JESC 2019 - Part Two - The Results

Hello and Witamy! (welcome) back to part 2 of my reaction to the 2019 Junior Eurovision Song Contest. We saw all 19 performances in the first part, and in this second part we will be having a look at the interval acts, the voting and to see who wins. And most important of all, you'll get to see my votes, and we shall see if that changes anything! So, without further ago, lets head back to the Gliwice Arena!

Of course, the phone line have just opened, and unless you have a time machine, they unfortunately wont count if you do try to vote. Except for mine, and I'll send a copy of my results and the excel (Other data processing programs are available) file to the EBU to get the results changed.  

Ida, Aleksander and Roksana have opened the voting window, and its time for our first recap. Have you decided who your favourites are? Now we get to hear Roksana, last years winner performing "Anyone I want to be". It's still not for me, but it sounds better with her more mature voice. She gives us some beautiful longer notes just before the final chorus, but needed more backing vocals at the end, just to lift it more. But a good performance from our reigning champion. The song has gone Platinum in Poland, and in a really lovely gesture, she is given a platinum disk for it. We get another quick recap, just in case you're still unsure. 

Now, Ida and Aleksander invite us to sing along. We have all the contestants onstage to sign a song together. What I love especially, is as each of them sings, the lyrics appear in thier native languages on the background. The song "Share the joy" is so unbelievably cheesy, but they all seem to enjoy performing together as a group. Maybe we have the basis of a new European super pop group?

We get a fun moment, where Ida and Aleksander ask Roksana how long there is to left to vote for her to nonchalantly say ten? Ten what? Minutes, hours, days? To answer my question, the 10 second timer appears, and with that, voting is over!

The first part of the vote will be from the national juries, made up of three music professionals (but not me) and two children (also not me). Once the juries have voted, the results of the public vote will be given out. Remember, the televote at JESC is slightly different, there's a pot of points, and depending of which proportion of votes you get, decides what proportion of votes you get. So get 10% of the votes, and you get 10% of the points. Simple. Roksana tells us that 2+2= a winner. I've never seen anyone win with 4 points before, but stranger things have happened in the contest. To be brutally honest, 4 points for some entries over the years is more than they deserve!

Before giving us the jury votes, we get another plug in for social media, before a ballerina runs on stage, steals Ida's microphone, cards and blouse, then gets her to dance. I wondered what on earth was about to happen then. Ok, so it turns out Ida is a dancer. As well as being a dancer Ida is Polish-American digital influencer. I've just googled, and Aleksander is a breakfast TV host. Perhaps it's for the best that he's not dancing then.

Roksana is now chatting to EBU supervisor Gert Kark, who is a lot more chatty than Jon Ola Sand. He is sad because he has to leave tomorrow when the contest is over. He says he struggles with all the polish words, but loves the one for happiness. The most important question is burning on our lips, do we have a valid result? Yes we do and its time to get started!

As always, I wont go through every single vote with you, but I'll just note here the highlights (and perhaps lowlights). Aleksander is presenting the jury votes, and he is talking very fast. Can't tell if he is excited, nervous or has a train to catch and wants the show to finish on time. Our first jury is Australia, and they give 12 points to...we all just wait in anticipation while he fumbles with opening the envelope. And its the Netherlands who get the first twelve of the evening! 

Again the French spokesperson struggles with the envelope, before handing the Netherlands thier second 12 points. Russia spokesperson is accompanied by a creepy pig puppet, Kazakhstan grabbing three sets of 12's in close succession. And halfway through the jury voting, we have Armenia in third, Poland in second and Kazakhstan in first. So far, nothing too surprising. Yet.

With 9 juries to go, we hear from hosts Poland, who give thier 12 to current leaders Kazakhstan. Someone from production has had the wise idea to pre-open the envelopes so the kids can actually get the results out. Irelands 12 points go to Italy, which I thought would have done better with the jury. Another 12 for Kazakhstan from Ukraine & The Netherlands, could we have a runaway winner? The Netherlands started off strong, seemed to slow in the middle but is now racing back up the scoreboard. Spain also having a last minute race up the scoreboard. Serbia is our final jury to vote, and thier 12 points go to leaders Kazakhstan. Could we see our first Associate EBU winner?

But as evidenced by contests both before, and presumably in the future, the public vote can change everything. And quite often it does. This is where things get exciting. So buckle up, we are about to see who wins the Junior Eurovision Song contest 2019!

We start with the bottom half of the leader board, and work our way up, there's no massive surprises so far, my favourites Serbia disappointingly only get another 63 points from the televote. Armenia gets 45 points which I am very surprised by, I though that would be a televote grabber. France gets 84 points, which also seemed a little harsh. The countries that I thought would do better in the televote seem to be sadly falling short. We are blasting through these results, and I'm having to pause to keep up. Come on Ida, build up the tension!

Top 5 left to go. Macedonia again is underscored, and gets only 50 points. 81 is for the Netherlands who then take the lead. Spain do surprisingly well by getting 104 points from the televote, and then Ida announces that Poland had scores 166 from the online voting, blasting them into the lead by some margin. That surprised me also. But it means that Kazakhstan needs at least 130 points to take the win. My heart is in my mouth this is so tense. Ida announces there was 3.7 million votes cast. Can Kazakhstan do it? And rather disappointingly are awarded 79 points, putting them in second place. There's no time to process or think about anything, because the arena and by the sounds of it the city of Gliwice has burst into celebration.

 

Poland have not only won, but done two things very rare in any form of Eurovision event. Achieving both back to back wins, and a win on home soil. (I think in the main contest this had only been achieved by Spain in 1968 & 1969, with Israel in 1978 & 1979, and Ireland in the 90s, who also won 3 times in a row. (Also additional correction, I forgot to mention Luxembourg also won in both 1972 & 1973). So warmest congratulations to Poland and to Viki Gabor. 

Now as they set the stage for Viki to perform her winning song "Superhero" again, I will just say that this was a very well produced and compiled contest. The stage was brilliantly designed, the hosts were much better than in 2018, and overall, I had a great time watching it. Just a shame it felt like quality of a lot of the songs were lower than last year. But never mind. As Viki performs, all of the contestant come on the stage to celebrate and sing along. An thats what it is all about, celebrating each other's achievements, and enjoying yourself at the same time. Perhaps we should all celebrate each others successes a little more.

Who knew the Junior Eurovision Song Contest could make me feel so philosophical?

And so, as the credits roll, I am pleased to announce my votes! Without further ado...

1 point is for Albania

2 points is for Poland

3 points is for Italy

4 points is for Macedonia

5 points is for Belarus

6 points is for Netherlands 

7 points is for Kazakhstan

8 points is for Armenia

10 points is for France

and finally, my 12 points are for...Serbia! 

So, does that change anything? 

Bar a minor swap around between Armenia & Serbia with Australia, not major changes. 

Looking at the results though, I think that Spain did better than I was expecting, and I thought Belarus would do a lot better too. But as they say, thats the way the Eurovision cookie crumbles, you just never can quite predict what's going to happen! And also, congratulations to Wales for doing better than the last place last year! Kazakhstan also got thier highest place too. Spain also proved that taking a break and coming back afresh can give you a good result. Maybe that will inspire other countries to return? We can only hope! 

But thats it for another year! Join me next time when I will review the entries of the 2020 Junior Eurovision Song Contest, and see who will be my favourites then! So thank you very much Gliwice, and we shall see where we end up next year!