Why do we put forward such awful acts for the Eurovision?

[StopSayingDueDiligence]

I can't abide the Eurovision but for many years I've wondered why we put through such awful acts and seem surprised when we fail?

Didn't we have Katie price one year?

Why don't we put through people like Adele or Rag N Bone Man, Little Simz or Florence of the Machine?

Why can't they represent us?!

I really liked Blue's song at the time. They were robbed.

Steps would be a brilliant choice (or maybe not now, but 20 years ago!)

I can still remember the excitement of Katrina and the waves winning! Was it 1997? Just after new labour stormed into power??

I love Eurovision, watch it every year as I find it very entertaining. Our song was pure crap, much like every other song we've used for the last 20 years, I can barely remember any of them.

The voting is definitely political in places although it has improved in recent years. What I've found very telling this year is the attitude that the UK being one of the contributors should somehow guarantee us votes - not only would that be fraudulent (which the very same people point out is an issue with political voting from other countries), it reminds me of those predatory men who think buying a woman a drink guarantees them sex. I find this dark side of the UK pretty uncomfortable.

If we want to do well we need to take it seriously. And dear God please no Steps.

I’m getting really tired of people blaming Brexit. Sure, it doesn’t help, but if we see it as a joke and put up dreadful songs that have zero chance of success we can’t blame being hated. It’s self inflicted.

I have watched Eurovision every year since I was a child - if any other country had entered the same song and act, they wouldn’t have even made it to the finals.

Look at some of the stuff that’s been in Eurovision in the last 10 years and compare that to what we entered. What did anyone expect? It’s the same almost every year.

Last reasonable entry we had was 2017 and we came about 15th which is pretty good considering everyone detests us and was the first one after the Brexit vote 🙄

I loved that song by Andy Abraham the x factor bin man. That should've done much better than it actually did.

I clearly remember Wogan blaming racism for Andy being overlooked for a very good song and a great performance. I don't know if that was the whole (or any of the true) story, but it was a very embarrassingly white contest up to about 10 years ago, if you look back.

I so want Bill Bailey AND Steps next year. They can both do cheese really well, but also take quality of performance very seriously.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I loved that song by Andy Abraham the x factor bin man. That should've done much better than it actually did.

I clearly remember Wogan blaming racism for Andy being overlooked for a very good song and a great performance. I don't know if that was the whole (or any of the true) story, but it was a very embarrassingly white contest up to about 10 years ago, if you look back.

He didn't deserve last place at all

Out of interest does any know how many public votes = a point?

I have to say I do prefer the new voting system 'reveal' as in previous years it's always been known who the winner was by about half way through the votes. Last night was so dramatic, I loved it!

Really bored of the vacuous "it's political" and "they all hate us" remarks. Brits are such sore losers.

When we send a good song, we do well. Blue, Lucie Jones, Jade Ewan, all recent and all did well. When we send crap, we get crap points. See James Newman, who is not a performer.

It's a real shame we automatically qualify and don't have to face the semi-finals. Most of the bland songs get dropped at that stage, but ours go right through so we don't need to put any effort in.

Out of interest does any know how many public votes = a point?

I don't know for a fact, but I assume it's all relative, so that whoever received the most public votes in each country gets the public's 12, second most gets their 10 etc., down to the 10th most votes, which gets the 1 point. Even if there were millions of votes between, say, most popular and second most popular and only 20 votes between 10th most and 11th most. That's the only fair way to do it, isn't it?

Having said that, it does end up meaning that every single Sammarinese person who picks up the phone effectively carries the same weight in the final result as nearly 2.5K German people doing the same.

Of course, it makes perfect sense that you can't vote for your own country, but that then means that, out of the total voter pool, the biggest countries are automatically disqualified from receiving a much, much bigger amount of the potential votes than the tiny countries are. If they went mad and suddenly allowed everybody to vote for any country including their own, one of the Big 5 would win every single year, if every voter placed a home vote, even if they also voted for their actual favourites too. On the other hand, under the same free-for-all rules, San Marino and Malta would have virtually no advantage at all.

@Theworldisfullofgs

It's not a cheesy joke, that just a lazy British trope. The voting is also vast less political. If it was Italy wouldn't have won.

The reason we don't win is because we behave like Amanda Holden did. Its about time we got over ourselves and that we have to exist in partnership with other countries. We're no where near as special or as hard done by as we think we are. We didn't win because we sent a shit unmemorable song, sung by someone who doesn't usually sing.

