Thanks for watching! Sorry for the 7 second blackout at 4:09, I always do a final review of every video I publish but i missed this. In this 7 seconds I said "Finnish people aren't all the same, some act in one way and other ways😊. But if you look historically, Finland don't often..." Please drop a like 🙏🏻👍🏻 You can check out my Patreon here! - www.patreon.com/ESCTom You can fill me up with nutritious ☕coffee☕ here - www.buymeacoffee.com/esctom

@timschnitzel

9 ай бұрын

You might want to pin this comment or put the patreon link in the video description ;)

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Agh I pinned it but it unpinned for some reason, i've repinned it. Thanks for the heads up 🙏🏻

I'v never understood why they show only a small snippet of the automatic qualifiers' songs instead of letting them perform like an interval act after the voting is finished.

@linn469

9 ай бұрын

i wonder if it's for rehearsal reasons, so they can give more time to those who still have to fight to get to the finals

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yep I always thought it was obvious to have the automatics as part of the interval act. I don’t know what the reason that they don’t do that is. Maybe they’d rather show off something cultural instead

@meg4322

9 ай бұрын

It might be trying to save something new for people who watch both semis and finals? Since almost every other act won't change anything once they get to the finals, having (almost) completely new performances is something that still creates a sense of newness

@vignotum132

3 ай бұрын

@@ESCTomwell would you look at that

Loreen is charismatic and a great performer but I do think that Euphoria did a lot of heavy lifting in Tattoo's victory.

@_dont_mind_me

9 ай бұрын

I disagree, I doubt many casual viewers remember the euphoria performance all that well, it was 11 years ago

@ZLProductions

9 ай бұрын

No because a lot of people didn't vote for her because of Euphoria!

@EmoBearRights

9 ай бұрын

@@ZLProductions But I think some did or maybe I'm just in too many fan circles were people think its the best thing since sliced bread or both are true - who knows.

@ZLProductions

9 ай бұрын

@@EmoBearRights True true

That graph showing bias towards later songs in the running order by juries, even in random order, is rather shocking. It seems that juries just get sloppy over time and get less critical the more songs they have to listen to (like I fear I would). The one advantage of juries is that they have to judge all the songs, preferably equally strict. But apparently juries are people too and have a limited attention span.

@vignotum132

3 ай бұрын

Or later songs are placed there because they are better?

on the topic of televote vampires, I think Käärijä was the King Dracula this year - not only did Austria and Australia have to deal with the sudden televote competition, but any one who was thinking of spending some money on voting for something alternative or quirky basically were going to blast it all on Cha Cha Cha and forgot about everything else that was different. edit: this is what I get for commenting before finishing, but yeah I totally agree that Germany got Dracula'd here too.

Dear Tom, never stop these anazing video essays and analyses. You give us so much life in this down season! Hope you are doing well. Much love from Australia!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you so much Dick! 🙏🏻❤️

In terms of semi versus final televoting, someone pointed out on another video that people vote for 10 songs in the semi they want to qualify, but only vote for one song in the final to win. People are far less like to spend money on a vote for a song that is unlikely to win even if they really like it just to give it some points. Danny Estrin (Voyager) said something to this effect in an interview after the show.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yep thats also a very good point! Essentially the question being asked of the voter is different SF - "Whom do you want to see again?" F- "Who do you want to win?" and the implication is that with the SF the answer to the question is bigger in than the Final question. Great point

@nilerra8181

9 ай бұрын

That's true for most fans even tho voting for 10 is too much I think. Locals mostly vote for their only favourite without overthinking tho. Going from 16 songs to 26 songs line up is the main reason for changes. Also different competition as well and RO. Many factors

@EmoBearRights

9 ай бұрын

Idk - I voted for 2 songs in 21 but quite a few probably around 10 in 22 and 23. It's not just about the win.

@phuttyyt

9 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom I dunno - the way I look at it, you're voting for the same thing both times: who do you want to see again?

As a lithuanian, I have no clue why my country was the only one to not give Norway those points from televote. This song wasn't extremely popular, but it wasn't abandoned here either. I heard it playing on the radio, it was well presented during eurovision by journalists. Long story short, no particular reason ir clue😅

22:33 totally agree with comment on Portugal. Scandalous!

My biggest heartbreak this year was Germany 😢 I really enjoyed the performance and thought it was great. I have some German friends and it is so gutting to hear them say "It doesn't matter what we send, Europe just hates us"

@emdove

9 ай бұрын

I'm not only German but also always rooting for the heavier songs in the contest. This years results was the most disappointing I've ever witnessed. Doesn't help that the Australian singer is also German, and all three acts (Australia, Finland, Germany) were exceptionally likeable in my opinion. Here's to more genre-diversity in Eurovision - and Eurovision juries!

@DarkFlareGC

9 ай бұрын

@@emdove Absolutely! One of the things I love about Eurovision is how diverse the songs are. I hate that countries aren't being rewarded for bringing unique sounds to the competition. Australia, Finland and Germany all brought show stopping performances.

Yeah, as a Finnish person, I think there was definitely an element of not wanting to vote for Sweden - the media was full of Käärijä vs Loreen and I think a lot of people liked feeling like we had a chance for once, so people who might have otherwise voted for Loreen didn't because they didn't want to give her the points. (In my case, what happened was I got so sick of both Käärijä and Loreen bcos it was all the media were talking about for months, to the point where I didn't even want to hear the songs :D I ended up voting for Spain in the grand final, so you can imagine how the results made me feel...)

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

hahaha yea the rivalry this year was TOO MUCH. this is the problem with odds and particularly streaming numbers, it makes it too obvious whos in contention and then the FIGHTING begins.

Noa Kirel had a look-how-amazing-I-am-song, which was a bit off-putting for me. I don't know if other North Europeans felt the same.

