Eurovision Song Contest 2022 - The Aftermath

 Hello and welcome to my post all about the aftermath of Eurovision, where I talk about what went well, what didn't go so well, and what I think about everything. After all, I've got opinions & a blog, why not put them both to good use?

I think the first thing I want to talk about is the standard of entries this year. I feel like this year was one of the best we've had for the past couple of years. We had several different and interesting styles of music and performances, and for the grand final, over over half of the entries I thought deserved points from myself. This was the first time in a couple of years that I really struggled to make my top ten up and assign points. Even now, I feel like I could swap some of them around!

This year brought the contest to Italy for the first time in thirty years. On paper, it should have been fantastic. But in reality, the contest really felt chaotic and at times, unorganised. I ranted about running orders in my review of the semi finals, particularly in the delays in semi final two. Now, this is a live broadcast, anything could happen, but we had several staging heavy entries one after the other, why was this not planned better, or the running order adjusted slightly to allow for the staging to be set in a more prompt fashion. I hate these impromptu moments when the host's are forced to improvise, it always feels awkward and tells us there's a delay, without telling us there is a delay! Why is there not a little titbit thats ready to go if there's a delay? Wouldn't you plan for it?

And that brings me onto our hosts. Now if this was a chat show, or a lifestyle show, I think the three of them would work well. They seemed to have a genuine connection to each other, and I imagine they are possibly friends outside of the contest, particularly Mika and Laura. But for the contest, it didn't feel like it was a perfect match. There was a lot of talking over each other, things felt very chaotic and under rehearsed at times, and it was bordering on amateurish. I love it when we have comedian's host, because it gives us some humour and a fun edge to the show, but I felt Alessandro was misguided, or perhaps was given bad material. You need a serious voice to balance things out, like in the 2011 contest, where we had comedians Stefan Raab & Anke Engelke who were perfectly balanced by Judith Rakers, who kept things moving where needed. There was none of that for the 2022 contest, and towards the end, I was feeling rather irritated by our hosts.  Laura's disappearance during the final (which I discovered was due to a possible medical concern around her blood pressure) seemed to affect the confidence of Alessandro and Mika who seemed subdued until her return.

Having previously watched the 1991 contest, hosted in Rome, and witnessing the butchered voting segment, I was slightly concerned we would have a repeat here in Turin. The jury part of the voting wasn't too bad, but the hosts needing to make a comment after every televote score given out made it feel like a rather laborious process. Yes Germany is still last, but let's move on quickly and not dwell on the moment! I wonder if having three people presenting votes was what made it a little more chaotic than usual. Now not every host is going to be a natural Eurovision host. Petra Mede, Filomena Cautela and Jaana & Mikko from Helsinki 2007 were all born naturals, and could navigate a tricky live broadcast with ease and with humour. But this was the first time in a while that our hosts seemed actually stumped and lost for words at times, something the semi finals really highlighted. Perhaps we need to aim for people to host that are more spontaneous and agile. Just a thought! 

Excluding Russia from the contest was the right thing to do. I understand the EBU's stance that the contest is a non political event, but life contains a certain amount of politics in it all the time. The contest has seen several political events over it's years, but Russia's inclusion would have posed a slightly different problem. The televote went overwhelmingly in Ukraine's favour, with a record that I think may be impossible to beat. But if Russia had been allowed to take part, would it have received nul points and failed to qualify? Or would they have qualified, and perhaps done well? Ukraine's entry "Stefania" was a song that was always going to do well. While it wasn't my favourite, it was catchy, rode high on a recent Eurovision trend of successful entries combining modern & folk music, and a fun staging. It was always going to do well.

People voted because they liked the song, and people voted because they wanted to support Ukraine. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, Ukraine winning Eurovision sent a very clear message to Russia, a message I don't think they were expecting. Europe is supporting Ukraine, not just militarily or financially, but also culturally. And in a way that we've never seen before. When the former Yugoslav states started to take part in the 1990's, they weren't always particularly successful with the juries. The juries then tended to focus mainly on the song, which is understandable, this is a song contest! Now, the contest has evolved and people vote for many different reasons. The song, the performance, the staging, the vocals & often, the relateability of the song. The juries back then didn't vote for Bosnia & Herzegovina, just because Sarajevo was under siege, or because there was frequent massacres. That's where the contest has changed, and continues to do so. Life evolves, and so should our approach. Certainly banning Russia was unheard of, but not unprecedented. The EBU had previously banned Serbia & Montenegro from taking part due to the Yugoslav wars, a fact that I think was either forgotten or unknown to most when the decision to bad Russia was announced.

But if Russia had been allowed to take part, what would have happened in the Televote? It makes me wonder if people would vote for them because what they think Russia is doing is right. Could we have a situation where an invading force receives, I dunno, a hundred points at Eurovision? Would they then use that as a piece of propaganda? People voted for us, and so are supporting our invasion? It's a very slippery slope. 

On the subject of votes, the reason for Mr Martin Österdahl's presenting of three countries votes became clearer after the final, and not for reasons I was expecting. He presented the votes from Romania, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and we were told it was due to technical difficulties. However, it was actually because they refused to present them. Here's where things got a little interesting. Not long after the final had concluded, articles started to appear about how the votes of six countries had been replaced due to voting irregularities. These were Romania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, San Marino, Poland & Montenegro. It caused quite the stir, particularly due to two things. The first being how did the jury's from these six countries create an agreement to vote for each other. How exactly did that come about? How did they approach each other to do so? That part has not been answered in any of my searches about the topic. 

I'm just going to state this now, I am not a statistical person, I wouldn't be able to spot a suspicious pattern, my brain can't do that. But the voting partners did, and it was clearly serious enough for the EBU to step in and remove the scores. I had a look at them, and the one that jumped out the most at me was Montenegro. They gave twelve points to Georgia, and ten to Serbia. That set an alarm bell ringing, they are notorious (although not as bad as Greece & Cyprus) for swapping points between each other, and for Montenegro to give a song like Georgia the twelve points is very, very odd. San Marino receiving two sets of twelve points from Poland & Romania also caught my eye as being out of the ordinary, particularly due to the fact no one else gave them anything near that. But good on the EBU for at least acting & acknowledging it straight away, they have clearly learned from the mistake at the 2019 contest with the Belarusian jury.

My other point about the voting is around Azerbaijan. Now this is not the first time Azerbaijan's name has been brought up regarding voting discrepancies. After the 2013 contest there was a lot of reports of people being paid to vote for the Azeri entry in Lithuania & Belarus. With Azerbaijan being the way it is politically, is it time to really clamp down on countries who flout the rules?

Overall, the standard of entries this year outweighed the problems. I commend the EBU for it's swift action for the problems that arose, and they dealt with them quickly and effectively. Lets just hope we don't have any more of them!