Amanda Holden was a fucking disgrace. Can’t stand her anyway, but she was just abysmal. Eugghhhh. I do agree though, that I actually liked James Newman’s song on the radio. But it didn’t translate to the arena very well. And his outfit was very bad. I do agree that going forward, if we’re just going to get null points, then yeah, let’s break out of the bland typical Eurovision style pop, and go for something a bit more unusual.

@covetingthepreciousthings

To be fair to James Newman, he is a successful song writer and has had hits via that.

I don't think it matters who we send, we'll never win again (sadly). Bill Bailey has offered himself up for next year so I'm hoping he gets a shot. H from Steps has also tweeted to say he think Steps should
do it.

I don't think the likes of Dua Lipa or Ed Sheeran would be jumping at the chance though..

Bill Bailey would be superb!!

All the songs are awful, I don't understand the euro vision brief

Having said that, it does end up meaning that every single Sammarinese person who picks up the phone effectively carries the same weight in the final result as nearly 2.5K German people doing the same.

I don’t think San Marino has a televote though, does it? Because you can’t separate their phone network from the Italian one.

We could put Adele, sam smith or Ed sheeran, we would still lose, ours wasn’t even that bad. We’ve had way worse acts over the years. It’s political, it has been for years, it wasn’t gonna fair any better after we’ve just left the EU! We should pull out as we pay the most money in. Every year without fail, Cyprus and Greece vote for each other simply because they are neighbours. It’s bureaucratic bullshit.

We could put Adele, sam smith or Ed sheeran, we would still lose

Any of those with a good song would get top 10 at least.

I don’t think San Marino has a televote though, does it? Because you can’t separate their phone network from the Italian one.

Ooh, that's interesting, I hadn't thought of that. How do they get the SM public votes, then? Even so, the point still stands, if you take any of the small countries (as opposed to the 'micro nations') vs the likes of Germany, France, Italy and us.

Then again, I suppose it also depends on the communications infrastructure that each country has. I (in the UK) had to keep trying when I got the engaged tone repeatedly, so some of the younger, much poorer and smaller countries could have just gone into complete meltdown, potentially, if their comms systems aren't built to handle that much traffic.

@Timeisavirtue

We could put Adele, sam smith or Ed sheeran, we would still lose, ours wasn’t even that bad. We’ve had way worse acts over the years. It’s political, it has been for years, it wasn’t gonna fair any better after we’ve just left the EU! We should pull out as we pay the most money in. Every year without fail, Cyprus and Greece vote for each other simply because they are neighbours. It’s bureaucratic bullshit.

So the fact we came 15th in 2017, literally the first Eurovision after Brexit vote...? We didn’t get zero points then!

Of course we would do well with one of those acts (if the song was good).

The song really was that bad. The only one close to as bad was Germany, but they at least put in some effort.

And again, the voting is far less political than it used to be - it used to be extremely predictable who would give max points to whom, and aside from a couple of countries last night that really didn’t happen this year. And the public vote has massively changed that too (although after last night I’m wondering if the public should get a vote 😬)

It's such British arrogance to think if we put something decent in, it should come top or else it's "poltical" and because poor old Blighty is being picked on by the mean Europeans.

Other countries are already sending their Adeles, Ed Sheerans, and Sam Smiths. That's what we're up against, not other mediocore nobodies.

We could put Adele, sam smith or Ed sheeran, we would still lose

I'm still not completely won over by the argument that somebody of their great status would automatically sweep it. Yes, they're immensely popular across the continent, but I'm not convinced that their styles would automatically mesh into what works well at Eurovision at all - I think they're often two quite different vibes.

Look at all the world-famous vocally-amazing opera stars that have come out of Italy - yet, if they entered one of them singing Mozart, they still probably wouldn't do nearly as well as their hard rock band this year who may or may not like herbs did.

I agree that it’s the crap acts and songs we put forward, not political voting. Me and DH were discussing this (both Eurovision fans) and every year the top 5 are basically the best songs in the contest that stick in your head and stand out so clearly nothing to do with political voting.

I also reckon statistically there are far more rock music fans, so makes sense to send a rock band. Bland pop is so forgettable

The Portuguese winner from a few years ago, and in fact the Ukrainian winner the previous year weren’t classic Eurovision either - they won because they were great. I’m quite irritated that Italy’s entry goes on that list - i had forgotten it as soon as it finished.

Love Eurovision, and used to love ir more when most countries sang in their native languages. That alone fascinated me as a young girl.

About the political voting, I really don't think it's too bad. If you think about it, it is quite logical that someone from say, Greece finds the music made by a neighbouring country more to their taste. Especially when traditional /folk elements are used. You know, those that make the UK audiences take the piss