@_dont_mind_me

9 ай бұрын

Yeah I felt that too, and the dance break to top it off “you wanna see me dance?” Frankly no

thanks for all your continued hard-work Tom, we all appreciate it as always

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you Lachy 🙏🏻

Tom coming through and making my Wednesday a whole lot better ✨☺️

Nice to see you're starting a Patreon!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea Im glad i started it. its good to have that small income, helps with the money stress a bit 😅

If Finland got 100 percent of the televote they would still only be 9 above sweden. Wtf

@oonanas6507

9 ай бұрын

THIS

@smibrilundun

9 ай бұрын

and if Sweden had done as well as the Uk did last year Finland would have won. want to "blame " someone for the better song winning blame the public

@han-oq6bo

9 ай бұрын

​@@smibrilundunthis... indeed 2018 2019 2021 and has you said 2022 all jury winners who could have had Loreen's jury score but would not have overtaken Finland with their own televote scores. There wasn't a conspiracy.

@smibrilundun

9 ай бұрын

Agree 100 %. If the jury votes were as overpowered as some fans make out then it would be the Jury vote that would be winning most years, not the televote

@gilmourattard3625

9 ай бұрын

Maybe juries awarded alot to Sweden and less to Finland so they win

Tom - glad you signed up with patreon. I mentioned this to you before. So glad you did it! I just back from vacation to this great news. I joined!!!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you so much Chris 🙏🏻. Make sure that you send me what flag that you would like. hope that you had a good holiday 🏖️

Great video!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you Juan 🙏🏻

I think you explain well what happened to Spain. Before the contest, I saw a lot of people saying that Blanca was gonna win the ROW televote beacuse of Latin America. We obviously understand the lyrics and are familir with the style, but it doesn't mean we have to like it. I'm pretty sure most of us voted for Finland or Israel because that's what lots of people here like, fun song with dancing. Those 2 points probably came from us too because support or culture. But the relationship between Spain and LATAM isn't like Croatia and Slovenia. At the end, if we like the song, we'll vote heavily for it and Spain would got 10 o 12.

Yet again a great analysis Tom. Especially your explanation of what happened to Australia is spot on; I got the same question a lot in 2022 since something similar happened to the Netherlands then, and you sum it up perfectly. Also, it's getting clear to me that we should switch back to a random draw.

These videos were some of my favorites and SO, SO great to have during the off season! Congrats on starting the Patreon, I'm excited to join!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thanks Tappy 🙏🏻

Even though I was rooting for Finland after the semi final, once the grand final was over and I started reading more articles or posts about Eurovision I was SHOCKED to see that not only Eurofans, but even the media focused on two specific countries: Finland and Sweden. Their rivalry this year stole the spotlight of so many other performances and even though there were still people who supported other songs, it was obvious whom the media and people continued to push. I started watching the whole Eurovision contest in 2021 and the drama of 2022 and 2023 has left a bitter feeling on me. In 2021 there were so many potential winners, nobody knew if Italy would win or France or Switzerland or Malta or even Finland and Lithuania. And there was SO MUCH LESS drama (minus the Måneskin controversy which lasted for...a few weeks?) This year it seemed like many Eurofans and people associated with the contest forgot that 35 others countries participated and thus there were posts like "it's either Sweden or Finland". Let's hope that next year people will be more chill because I seriously can't deal with so much drama in two consecutive years. Fortunately things have cooled down so now we can embrace the 2024 season with an open mind. :)

Loving all your videos Tom, keep up the great work. I agree with you and Rachel in a great deal in what you both say about the changes in jury make-up that are needed. One point that hasn't been mentioned recently a great deal, however, is the lack of a level playing field in a supposed fair competition. Some countries can throw money at elaborate staging, established artists, stage technicians, wonderous props and pyrotechnics (Germany, Sweden, UK, France, Norway, etc) and others can't (Romania, Moldova, North Macedonia, Montenegro, etc). I believe there should be some kind of cap on the crazy cost of staging enhancements and let's go back to a set-stage, one main structure where the individual creativity is provided by the lyrics to the song, the vocalist, the backing dancers, the stage-graphics, etc. Portugal kind of gave us that in 2018 and this must be the way forward for the good of the contest.

@sarahenchanted

9 ай бұрын

I think one thing that could be added to juries is more jurors that work in TV production. I don't have an issue with having jurors outside of music because Eurovision is a TV show too and gives a fresh perspective. An example of this was I believe at least one of Georgia's jurors (maybe other countries too??) was an expert in TV production. There was one juror that had Croatia, Belgium, Ukraine, Lithuania, Israel, and Armenia in their top 10. What did they have in common? All had vibrant staging and very standout graphics on the LEDs. Armenia might've been a case of bloc voting but my point stands.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

I understand where you're coming from, but if you look at it from the producers perspective, if countries are willing to come and make their show look incredibly magnificent and also pay the bill for it, that's a win-win situation for the producers. So although it would make it more fair, the producers are mostly just concerned with having the most entertaining show possible

They need to do what they did in 2003 and show the recap backwards. That probably helped Turkey win (it had an unflattering running order) since the top 3 was very close and it could've been a very different result if it was shown the normal way.

