How did Ollie get no points in the public vote for Eurovision?

[FatAndFiftySomething]

I don’t mean ‘because people didn’t like his song’, I mean, literally how do the voting points work?

I’ve googled and not found an answer. It’s not percentages as some people got a few hundred.

Is it like 1 point per thousand public votes (or whatever the numbers are ) and he didn’t reach 1000 votes from any single country?

There are loads of brilliant songwriters and loads of people would kill for the exposure. The problem is the team at the BBC or wherever keeps coming up with lacklustre ideas and running with them. Sam was back to basics, a great song with singalong potential, an amazing voice more than capable of performing live, and simple but visually impressive and attractive staging. Whatever the genre, that's what tends to win Eurovision these days.

Exactly. George knew how to turn an embarrassing situation ( following on from a genuine ' outing' by the press and massive homophobia in the tabloids) into something glam and humorous, turning the faux outrage back on itself. Rather than an openly gay singer turning gay sex back into something seedy and dirty. I don't blame Olly necessarily. He's just the singer, but the production was crappy. Not helped by everyone at the BBC saying ' The staging is amaaazing!' No it was dreadful and Olly couldn't sing properly. Either they realised it ws crap but the only choice was to big it up, or they don't know how to stage an act to fit the audience. Someone somewhere else said he'd sung it stripped back with just a piano and it was brilliant. Maybe that's what will stand out at Eurovision now that everyone is trying to be as porny as possible!

Yes this is it I think - there was no humour or fun about Olly’s performance. Just sleazy sex. Simulating oral sex with the microphone? Um, Im far from a prude but it’s really not appropriate, and you wouldn’t get away with anything so blatantly sexualised from a heterosexual performer either. The winning song was about the non-binary performer accepting their non-binary identity so I really don’t think the vote was about bigotry - the public respond well to good vocals and a song that is sincere. UK massively missed the mark unfortunately.

Top stat of the day, every contest since 2013 the last place has been taken by a non-qualifier, either the big 5 or the host.

Having to get through the semis imposes a minimum quality threshold and each year one of the six automatic qualifiers falls below that level: this year it's us.

We always thought that not performing in the semis also penalised contestants through lack of practice in the arena, and less audience familiarity, but they've changed that this year and it didn't help Olly.

I’m 35 but I remember watching most years at my nans house and we always did rubbish. Most countries didn’t give us any points. My nan used to say it was political.

There's no mystery as, I believe, the highest the song ever got in the charts in the U.K. , where there is a sympathetic audience and enthusiastic eurovision community , was 42.

If a song plugged on prime time tv, radio 2 and with a captive eurovision audience can't get a higher rating in its own country then you can't expect others to vote for it .

When the rehearsal footage was released UK had , for a while , a high viewership of the footage. It elevated a not well thought of song for a while but was not enough for people to like the song itself.

In contract Switzerland, Ireland and Croatia have not only done well in their own countries but also internationally on platforms such as Spotify.

This year Eurovision was so shit I’m not going to bother watching anymore.

I sat there with my family watching it, and I thought I was in some seedy club watching a take off of Dune meets the White Walkers porn. It was awful.

Our entry saw a bunch of men acting out a gay orgy. 2 blokes got behind 2 on their hands and knees and pretended to give them one. Ollie at one point was on the floor and licked a man over his crotch.

Oh then there was the Spanish granny with the men in basque g strings.

It’s a music contest, not a sleazy club.

It’s been taken over by the GBTQ+ brigade and everyone else has been pushed out.

I'm around your age and the UK did great throughout our youth. Sonia, Michael Ball, Gina G, Katrina, Frances Ruffelle, Jessica Garlick, Jade Ewen - all did great, deservedly so. We came top 10 nearly every year, the years that we didn't were because we were not good. The only robbery was Precious in 1999.

Ah, thank you. That's what I was after. Only Albania put us actually bottom. Interesting that we were really low from Israel but almost middling from Ukraine

Because of the ridiculous men in boxing outfits over sexualised. When I saw it I turned it off. And I'm very liberally open minded. Too cringe.

Yes, but on the flip side the Albanian jury actually quite liked it and we very nearly scraped another point! Eurovision stats will never stop fascinating me.

