael should have won because Israel should have been the only country in it, if the rest had shown some morality.

Or if Mossad had done their job properly.

Quote from: Ruben Remus on May 12, 2024, 09:38:50 AMAs pointed out above, the absence of any single "anti-Israel" voting option very obviously makes it harder if not impossible for such votes to be concentrated in one direction in the way that the pro-Israel ones can.

But I'd echo what the mollusk said above that I do know actual people in real life who ordinarily watch the competition but have avoided it this year out of disgust over the accommodation of Israel. Not sure why this concept is so unbelievable tbh.

Yeah I know quite a few people who were boycotting it. (I was out seeing a French-Canadian art-punk band but came home and watched it on catch-up with my finger on the fast-forward button which is the best way to watch it. Switzerland were good.) I guess it might have been possible to have a campaign to get people to vote for an anti-Israel candidate but there was nothing like that - there were people calling for a boycott across Europe and people being very quiet about their intention to watch it. Although an absurdist campaign for Finland would have been an option.

I do wonder about the demographics of voters vs fans because I never vote and I know a lot of others who are the same - everyone knows the voting is stupid so why would you bother? Plus voters are famously fickle, only remember a few of the songs, and often vote for stupid reasons. Do people vote?

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on May 12, 2024, 10:39:32 AMI do wonder about the demographics of voters vs fans because I never vote and I know a lot of others who are the same - everyone knows the voting is stupid so why would you bother? Plus voters are famously fickle, only remember a few of the songs, and often vote for stupid reasons. Do people vote?

I think this is a key question - one thing that's very unclear is what level of overlap there is between those boycotting the screening and those who would normally vote.

I have probably watched 25 Eurovisions and voted precisely once (for Barbara Pravi) and get the feeling I am not alone (on the not voting, rather than the liking Barbara Pravi).

I voted for Austria last year.

I always vote, including last night.
Never picked a winner.

I've picked a couple of winners - Sweden in 2015, Finland in 2006 and Israel in 2018. I don't think I voted for Måneskin but liked them well enough. Saw them at Primavera last year.

Nul points for Israel from Ukrainian televoters, fyi

The Spanish public also gave Israel 12 points, depressingly. I guess a lot of people  support a bit of genocide, probably even more so if it's against brown Muslim people, or maybe they just loved Israel's song. Who can tell?

Quote from: katzenjammer on May 12, 2024, 12:24:33 PMThe Spanish public also gave Israel 12 points, depressingly. I guess a lot of people  support a bit of genocide, probably even more so if it's against brown Muslim people, or maybe they just loved Israel's song. Who can tell?

Francoists having their moment in the sun

Quote from: Brian Dunklefun on May 12, 2024, 07:41:26 AMSome crazy takes regarding this.

People upset the Dutch contestant got kicked out after intimidating a woman? Again believe women but ofc that gets put to the side when we have an axe to grind about something else.

Anybody really thinks that people who watch Eurovision cares the winner was non binary? 10 years removed from Conchita Wurst and we still want to pretend the people who watch Eurovision, which for the last 20 years has been a gender fluid sexually open fever dream, care about that shit.


The mental gymnastics you have to go through to get to the perceived virtuous position on all this must be exhausting. To feel validated from any POV you have invalidate some community when you want to try and mire yourself in the politics of it all.

Switzerland was the best song with the best singer and it won.

The official Eurovision statement announced the Netherlands' disqualification doesn't give any sort of description about what the "incident" and "hehaviour towards a team member" actually was.

https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/statement-dutch-participation-eurovision-song-contest

The Dutch broadcaster's statement said it was merely a "threatening move towards the camera. Joost did not touch the camera woman" What is a threatening move? It could simply be him leaning forward and telling her/the camera she was holding to fuck off after, as the statement also says, "repeatedly indicating that he did not want to be filmed. This wasn't respected." If what he did was so abhorrent, surely we would have had more 3rd parties speaking out supporting his removal but we've not seen that publicly, rather the opposite. Do you think the Dutch broadcaster would put their reputation on the line backing him?

Quote from: katzenjammer on May 12, 2024, 12:24:33 PMI guess a lot of people  support a bit of genocide, probably even more so if it's against brown Muslim people

It did feel a bit like that. If I'd thought the song was good enough to dominate the public vote like it did, I might not have done. Or maybe the voters of Europe actually liked it. Who knows.

https://twitter.com/ParmisLJavan/status/1789377328318947752

Looks like there was an attempt at organised voter fraud for Israel - and they don't seem to realise how admitting this reflects on them. Especially as it didn't win!

Quote from: DelurkedToHelp on May 12, 2024, 12:31:51 PMThe official Eurovision statement announced the Netherlands' disqualification doesn't give any sort of description about what the "incident" and "hehaviour towards a team member" actually was.

https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/statement-dutch-participation-eurovision-song-contest

The Dutch broadcaster's statement said it was merely a "threatening move towards the camera. Joost did not touch the camera woman" What is a threatening move? It could simply be him leaning forward and telling her/the camera she was holding to fuck off after, as the statement also says, "repeatedly indicating that he did not want to be filmed. This wasn't respected." If what he did was so abhorrent, surely we would have had more 3rd parties speaking out supporting his removal but we've not seen that publicly, rather the opposite. Do you think the Dutch broadcaster would put their reputation on the line backing him?

What are you defending here? At the very least this is workplace issue where they are protecting a junior member of staff vs a performer who got aggressive. Lunging at someone is not appropriate behaviour and if they female member of staff felt threatened I would back her 100%.

Or was it a Jewish conspiracy to get him removed?

Like I said I don't like it when people sacrifice other parts of their morality to make a point about something else I.E 'The EBU are terrible they let Israel in the competition AND they dismissed a guy from the competition for getting aggressive against a woman, I mean he didnt even hit her just lunged at her aggressively'.

Maybe this is biased of me but it always seems women who get trampled on. 'Oh we'll dimsiss this woman's complaints because I want to make a wider point about something else'