Thank you!! 🎉

They could show all the recaps in reverse order…. And great sign off by you here Tom 👍🏼

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

haha, as per your advice, i did a little revamp 😂

Just started watching but I already know that this will be a good video

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

hopefully you like the new graphics 🤞🏻

Subscribed to your Patreon! Excellent idea! 🎉

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

thank you so much Rick 🙏🏻

great series! I have reached the acceptance stage in my grief over Blanca Paloma's televote score and I listened to the song for the first time again last week. haha. this year as a whole was a very interesting result though. Lots to think about for next year.

your theory that austria toned down the 'comedy' of its live performance to appeal to the jury makes a lot of sense, but also makes me a little depressed... seriousness is value neutral, and a song/performance can be silly or have comedic elements while still being high quality, complex, artistically valuable, and worthy of success/respect. the fact that the jury can't recognise this and is known to tank perfectly fine songs for not being super serious, or even just trying something different, is frustrating. coupled with käärijä's loss due to the jury, i feel like this bias could cost us a lot of iconic performances bc artists feel like they have to make themselves palatable to do sufficiently well with the jury 😣

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yeah, personally, I think that if you can only choose between pleasing either the jury or the Televote , you should go for the latter. Because at least with Televote success usually comes virality and some commercial success as well. Pleasing the jury alone won’t get you any commercial success

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

And yes, I also think that the jury doesn’t have enough of an appreciation for humour in music

@neconeconeco

9 ай бұрын

imo.... the austrian delegation's vision when it comes to staging is one of the weaker ones in the contest. take a look at their staging from 2010 and you get a lot of the same thing, singer standing in one place with one big prop if you're lucky lol. it's honestly kind of maddening once you notice it, basically the exception is "woki mit deim popo" which.. well

@euroesc5013

9 ай бұрын

People and especially the jury seem to confuse fun and comedy with a joke entry and give it a lot less credit than it deserves.

@Halfling4

9 ай бұрын

​@@euroesc5013thank you! Finally someone said it!

4:09 Little blackout there :) Thanks for making so much content and healing our PED...

The graph showing how much the running order is impacting jury scores in addition to televote is wild!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea its crazy, isnt it? With a random running order, the jury line should be FLAT

Another great video!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you Hith2re ❤️

I just randomly got the feeling to search esc tom and boom new video 2 min ago, it must be a sign

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

hahah ❤️

Finally! so happy it came out now!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

i tried to get it out last night but it took almost 4 hours to upload cos of having to use a VPN (usually a video that big would take around 25-30) 😭

Forget that physiotherapy stuff Tom, you’re the best Data Analyst I’ve come across. Great insights as ever and you’ve answered with facts many of the voting curiosities I’ve had for years. From experience the level of analysis you get to takes a LOT of effort - as you say a labour of love. IMO everyone speaks about televoting at a national level, but on the night it is each individual watching and what they like based on taste, culture, etc, etc… but always intrigued by idiosyncrasies!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you so much Luke! and also for your support on Paypal 🙏🏻❤️ Im not going to bin my career yet though, my parents would go crazy 😂 Yea the televote is SO difficult to analyse on a country by country basis. You never know which demographics are going to show up and watch the show that night, because one country might have a rival show on at the same time that sucks up all of the 40 to 60-year-old demographic, and then all of a sudden your Televote is completely different than it would be without that

Hooray, the trilogy is finally complete! Loved this series, top tier work as always. As a side note, I always wondered how anyone could need subtitles to understand your accent because you sound perfectly clear to me. Then I listed to the Éirevision episode you guested on, which was great, but the Irish really intensified between all of you🤣 Still understandable though!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

omg lol 😂😂😂 i havent listened back to that episode yet cos i dont like hearing myself, but thats hilarious 😂 re: subtitles, i actually forgot to put that little note in this episode, but yea i dont blame many non natives for not understanding. Id be able to understand a reaction in French and maybe Spanish but thats it. In a perfect world id write out the subtitles myself, but it just takes too long

I just LOVE how nerdy you are about the ESC! Statistics and analyses in stead of just assuming, guessing and opining - what is there not to love about your videos!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

haha Awww thank you Tiger ❤️

Excellent video again, Tom. I would add a third reason why Austria didn't do as well as predicted. I think the vocals didn't really gell between the two vocalists until the final part of the song. But the two reasons you stated were the main two reasons. I was looking forward to this video and it did not disappoint. Your content gets better and better.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you so much Tony 🙏🏻

ive never subbed to a patreon before but you definitely deserve it tom so ill get on that

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you so much Liam 🙏🏻❤️

@lighthouse620

9 ай бұрын

havent yet will do on my lunch break you are the best esc youtuber by far and i wish you the best@@ESCTom

Amazing video as always! One note about the Eaea studio cut - the production is off. Blanca's vocal was crushed and too ''dry''. I simply can't listen to it. The live version had a lot of reverb and dynamism which gave everything that magical and mystical feeling.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yep totally agree. i dont listen to the audio only very much tbh

Great video, as always! My personal solution for the running order issue would be to show some inverted recaps, e.g. if you show 4 recaps during the final, do 2 in the actual order and 2 in reverse order. In fact, they did inverted recaps for ESC 2002 and 2003, and JESC 2003, and guess which half 2 out of 3 of the winners of those years were in... so maybe if we do both kinds of recaps, the effect would cancel out?

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yeah invert the recaps and also make the earlier songs recaps longer. And also have a chat with the jury and advise them that early songs do weaker and to account for that

1 idea for the off-season you can try is long-form interviews with Eurovision officials to talk about their strategy for the contest. Jan Bors (former HOH for Czechia) did this 2 years ago on his YT channel but then he stopped. Probably because his day job didn't allow it timewise. He obviously had more access to get e.g. Jan Ola Sand, Michael Kealy, William Lee Adams etc but you can try to see if they're interested.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

we are 100% on the same wave length, I literally thought about reaching out to all of those people (although Jan Ola, I dont know if he'd talk to me) Honestly, first i need to brush up on the necessary software and recording equipment before I do that. Id probably like to practice with a few inperson ones first. But yes you are 100% right that i am planning to do interviews and im not planning on doing it with the artists, because that market is saturated.