Croatia, Israel and Serbia also put us bottom of their phone vote - 24th is the bottom vote for performing countries.

True and agree that stats and voting are fascinating. The UK was actually on the left hand side of the board for a while with the jury voting.

I've read a few 'what went wroooooong?' features over the past couple of days, and factors seem to include the distracting kerfuffle around Olly making/not making a public stand on Gaza, and thus getting social media drama from what should have been a strong fanbase, and also the questionable decision to stage the song in a small box when everyone else made full use of a 360 degree arena.

And also the grubbiness of his shower. No one wants to think about the Lakeland catalogue while watching Eurovision.

That’s really interesting, where did you get that information?

I know it’s not what you asked OP but just agreeing with other complains about the toilet! It was nasty. Eurovision is glam and sparkly or if a song is grungy or gothic, then that’s done in a theatrical, exciting way too. The dirty horrible toilet was just sad and offputting. I don’t really want to watch a sleazy gay orgy but even that I suspect would have been OK if it was danced on a big stage with lots of lights and sparkles. A Eurovision performance needs to be a spectacle and a focus whether it’s one person owning the stage or a dance troupe. The boxed-in and dirty vibe was just so depressing and horrible.

In this respect Bambie did a much better show, despite being very annoying.

Oops I should have credited the source. It's this twitter account , which has stats galore!

The song sung live was weak vocals, grubby set (eurovision gay = fun, not seedy). The fact he hates the UK would have come out in interviews and appearances even if not explicit there would be a lack of enthusiasm which would show. See also last years entry as she was openly hostile to UK as well. Im not sure he did the full pre Eurovision experience, touring Europe to get support.

Sam Ryder was full on energy and enthusiasm and absolutely nailed numerous public appearances across Europe in the months before the contest which made his song recognisable. His song was better, set was great and well, he was just nicer.

Not 2024, Norway came last on Saturday. And then Slovenia, Austria. 4th from last was a big 5 (Spain)

It's quite unusual but I think we might see it more due to changes to the voting system.

Previously semis and the final had the same voting system but starting last year they changed it so the semis is televote only and the final is jury and televote.

Often the public and the juries have different tastes in songs. The new system means more crowd pleasing songs go through and less jury bait. In the finals that can then mean there's a clear favourite amongst the jury whereas the public vote is more spread out.

Hence the last 2 years winners have been the top jury choice but not the top televote choice.

The staging was a real issue, many people I have chatted to, who are very much into diversity and in no way homophobic didn't like it at all, two gay friends felt it was portraying an out of date, seedy, "public loos" trope of homosexuality, which they felt to say the least was unhelpful.

Eurovision is camp and fun, the staging of our song was seedy and grubby, that's it really, it didn't fit - the song wasn't great, but I do think the staging killed it for many.

Cest la vie, we've been at the bottom of the pile before

Isreal´s performance was also surprisingly good for Eurovision.
Decent voice, a melodious ballad and a pretty woman? I would have been surprised if that kind of performance (by any country) hadn´t gotten some points...

Actually two other countries made the questionable decision to reduce the stage to a box - Sweden and Germany - and I think they suffered for it too. It made them all seem distant from the audience and it felt like watching a music video instead of a live performance.

Sam Ryder was fantastic in Eurovision 2022. We just need better singers.

I think it fed into the worst prejudices about gay men in that their whole life/personality is just sex.
You can’t imagine them having a loving family, working hard at a career, enjoying different hobbies etc
Its actually really sad.

And also the grubbiness of his shower. No one wants to think about the Lakeland catalogue while watching Eurovision.

😆 I do think the dirty locker room setting was a massive mistake. So many people saying it was a shit song, shit vocal etc, that is YOUR opinion, not a fact. In my opinion the Irish entry was shit but my DD thought it was brilliant though even she admitted it wasn't really a song. Objectively, comparing Olly's vocals to the studio version (i.e. how he intended it to sound), the semi performance was very shaky but the final performance was spot on.

I thought the choreography and all the spinning was really good for a song called Dizzy about how new love can make you feel, it was just a shame about the dirty bathroom, it reminded me of my local manky swimming pool showers, could have done with the once over from Kim and Aggi. It's Eurovision, it needed glitter and bling. I like the actual song, it's the only one that has stuck in my head.