Oct 29, 2024
Eurovision Fact #808:
Slovenia was the first nation to send a drag act to Eurovision. In 2002 the trio drag act Sestre performed their song "Samo Ljubezen" in Tallinn. They finished 13th overall.
[Source]
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Eurovision Fact #808:
Slovenia was the first nation to send a drag act to Eurovision. In 2002 the trio drag act Sestre performed their song "Samo Ljubezen" in Tallinn. They finished 13th overall.
[Source]
Eurovision 2002 - Televoting Watch
Trust the EBU to make everything even more complicated for a year. 2002 has three different methods for deciding points. Some countries are 100% a jury vote (5 countries), some 100% a televote (11 countries), and in others, it's a 50/50 mix of the two (8 countries).
But first, the one true 2002 innovation that we should genuinely still have. The televoting recap goes backwards! That is it starts with the final act on stage, then finishes with the first act - to remind votes of that song way, way back in the past at the beginning of the evening. A new and welcome intervention to attempt to address running order bias. What effect did it have on the result?
There's one more wrinkle to this year's voting. Which countries are using which method. The counties using the juries are Russia, Türkiye, Macedonia, Romania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The 50/50 method is highly Mediterranean with Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Spain, and Malta joining Finland, Slovenia and Lithuania. The televote was the rest of the big four plus most of the 'traditional' Western European countries - that will possibly become a sore point later...
Now that we have a fully validated vote, lets see what happened. First the running order bias.
It's gone. Well almost. The first 12 songs received 49.5% of the total vote, with the last 12 songs receiving 50.5%. That's as close to unbiased as you can probably expect to get. The televote is still slightly more biased than the other methods, but frankly it's really not by much. Of all the EBU and production experiments with voting over the years, this one looks to have the biggest impact on bias. This method is retained in 2003 and that will yield more information.
There's some weirdness with the split between the three methods. However both the 50/50 votes and the televote largely voted for the countries that won overall, both picking Latvia as their winner with Malta in second place. The jury vote was very close with Romania(!) winning it, Estonia is second place and Latvia third. As Romania are one of the five juries, that's even more noticeable there...
The weirdness continues with the Greek vote. Greece did not receive a single televote. All of their points came from the juries and 50/50 voters. Cyprus received by far the biggest chunk of their votes (61%) from the 50/50, Mediterranean dominated group. You could argue this is down to the traditional Greece-Cyprus 12 point exchange, and that's some of it, but there's more. Neither Greece nor Cyprus were jury only part of the vote, so why did the jury-only countries vote for Greece when the televote didn't - and for a song you'd probably say was more televote friendly? Even taking Greece's 12 points out of Cyprus's score, by far the most of their points came from the 50/50 group. As One were a well known band, and all of the countries where they were big were in that group, maybe that explains it.
Along with Greece, FYROM also received no televoting points at all - and they were one of the juries. In fact fully 24.4% of the jury's points went to other jury voting countries. There are only five of them. If you exclude Bosnia from this, the four other countries gave each other almost 30% of their points. And they didn't blank a single other country. Hmm. Double Hmmm. Hang on...
Romania gave Macedonia 12 points, Russia 10, Cyprus 8, Türikye 7 and Greece 6.
Russia gave Romania 12 points, Cyprus 8 points, and Greece 6 points.
Macedonia gave Romania 12 points, and Türkiye 8 points.
After the competition ESC Today reported that the EBU had said they thought it was "very likely" vote swapping had taken place between countries including Russia, Romania, Cyprus, Greece, Malta and Macedonia (no mention of Türkiye). This does not cast jury voting in the best of lights. What would the EBU do next year?
An interesting year demonstrating some interesting and manipulative behaviour. However the biggest success is that reverse recap - bring it back!