Great video Tom 👍 I’m still struggling to condense my feelings from 2023 and keep changing my thoughts on what i’d like to see. But I think mainly my struggle is with what the EBU are asking the public to do, in that they want people to watch and to vote and pay for the privilege, but I think its indisputable that this year the EBU already knew on the Friday night that it was extremely unlikely that the televote would change the outcome of the contest, which feels a little disingenuous to me. Im also (and your analysis backs this up) more and more uncomfortable about the producer led running order. At a very minimum I think places 1,2 & 26 should be random draw. In reflection ive been reminiscing about the old days when betting odds werent really a thing and nobody really knew what the outcome was likely to be until the voting started. 2023 has kind of made me lose the love a wee bit 🙁

@phuttyyt

9 ай бұрын

In my view, regarding the producer-led running order, the semis should be divided up into a minimum of thirds (preferably quarters) and the final into a minimum of quarters (preferably fifths). It still wouldn't be entirely 'fair' but neither would it allow the producers too much leeway. A country being chosen to perform first or last or whatever out of a field of 5/6 is much 'fairer' than if the producer has 13 to choose from.

@davidhall7744

9 ай бұрын

@@phuttyyt cant argue with any of that 😉

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

you know what, id be 1000000% ok with getting rid of the odds! I actually know that in ?France im pretty sure its illegal to bet on Eurovision. I think it would add to the surprise on the night and also reduce rivalries

great video as always! as a number nerd I appreciate all the statistical quirks we missed i think the closest view we can get of what the televote could have looked like without ppl mass voting for finland and thus feeding into this two horsed race is no other than the finnish televote. they gave points to acts that the fandom expected to be televote friendly and ended up kinda flopping such as austria, australia, germany and slovenia. it's interesting to see what it would've looked like. also, I loved Spain's entry this year and was sad to see the tv score but then i considered the parallels that this entry has with ukraine 2021. both ethnic, 9th place with juries, and powerful female vocals that to untrained ears it could sound like screeching. the main difference is that -besides running order- while Shum built up to a satisfying climax, Eaea didn't, and IMO this is why spain flopped :(

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea great point, and interestingly "shum" did have a revamp which i felt helped it a lot. It was still ethnic, but they built that connecting bridge so that it was more accessible. Ukraine are excellent at doing that. and thank you 🙏🏻

@Tollkirschenkind

9 ай бұрын

As someone who likes Shum and doesn't like Eaea, I feel I can explain it somehow. At first I didn't connect with Shum either, but it has some really cool sounds (the flute and the beat drop) and then it has this huge payoff/climax when it gets super fast. The voice blends in well with that. Eaea is missing some more modern-sounding elements and it leads nowhere, there's no huge climax and she just starts screaming louder. With Shum, there's a clear melody (both in the music and the singing), and that's missing from Eaea. (I don't say it has no melody, but it's way harder to grasp). Eaea is also so damn repetitive, it feels like there's nothing going on except for "Eaea" on end. And of course Tom is right, the Shum revamp made a world of a difference. Don't think it would've worked well without it

@Alexander-jn3ek

9 ай бұрын

​@@TollkirschenkindI think that's why she talks about "untrained ears". For example, the German song was pure screaming but our ears are "more accustomed". I declare myself more and more in love with EaEa and more when I listen to the song with my headphones. Greetings 😊

I like your Canada pillows behind you ❤️🇨🇦

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Not sponsored, although if Canada wants to sponsor me, im definitely ok with that 😇

I’m quite sad about Germany’s result (I had it in my top 5) but I remember when I saw it live the vocals did not sound good, at the time I thought it was bad sound mixing or something😔 Btw great video as always!!!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

🙏🏻

@KathyClysm

9 ай бұрын

I will say, I did think that especially in the finale, but also in the semis, there were some mixing issues across the board. To me it was most noticable with the Cyprus and UK entry. Like, sure neither were great singers (imo) but also the audio leveling seemed... off

@Hana9916

9 ай бұрын

For me it was the visuals. On our TV, Chris was completely washed out in red, I couldn't tell where he ended and the background began and it looked really odd. In the version that's on yt now, it's not like that, so I'm not sure what happened there

Love the analysis on Australia (biased cause I'm Aussie), but I think our low numbers is not just cause we competed in the weaker semi final. If you look at your list of televote results in comparison to the semi final the country competed in, you can see that Australia got the second lowest number of televote points, only beating out Austria. It's kinda baffling how the two top countries in SF2 became the two lowest countries televote wise in the GF.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea i def think theres a bias there, but its really hard to measure how much. Dami Im & KMH both came top 10 in televote. I think one of the largest factors this year was that there was such a clear rivalry between Finland in the televote and Sweden in the jury that I think anyone who was remotely rock-orientated knew that they had to put everything behind Finland, and so I think Australia and Germany got abandoned because of that

love the new design

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thanks Robbie 🙏🏻

Furthermore, as someone who had Spain at number one in their rankings, I couldn't believe the amount of fan-friends who classed her performance as screaming. I despair, I really do. My response was: let's send 26 songs in the Estonia-2023 style and see how long the contest lasts then! That choice of song is the problem for me, pandering to jury votes, that in a normal year would have been culled in the semi-final. This song would have easily been last in the first semi-final and yet she ends up 8th overall, madness.

One thing you didn't touch upon was block voting. I don't believe block voting is as hugely problematic as some people in the media might want to paint it, however, with so many countries being so close to each other in the middle, it did have an impact. Austria for example, could have beaten Lithuania, Armenia, Cyprus and maybe also Croatia if those countries didn't receive boosted televotes scores from their allies. So while running order killed T+S, block voting also robbed Autria from the left side of the scoreboard we all expected for them. Maybe we can say the same too about Ukraine saving the UK from a deserved last place as a thank you for hosting on their behalf ?

Gonna wait for good food to watch this lol (yes I’m a data and statistics nerd)

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

i think this video will have something you like then 🤓

Another fantastic video! Particularly found your analysis of the SF>GF points reduction bit interesting. Had wondered if maybe points from the SF should be carried over to the GF - although it won't necassarily solve the problem, would it maybe help a little?

