Vektor

It seems increasingly likely that there will be a second round. This can be an incredibly close election.

Rural votes are counted first as in most elections. Based on how early votes are coming in, the opposition is in a good position to win and maybe even pass 50%. But obviously it will only be official if the election results in the cities will go as expected.

Well, Zelenskyy just completely ruined the last bit good relations between Hungary and Ukraine. It was leaked today that Zelenskyy suggested to blow up the Druzhba pipeline, which would cripple Hungary. https://www.businessinsider.com/zelenskyy-proposed-bombing-a-russian-pipeline-leaked-documents-show-2023-5 Awful suggestion in the eyes of Hungarians, this would seen as a direct attack on Hungary as it would greatly damage our country. I am on the side of Ukraine, but Zelenskyy made a huge diplomatic mistake here. I can already tell you that Zelenskyy will be even more of a hated political leader in Hungary from now on.

The biggest issue with the jury is that they don't have an identity. It's not like the Oscars where, for better or worse, the Academy and its members have been around to vote on films for almost a century, you know who they are and what they vote for. You also know by now what the European public supposedly likes in Eurovision. But the jury... they are sort of just this random group of people who were added to the contest because EBU wanted to solve the diaspora voting issue. The jury isn't selected via an Academy of sorts for excellence in music, like how you get membership to vote for the Grammys or the Oscars. EBU clearly has zero quality control over the jury which is why last year the juries cheated in the semi-finals. So you got these individuals who may or may not be controlled by their national TV to vote in a certain way, and they may or may not have any kind of clue on what makes an Eurovision act good or bad. At the very least when the Grammys do something stupid you can blame the Academy for being out of touch, but in this case you can't even blame EBU. It's just... who are these jury members and why they are more important than the people who watch and support the show? Especially in an age of reality competition shows where the public almost always 100% decides the winner.

Really bad start for us in women's sabre as Ukraine and Spain are our main rivals for the European quota. We can't afford to lose to Spain, we can quickly find ourselves in a very bad situation if this is a sign for things to come.

It was the most popular song of that year, but the war obviously helped. It would have won the televote even without the war, just by not that wide of margin. I mean, we just saw this year how a much weaker song from Ukraine performed in the televote, they can't win the televote with any song they submit. Stefania won because it was also the most memorable song among the favorites, more unique than the by the numbers songs from Great Britain and Spain that only managed to be on the podium in 2022 because of their live vocals and dance choreography. I was just traveling by train two days ago in Hungary and heard people listening to Stefania. It will be remembered far more than Tattoo or some of the lesser winners of the modern era.

This isn't the Grammy Awards, it's not about quality. It's about entertainment. But people do vote for quality songs and performances when someone truly breaks through. That's how Portugal got that huge win in 2017. That's how Italy won in 2021 despite representing a genre that rarely wins the televote. Televoting isn't flawless but it's what ensures the popularity of the contest. If they didn't switch to televote at the start of the modern era, Eurovision would be dead by now. People tune in to be entertained and see how the continent votes. Not a selected jury, but the people of Europe.

The new all time Top5 in the televote in the current 50-50 voting system. Cha Cha Cha and Grande Amore lost because the juries gave those wins to Sweden.

Every voting is unfair in some way, but Eurovision is a popularity contest. It was never about finding the best, most polished song or the best singer. Ukraine won fairly because the European public wanted to give it to Ukraine, regardless of why people voted. I mean, it sucks if they vote for political reasons, but it is what it is. And now they very clearly wanted to give it Finland, based on the average points per country Cha Cha Cha is the second most successful song ever in the history of the Eurovision televote, this was a landslide. Regardless of how we arrived to this result, it's the will of the people in a TV show that's kept around because of its viewership numbers. Eurovision's target audience are the people watching at home, not the European music industry. If they lose the trust of that audience by giving the win to a song that the public clearly liked less by a wide margin, they are risking the entire future of the contest.

Because that's precisely the point. Televote should have a bigger impact on who wins than the jury. Eurovision should always make the will of the people a priority over a selected jury. We see how much big TV events are losing viewers like the Grammys and the Oscars because people aren't interested in watching shows where a selected few decide who wins the top prize. It is very important for EBU to make sure that the public feels like they are in control. Because if they feel like the contest is rigged in favor of certain countries and certain type of songs, they will soon lose their audience.

Well, I came up with a system that keeps the voting 50% jury and 50% televote, BUT makes it impossible for the jury to heavily favor a song, so their impact on who wins is reduced. I posted it Reddit, I will just copy it to here: When 37 countries participate, the countries overall give out 2146 jury points. It's distributed based on the jury Top10 of each country. So when we saw that Sweden got twice as many jury points as the 2nd placed country, the chances of the televote having a similar impact on the winner was very low, therefore the winner was likely decided before the end. So here's my solution: count the jury points as usual and then redistribute them based on the overall jury ranking. Here's what I mean: Nation Original Jury Points Redistribution Weight Redistributed Jury Points Sweden 340 35 198 Israel 177 33 186 Italy 176 31 175 Finland 150 29 164 Estonia 146 27 152 Australia 130 25 141 Belgium 127 23 130 Austria 104 21 119 Spain 95 19 107 Czechia 94 17 96 Lithuania 81 15 85 Armenia 69 14 79 Cyprus 68 13 73 Switzerland 61 12 68 Ukraine 54 11 62 France 54 10 56 Norway 52 9 51 Portugal 43 8 45 Slovenia 33 7 40 Moldova 20 6 34 Albania 17 5 28 United Kingdom 15 4 23 Serbia 14 3 17 Poland 12 2 11 Croatia 11 1 6 Germany 3 0 0 --- --- --- --- Sum 2146 --- 2146 And then you get the overall results based on the original televote points + the redistributed jury points. Nation Overall Jury Televote 1 Finland 540 164 376 2 Sweden 441 198 243 3 Israel 371 186 185 4 Italy 349 175 174 5 Norway 267 51 216 6 Ukraine 251 62 189 7 Belgium 185 130 55 8 Estonia 174 152 22 9 Australia 162 141 21 10 Austria 135 119 16 11 Armenia 132 79 53 12 Cyprus 131 73 58 13 Lithuania 131 85 46 14 Czechia 131 96 35 15 Croatia 118 6 112 16 Spain 112 107 5 17 Moldova 110 34 76 18 France 106 56 50 19 Switzerland 99 68 31 20 Poland 92 11 81 21 Albania 87 28 59 21 Slovenia 85 40 45 21 Portugal 61 45 16 24 Serbia 33 17 16 25 United Kingdom 32 23 9 26 Germany 15 0 15 So the jury overall ranks the countries while the viewers simply vote for the favorites. Makes sense to me. The jury provides a balance to the public, and can still kill a song by placing it very low in their ranking, but they can't truly crown a winning song with this system.