How brave of them to perform and host a bbq at the same time
- Graham Norton
Sisters in Eurovision
🇸🇮 Sestre (Slovenia 2002) 🇩🇪 S!sters (Germany 2019) 🇮🇸 Systur (Iceland 2022)
7th Wonder, Ira Losco | Malta, Eurovision Song Contest 2002
now that Spotify wrapped is out I can finally admit I like Europe’s living a celebration
My favorite songs by country
Albania
2010
Song: It’s all about you
Artist: Juliana Pasha
Armenia
2009
Song: Jan-jan
Artist: Inga & Anush
Australia
2016
Song: Sound of Silence
Artist: Dami Im
Austria
2014
Song: Rise Like A Phoenix
Artist: Conchita Wurst
Azerbaijan
2017
Song: Skeletons
Artist: Dihaj
Belarus
2010
Song: Butterflies
Artist: 3+2 ft. Robert Wells
Belgium
2015
Song: Rhythm Inside
Artist: Loïc Nottet
Bosnia&Herzogovina
2008
Song: Pokušaj
Artist: Laka
Bulgaria
2013
Song: Samo Shampioni
Artist: Elisa Todorava, Stoyan Yankulov
Croatia
2013
Song: Mizerja
Artist: Klapa s Mora
Cyprus
2016
Song: Alter Ego
Artist: Minus-One
Czechia (Czech Republic)
2018
Song: Lie To Me
Artist: Mikolas Josef
Denmark
2011
Song: New Tomorrow
Artist: A Friend In London
Estonia
2009
Song: Rändajad
Artist: Urban Symphony
Finland
2006
Song: Hard Rock Hallelujah
Artist: Lordi
France
2019
Song: Roi
Artist: Bilal Hassani
Georgia
2015
Song: Warrior
Artist: Nina Sublatti
Germany
2007
Song: Frauen regier’n die Welt
Artist: Roger Cicero
Greece
2010
Song: OPA
Artist: Giorgos Alkaios & Friends
Hungary
2018
Song: Viszlát nyár
Artist: AWS
Iceland
2012
Song: Never Forget
Artist Jónsi, Greta Salóme
Ireland
2015
Song: Playing With Numbers
Artist: Molly Sterling
Isreal
2010
Song: Milim
Artist: Herel Skaat
Italy
2016
Song: No Degree of Separation
Artist: Francesca Michielin
Latvia
2002
Song: I wanna
Artist: Marie N
Lithuania
2018
Song: When We’re Old
Artist: Neva Zasimauaskaitė
Luxemburg
1985
Song: Children, Kinder, Efants
Artist: ??? (That‘s the question)
Malta
2012
Song: This Is The Night
Artist: Kurt Calleja
Moldova
2009
Song: Hora Din Moldova
Artist: Nelly Ciobanu
Monaco
2005
Song: Tout De Moi
Artist: Lisa Darley
Montenegro
2012
Song: Euro Neuro
Artist: Rambo Amadeus
Morroco
1980
Song: Bitakat Hob
Artist: Simira Said
Netherlands
2019
Song: Arcade
Artist: Duncan Laurence
North Macedonia
2015
Song: Autumn Leaves
Artist: Daniel Kajmakoski
Norway
2015
Song: A Monster Like Me
Artist: Mørland & Debrah Scarlett
Poland
2017
Song: Flashlight
Artist: Kasia Mos
Portugal
2017
Song: Amar pelos Dois
Artist: Salvador Sobral
Romania
2019
Song: On a Sunday
Artist: Ester Peony
Russia
2006
Song: Never Let You Go
Artist: Dima Bilan
San Marino
2015
Song: Chain of Lights
Artist: Anita Simocini, Michele Periniola
Serbia
2007
Song: Molitva
Artist: Marija Šerfovič
Slovakia
2010
Song: Horehronie
Artist: Kristina
Slovenia
2019
Song: Sebi
Artist Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl
Spain
2010
Song: Algo pequeñito
Artist: Daniel Diges
Sweden
2014
Song: Undo
Artist: Sanna Nielsen
Switzerland
2018
Song: Stones
Artist: ZiBBZ
Turkey
2010
Song: We could be the same
Artist: maNga
Ukraine
2016
Song: 1944
Artist: Jamala
United Kingdom
2012
Song: Love Will Set You Free
Artist: Engelbert Humperdinck