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thanks Hayden! I get where youre coming from, but that would be so messy. The SF imbalance issue is something that's brought up a lot, but i think it's just something we need to accept, unless they start fine tuning the allocation pots a bit more

That was one good part of eurovision 2024: the running order. Especially Ukraine and _that_ country, and netherlands would've gotten a ton top

5:26 Interestingly in both 2014 and 2015 Norway got low scores from televote (16th and 17th respectively) and it was the jury score that pushed these entries into the top ten. It's like Norway has trouble appealing to both juries and viewers, it's always just one of them.

@dhilandass7986

Ай бұрын

Tbh id rather appeal to the televote

I really appreciate the way you crunch the numbers and subsequent analysis .. the televote split SF1 75%/SF2 25% is very telling. Ditto your comments about Austria - I watched the GF live at a viewing at the Liverpool Philamonic and the audience just did not 'get' the song and its irony. Well done - another excellent post. Thank you.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea with Austria it's sad because there was a clearly a conversation that happened somewhere between the music video and the stage conception, and ultimately that conversation killed their chances. The music video was literally perfect, probably one of the best music videos in ESC history

Yasss to the Canadian sofa pillows!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Im fishing for that Sponsorship by Visit Canada 🇨🇦👀

@mojojojoyyz

9 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom I'm down to support that! More ESC for Canada! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

To give some context for the Finnish televote. There was a small news story after the semi finals where one of our former prime ministers tweeted that he had enjoyed and voted for Loreen. Some tabloids ran stories on that and spun voting for Loreen as anti-Käärijä. I don't think the news stories had a big effect but we usually give points to Sweden so I think this type of thinking must have been common.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea i think its likely that you would have given 5-8 in normal circumstances.

@annavilkki-ec1fb

9 ай бұрын

Or maybe just maybe Finland likes rock and metal music a lot more than Swedish pop like Tattoo isn't even getting airplay here at all

The power of voting should be: Televoting; 50%, Streaming average; 5% and Jury; 45%. I think it should be a way to expand the voted countries, increase from 10 to at least the half of the final; 13, in somehow, don't you think?

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

I think adding in streaming could be messy, because thats something could be manipulated by a lot of bots or bought. I remember Latvia did something like that in their NF one year, and got rid of it the next year

@Stonefeather53

9 ай бұрын

Juries did not follow criteria so they should be dismissed. Streaming should have no say, ESC is not a pop-song competition sung only in English for greatest success.

So happy, my country Greece got such good representation in the final. Oh... wait.....

I feel like a good way to combat running order bias is to do what they did in 2002 and 2003 where they play the recap in reverse order. It might seem minor but it actually helped certain entries when it was implemented. For instance, Jessica Garlick getting to the top 3 from the dreaded second spot and all of the first 4 songs from 2003 finishing in the top 11 including Sertab Erener winning the contest from 4th. Hopefully this would remove some of the stigma around performing in the first half. Even though running order bias isn't as strong in semi finals, it's only fair that they do it there as well.

Love the video. Yeah this year's rivalry between Sweden and Finland was too much. I think I have never seen anything familiar like this year. The toxcity, fighting and mockery were too much, that I had problems breathing lol. A lot of people really didn't want Sweden to get their 7th win, so they did all they could to try to stop it. And when they did the whole social media exploded with anger. The thing is that it was not only toxicity between the potential winners but also against other countries already in pre-parties and throughout the months. I don't wanna blame ESC United, but when I was in the streams it was a nightmare, so much toxcity in the chat. It was really disgusting. Although I hate the eurovision depression, I'm kind of happy this year's eurovision ended. Hopefully it won't be like this next year.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yeah thats something that I'm a little bit concerned about. I think that because streaming data and odds right now are so good, it's becoming more and more obvious who is in contention to win. I'm hoping that this year was kind of a once off. It was a perfect storm of having two VERY different entries competing with each other PLUS the rivalry between Sweden and Finland PLUS the fact that some people were pro or against a returning artist winning again PLUS that one song was obviously going to do well with the jkury and the other with the televote. So I'm hoping that this was just a very extreme example of very polarising songs with polarising attributes, and this is not going to be a yearly thing because it's honestly just a bit gross and too negative. If i feel the same thing is happening again next year, im gonna start doing what I can do call it out and divert the focus away from this type of behaviour cos otherwise we're going to turn into football hooligans

@Wailmur

16 күн бұрын

Uhhhh... it was much worse

I think the reason Austria was first is actually very simple. The opening number is always this up-tempo, fun entry to basically get the party started, and pretty much the only options in the first half were Austria and Finland (you could argue Portugal or possibly Serbia, but I think both were too niche). Of course they're not going to put Finland first because there would be literal riots. So they had to "sacrifice" Austria. (I predicted it beforehand but of course you'll have to take my word for that.)

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

I think that if Austria had done an AMAZING funny hilarious show, then they wouldnt have been able to get away with putting that first either, cos there also would have been riots for that. In which case, they kinda would have been forced to put Portugal first. Portugal were 3rd last year, so it would PISS their delegation off, but they kind of wouldnt have had any other option

@nilerra8181

9 ай бұрын

Actually fun never opens with EBU doing RO as far I remember. It's usually English pop (mid or uptempo) and Austria going more serious for juries ended up helping EBU with that decision I guess.