The rules clearly should be questioned as it has been for over a decade now, Sweden is only the main target of this because you seem to benefit the most from it. The juries simply favor Sweden more than the actual European public does. And that will continue to hurt your reputation in this show. People already see you as the "villain" of Eurovision because you benefit from a system where the votes of a few selected individuals are just as important as the votes of an entire continent.

The point of the jury was never to have the "best overall winner". Their introduction was always about reducing the impact of diaspora vote, that was the goal. And that goal in some ways failed because we always see how the jury likes their neighbors, sometimes even more than the public. EBU never wanted a less popular act to win the contest. Because this isn't the Grammys or the Oscars, this should be about the public's opinion first and foremost, not some few individuals. The most popular act should still win, just with reduced impact from the diaspora. This is why I think in theory a 66% public 33% jury voting would achieve what they want, limit the diaspora impact while still the most popular song wins.

First SF results 177 135 127 110 109 102 97 76 74 37 --- 34 10 7 4 3

This is how I would do it: Reduce the jury to Top5 per country. 1st country get 6 points, 2nd gets 4 points and so on. Instead of announcing the jury votes per country, announce them at once at the start of the voting procedure. So we get the jury votes quickly. And then have the voting per country thing for the televotes. This way we can have the Rest of the World votes announced live. This may be less suspenseful than the current format, but it would also give more voice to the public, while also having some insight from a jury.

I mean, people can be pissed, but Ukraine was no doubt The Winner that year. Clearly by far the most popular song. This time Cha Cha Cha was by far the most beloved song, it was and should have been the winner by all accounts. This isn't like when Russia lost in 2016. Ukraine wasn't that much far behind them in the televote (38 points). Netherlands was also only 30 points behind Norway in the 2019 televote. The only time the winner was this much behind the televote winner is 2015. Yes, Sweden again. 87 points behind Italy in the televote. And now more than 100 points behind Finland. And this kinda sucks. Italy should have won in 2015 and now Finland should have won in 2023. Sweden got two wins that don't feel earned, they were too much behind in the televote.

I wouldn't be surprised if next year the jury voting will be reduced to 33% instead of the current 50-50 split. It's bad for the contest when such a huge televote favorite loses and it's also bad when the jury voting makes the entire voting procedure quite boring.

Marc Hirschi likely wins the Tour de Hongrie, unless something unexpected happens in Budapest tomorrow. I am very much pleased with how this year's Tour went here, we had some entertaining stages, and the last one in Budapest should be quite beautiful.

Apparently did well during the jury final. They might actually have a chance for the Top3, they will be one of the very few memorable acts in the second half. Maaaybe a Top5?

That was one of the worst ESC semis ever. I wouldn't be surprised if none of the 10 qualifiers will be in the Top10 on Saturday. Only seems like a potential Top10 contender.

It seems is another disappointment, the staging is very lackluster. Based on what I have seen, nailed it, they might be the strongest of the Big 5 + "host" this year, potentially another Top3 for them.

I went to the first stage of Tour de Hongrie today. This tour improves each year, it's kinda insane how much it has grown over the years. Unfortunately there was a big crash before the finish, Bernal was involved.

Nice, we won't leave without a medal this time, first (of hopefully many) WCh medals for Özbas.

My ranking of the 13 acts from yesterday based on how well I think they did and how well I expect them to perform in the final: - very likely consensus winner, the only act that can do quite well in both the jury and the televote - likely televote winner, but the jury won't like it - Top5 televote, Top10 jury vote, so... maybe Top5 overall? - I am getting good vibes, Top10 in the final - potential jury winner, but it will flop in the televote, lower half of the Top10 overall - maybe even Top5 in the televote, but close to zero points from the jury, maaaybe Top10 overall - potentially Top10 in televote, midtable because of the jury - midtable overall, I think the televoters will likely it - midtable overall - probably the biggest disappointment, I think it will get surprisingly low points in the televote, mid to low on the table - barely in the Top20, or maybe it will be bottom tier - likely bottom tier, unless the jury will help it - likely bottom tier, unless the jury will help it

The semi finals will be very predictable now with only the televote. The jury could have made it more chaotic, like giving 0 points to Croatia for example. But the televoters will always favor acts like Croatia. But it was a fun, decent SF. appears to be the fan favorite in the arena, I can't remember the last time the audience was this enthusiastic about an act. I wonder if they will gain a massive lead over in the televote. But the jury will probably hate Finland, so... yeah.