@Wailmur

16 күн бұрын

Imagine putting Finland first and Sweden second

So about Germany: I invited my friends to do a watch party as we do every year (we are all American btw). 2 of my friends really wanted something hard rock, something they can mosh to. I was really excited for them to see Finland and Germany cause I thought they would love it. Finland of course everyone loved but when Germany came up, they started getting into it, but the flow of the song ruined it for them. They didn't get that head banging feeling that they wanted and no one ended up voting for it. Germany's song was good but maybe in its vein. of what points they were trying to go for, Finland took away A LOT of what they were offering and the song may have not been up to the standard of what rock fans were feeling that night. They were never going to score in the Jury either, we all knew that. Just a shame really, hate seeing Germany last.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea thats true, Käärijä really did give that much more headbanger energy. Im not sure if thats a normal thing in glam rock (honestly i dont know that much about glam rock in general), but yea i can totally see how the Finland won that energy battle

I don't agree with a comment I saw on twitter about having ROW split between continents and giving the US more prominence. I think that having ROW as one set of points is perfect to have us, non European fans, feeling embraced by the competition without changing the outcome too drastically. I would love a ROW jury, and in that having one juror from each continent makes absolute sense to me (maybe an exec/producer from a record company that is in some way associated to the EBU? Someone associated with streaming services?). I would like to have the split results of ROW by region for nerdy reasons.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yea I think what you described would be the best situation. It would be super interesting if they expanded it into continents because it would be so cool to see the breakdown of who each continent voted for, but I don’t think that they’re ever gonna release the breakdown results anyway, so that’s the main reason gone imo.

@in_wino_veritas

9 ай бұрын

Yeah, I absolutely agree with you on this, there definitely needs to be a ROW jury as well. But I also don't agree with splitting up the ROW points into countries, it would be interesting though, to see how everyone voted, but letting everyone have their points leads to m9re diaspora voting. Wnd what about votes from countries where the contest isn't even being aired, especially in smaller ones, there probably might be only 30, 40 people voting, maybe most of them for Spain, if it's a Spanish speaking country. No, better not.

@thedanimenezes

9 ай бұрын

@@in_wino_veritas I totally mean in a post competition way, for example to know if our assumption that LATAM Spanish diaspora is voting for Spain, or Brazilians are voting for Portugal...Totally nerd, curious motives.

Hi Tom!

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Hey Malena 👋🏻

Hi Tom! Great video, as always. I became your follower the moment you showed magnet with serbian flag on it as your favourite ESC song in 2023. Luke Black has new song and music video I'm So Happy and I would love to hear what you think about it. Thank you in advance!

Why not run the recap backwards from the last to the first performing country? That's what was done in the 2002 and 2003 contests and I'm surprised it never continued after that. That could help refresh the audience to the earlier countries and give them more points. There are a lot of fans that want complete random drawing to come back to determine the running order, but I don't think that is ever going to happen because I feel like there needs to be some control over the running order so you don't end up with multiple songs within the same genre in a row or entries with massive staging set pieces back to back. That said, I actually have an idea to bring back some randomness in the running order while still having producer control. Instead of randomly sorting the qualifiers to first and second halves, they should be sorted into segments. We know the host country gets their slot randomly chosen but what if the Big Five also get random slots too and not just a first or second half draw. Once those six spots are set, the remaining 20 spots are divided into quarter segments of five for the finalists. For instance, if spots 2, 7, 11, 18, 21, and 25 are randomly drawn for the six pre-qualifiers, the segments are assigned as: Quarter 1: 1, 3-6 Quarter 2: 8-10, 12-13 Quarter 3: 14-17, 19 Quarter 4: 20, 22-24, 26 From there, the producers can still arrange the songs as they please to make the most sense, but only within the quarter segments the countries are assigned to and work around the prequalified slots. For instance, if Sweden is randomly draw to the first quarter, the producers can't place it any further than slot number 5 or 6. This proposed system can help bring some randomness back to the running and curb producers' bias but it still allows them to have a say in the order.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

at the end of the day, the producers priority is a good show over fairness. they want some randomness to keep it "fairer" but really i think thats it maxxed out. their priority is that the show flows optimally and the more contraints they have with draws, the harder that is to make happen

2:00 omg, you accidentally did a "portugal is eastern europe" meme

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

i saw it while editing but i didnt have any remaining emotional energy left to do a voiceover, so i just prayed no one would notice 😂

With hindsight, we know now that the competition had already finished by the end of Friday's Jury show. It's frustrating because the EBU would have known before the start of Saturday's GF that Sweden had been given an insurmountable lead by the juries, which makes all the scripted Sweden references in the final show even more frustrating, and the win predetermined. It sucks for the artists who thought they still had a chance to win and gave it their all during the GF as well as the public who believed they could have say on who would be triumph.

I know it’s too early to see any patterns, but Israel getting 12 points from the Rest of the World and Armenia getting 8 could be the result of huge worldwide diasporas for each country, Israel having a massive Jewish diaspora, but Armenia is up there, too. And then countries like Spain (and possibly Portugal) may benefit from Latin American votes. These countries I mentioned could consistently receive points from the ROTW regardless of song quality/popularity.

I wish I could help you because I love what you do! You also got me to transform from a casual Eurovision fan to an enthusiast but I'm poor af 💔😭 I hope that me watching and liking and sharing your videos helps too!🌷💚

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

haha of course it does! Thank you 🙏🏻❤️🥰🤩🧡 (also when you become a billionaire, hopefully youll remember me 😂)

@janeknudsen9788

9 ай бұрын

You bet!

Someone has to perform first and someone last. It is so simple. If people like the song it does not matter which running order it has. But I agree that to prove this theory right, Sweden and Finland should have had running orders 1 and 2. But still, the final results would have been like they are now because people like their songs.

2:51 actually Solo was charting in Ukraine, Lithuania, maybe other countries even before the contest, so i think you're wrong on that

Fabulous video of analytics Tom as per usual Hey, the new graphics look VERY sharp indeed!! Agree with most of your conclusions. One or two differences mind.. The Spanish televote didn't suprise me one bit however. As excellent a vocalist as Blanca undoubtedly is, the "sound" of EaEa is lacking in mass appeal unfortunately. I have no difficulty with her being the Spanish entrant though. The televote and international jury internally both selected her but if they wanted international appeal there was more than one better choice at Benidormfest. Ie Agoney, Vico, Megara etc. I personally think they all would have had much better results in Liverpool. C'est la vie. It is Spain's choice and that must be respected!! Germany as well we differ on. Although vastly improved on recent years, i just don't think they "committed" fully to the metal genre and got punished for it.....can't see "blood and glitter, sweet and bitter" being used as lyrics in a Metallica or Black Sabbath song some how!! Finland's Blind Channel and Iceland's Hatari committed fully and got their rewards for it. Keep up the great work..........joining your Patreon as we speak. You deserve the support from all of us who appreciate all your hard work 👏👏👏👏👏

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Thank you John! 🙏🏻 V good point about Hatari and Blind Channel, they really did go all in. Honestly i dont know that much about Glam Rock, so im not sure how "watered down" LOTL's performance was or whether it was true to the genre tbh.

Your neighbour across the way, has loads of t shirts…😃

Running order does need sorting it's ridiculous that even the artists don't even hide it

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea thats the surprising thing is what a large percentage of even the artists now know about 1st and 2nd half draws now. You can see it in literally every single artists face during the draw after the SFs

Tom,do you prefer eaea,terra or fulenn?

@ESCTom

7 ай бұрын

My preference is in this order: 1. Eaea 2. Fulenn 3. Terra But I enjoy all 3 a lot because they are all so interesting culturally

It definitely makes sense that Albania will get points from the RotW votes.

I thought it was kind of cute in theory to open and close the contest with songs about songwriting but it most certainly didn't do Austria any favors in the televote.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

omg i didnt notice that 😂😂😂

Tom,now seeing the result of fulenn and eaea Do you think tanxugueiras would have been bottom 5 last year??

@rock7604

9 ай бұрын

I think they would have 5-10 points(5 televote from Portugal,1 from switerland and maybe 1 or 2 from belgium and france

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yep 100%. I thought that even before Fulenn and eaea. The televote results showed they got a huge televote from Galicia. And I thought they looked nervous on stage

I just realised that the producers deciding on the running order actually unwittingly trains the audience to not be too keen on watching the first few songs. Why would you bother when you know from experience that some weaker songs will start the show? So I expect the difference to become even more statistically relevant in the next few years. Which again means that at some point the EBU will eventually re-evaluate.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea i dont think theres a perfect solution. really if you want to run the best show, you should construct the running order in the most entertaining way possible like really there isnt a single entertainment show that would ever randomise the order of the program, you cant have your big spectacles all at the start So they need to work out an advantage for the earlier songs, i think they should use the jury to possibly do that!

@CasualUmami

9 ай бұрын

There is one example,: ESC until 2012 😉 But in all seriousness, there is no perfect but a very good solution: mix things up rules wise every few years without sacrificing the core idea. And frankly the EBU have done very well in that respect throughout the history of the contest. About your suggestion: Wouldn't you fear that using the juries for that would alienate the audience even more from the juries, to a point where the audience lose interest? I'm throwing another suggestion in the ring, being aware of its flaws: How about allocating countries to the two halves according to their previous record in the competition? The countries with the worst records automatically get 2nd half.

The only part of Israel's song presentation that most Nordic countries dislike is the irrelevant dance number at the end of her song, unlike Slomo, which incorporates the dance number in between.

Another reason for our result other than the one you gave is genre. Slovenia 🇸🇮, Croatia 🇭🇷, Germany 🇩🇪 and Finland 🇫🇮 were all in the same umbrella genre of rock. With too much of one genre in the final to choose from and Finland 🇫🇮 being a televote magnet led to not many people not voting for us and thus we got less points. Even if the songs themselves are different people wil just lump them into the same category which is bad when it comes to voting and only a few songs getting the majority of the votes which is definitely what we experienced at least this year and honestly last year as well (too many ballads). The reasons you gave are also completely true and fair but that is definitively another. This could also be the reason for the disappointing results of Germany 🇩🇪 and Slovenia 🇸🇮.

when it comes to semi finals, i always have a feeling that 2nd semi is a bit weaker than 1st, i don't know why, maybe it is my personal opinion and feeling, so this point loss doesn't surprise me, i often oversleep 2nd semi anyway, so 1st semi final songs getting more points in general in finale for me is expected but little sad as well

I’m with the nails on a chalkboard people where Spain is concerned. Honestly the chorus sounded like a car alarm to me. And I’m all for a bit of ethnicity. But Spain baffled me this year. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ Each to their own.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yea honestly I didn’t realise how divisive this singing style was until I started reading comments here and on twitter. It makes the low televote score make a bit more sense

@myrawatters1036

9 ай бұрын

I also couldn’t grasp the rhythm of the verses. Listen to how uneven the heavy beat is. It’s really inconsistent and it seemed random where Paloma or the backing singers began each part. I found it trippy to listen to because I couldn’t even tap my toe along with it.

@Tollkirschenkind

9 ай бұрын

I watched it with 2 people who like Eurovision but don't follow it pre-finale, and two of us (me included) really hated the sound of her voice, and one loved it. I can admire her passion and the technical and artistic approach, but I would never listen to it voluntarily.

@myrawatters1036

9 ай бұрын

Totally. It’s beautifully staged, and beautifully performed but just not my cup of tea. I love how music is so individual.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yea i get what you mean about the rhythm. The issue for me with the song is that the melody production feels quite "minimal", like it's a bit sparse, I needed some more "thickness" and layers in the productions persnally. But i LOVED the performance and her, so it still made it into my final top 12

I think they need to make the Running order more Random. Except for the songs with more Complex Staging as the crew need time to Put it up. Last Year, Ukraine would have Won in Any Spot in the Running order. (Could have broken the Curse of Going 2nd) Since the 1980 only 3 Acts have won going last, Noone has won going 2nd, 16th, 25th or 26th. 16th has no winners but 17th has had the most.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yeah I have would've liked it if they had put Ukraine second last year, just to break the curse but then I also think it would've looked a bit like they're trying to sabotage them. In general I'm more for the producer lead running order because they need to make the show as entertaining as possible to maximise revenue. The more the revenue is, the lower the participation fee and the easier access that smaller countries had to the competition

@joebogle3172

9 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom I dont like how much power the running order has but if you have a Decent Song you will do well. I think maybe they should put the Favourite in Pos 2 to break the curse unless the Staging is complex.

I feel that the song from Israel is dated pop and also the performance has the "diva factor" that doesnt work in nordic countries. (See cyprus 2018)

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Oh wow I didn't realise that about Cyprus 2018. Other than Sweden giving 4 points, all their lowest scores came from these Nordic countries

Hey Tom - just FYI you have a glitch starting at 4:09 I think - kzread.info/dash/bejne/e3it1M16cpzcaLw.html

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yea that was a fault on my end, im working on a workaround now, thanks

@garrickdarts

9 ай бұрын

No stress, @@ESCTom - it hardly ruins the video, just thought you’d like to know.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

yes, i definitely do, thank you! Ive trimmed it out, but in case anyone sees this comment, the 7 seconds trimmed out said "Obviously Finnish people aren't all the same, some act in one way and other ways😊. But if you look historically, Finland don't often...""

@garrickdarts

9 ай бұрын

👍

Germany deserved more points at this year's esc

I think a huge part of the reason why the nordic countries put Israel kinda low is because the nordic people are often very "#freepalestine". i remember on twitter on esc night, during Israel's number my swedish/norweigan/danish twitter feed was FULL of people criticising Israel and many asked why they even were allowed in ESC after their apartheid against palestinians. that could've affected the votes a lot especially other people who don't know about the illegal israeli occupation, so when they was on twitter they got affected by the "anti-israel/anti-appartheid" tweets. cuz the nordic countries often give low votes to Israel. but it's just a thought but as u say, Unicorn is a sleek pop song which SHOULD go home in the nordics but they value support of human rights ahead of music (which i think it's fair tbh)

OMG

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

i choose to take this as a good OMG 😂

@gabesalgado789

9 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom🎉 You are correct! Thanks for this

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

and thank you for the coffees ☕️❤️

2:07 Since 2021 the Azeri televote has been showering Israel with points, due to Israel backing Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. Ever since than, they have always given 12 or 10 points to the Israeli entry in the final and the semi when possible (even in 2022). The Azeri juries don't give Israel special treatment, they did give Noa 12 points but the previous time they gave Israel any points was 1 point in the 2021 first semi final. As for Armenia, with the exceptions of 2018 and 2023 the Armenian juries almost always put Israel in the bottom 3 of their ranking and so did the televote (long before the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict broke). The Israeli televote however is usually very fond of the Armenian entries. There's an Armenian community in Israel but I'm not sure it's big enough to significantly impact the televote, maybe the Israelis just vibe with what Armenia has to offer.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

ok this is awesome information. honestly i dont know the inter-political stuff between this regions this year, but youve explained it really well. im going to have to keep an eye out for it, because it can affect SF qualification

I actually gave Germany 🇩🇪 my 10 points. I agree, the vocal technique was amazing and I thought the production and staging was great. They definitely didn’t deserve last place. Loreen got my 12. I loved our song 🇬🇧 but our staging swallowed her up and her vocals were not good at all. Unfortunately I put her as last place for me.

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

Yeah I really love Mae, but I don't think there was enough consideration about how she was going to perform live when she wrote the song. You can see that there are some countries were already thinking about what the staging and performance is going to be while they're in the songwriting process, to make sure that theyre giving themselves something they can perform well. These are the types of small details that the more successful delegations dont miss.

@matthewnathanallen9987

9 ай бұрын

@@ESCTom absolutely agree. They do miss these kind of details out, which is paramount to coming across well on the night. I hope UK can learn from this and consider these factors. You don’t have to throw the kitchen sink at it, just needs to be performed well, have that Eurovision formula, good staging and rememberable.

Thank you for the explanation about Spain - I just could not understand why people like that song, for exactly the reason you state: to me it sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Honestly Eurovision songs normally just fall into two categories for me: "like it" or "boring,", and I don't mind sitting through the boring ones to enjoy the ones I like; Ea was a rare song where I actually really disliked it and would go out of my way to avoid listening to it.

No doubt that Blanca Paloma is a great singer and artist, but I'm one of those people that couldn't handle the tone. And I say couldn't handle, because I really couldn't handle it. I had to leave the room while she was playing, because that tone was giving me a headache. And that actually made me sad, because she has a lot of talent, but I couldn't handle listening to it:(

Norwegian talking here, i feel like the sentiment among the nordic countries regarding Noa Kirel was that it wasn't good or that it was overrated, people still talk trash about that song over here, so i'm surprised Norway gave any points to Israel at all

@ddraven3180

5 ай бұрын

Shocker, Nordics acting like only Nordics deserve to win. The whole block of yours is a cancer to this contest

I would say , last place is always a western country , also i dont see similarities with Finland compared wuth auatraliacand germany

@ESCTom

9 ай бұрын

well all of the Auto QFs are Western countries right now. Im not sure in the future if potentially poland and Ukraine might become Auto QFs

Cornelia > loreen)

22:35 Why is 2018 scandalous? What happened?

@_dont_mind_me

9 ай бұрын

It’s scandalous that Portugal came last in 2018

@davek303

9 ай бұрын

Why? It was absolute shit. Home countries can and should come last if the song and performance are trash.@@_dont_mind_me