Eurovision

[Sometimeswinning]

I dont know why I'm watching it! It needs to go really. How are we behind Israel? They're not even Europe!

No the time has come to face reality. The UK will never now be accepted in the show. So why the f*ck do we put most the money into the show?

Get a grip UK. We voted to leave the EU, so why on earth would anyone vote for us? So why not bow out with any funding for the show?

Many Eurovision counties are not in the EU.

The Eurovision would possibly benefit from a naming make over to be more correctly inclusive and acknowledge the west Asian, central Asian and Australia entries. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Israel are not particularly European? Just adding credence that this is just an annual show and global get together of not necessary best in breed performers who would otherwise not reach such an international audience. Establish acts and proven popular talents tend to avoid such secondary talent shows for the reasons as many posters also highlighted. Would be a game changer if say Australia or any other country furthest from Europe won in the future!

@ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia

The competition doesn't usually feature proven popular talents.
The UK is only up against the songs from that specific year, not past years.

The Adele argument is a non-starter. Is Go_A a proven popular talent/band? Is techno trad a thing outside of eastern Europe? Where did Ukraine place this year?

The Irish public awarded votes to almost the same countries the UK public did. Taste isn't all that different.

Ireland
12 Lithuania
10 Iceland
8 Ukraine
7 France
6 Italy
5 Finland
4 Malta
3 Switzerland
2 Portugal
1 Sweden

UK
12 Lithuania
10 Iceland
8 Bulgaria
7 Finland
6 Malta
5 France
4 Ukraine
3 Italy
2 Norway
1 Switzerland

@DioneTheDiabolist Okay, to be exact then, those who are members of the European Broadcasting Union.

An awful lot of those who participate in the Eurovision competition are not even eligible for entry to Europe.

So shall we just not say that the whole comical show is down to politics? And you are either in or out?

You can say what you want @Unreasonabubble, it doesn't change the fact that we lost because our entry was awful.

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Israel are not particularly European? Just adding credence that this is just an annual show and global get together of not necessary best in breed performers who would otherwise not reach such an international audience.

Israel, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are poor examples to use. Azerbaijan made it to 12 finals out of 13 appearances and won it once. Israel won it four times and made it to the final 37 out of 43 tries. Armenia has advanced to 10 finals out of 13 tries, coming 4th twice.

Clearly their songs and musical taste have resonated in parts of the EBU area that are a long way from western Asia.

The UK having an automatic berth in the finals is a great example of "not necessary best in breed performers who would otherwise not reach such an international audience". This can equally be said of the other automatic finalists.

Get a grip UK. We voted to leave the EU, so why on earth would anyone vote for us? So why not bow out with any funding for the show?

The UK has got nul points or came in the bottom five way before Brexit.

@Sometimeswinning

Our song was terrible

The UK song wasn't the worst, but the performance was terrible. I was cringing for him... Graham said on the radio earlier in the day that performing wasn't JN's strength (or words to that effect), and I thought it was quite obvious on the night that this was the case. Amanda Holden behaved like a complete dick... voting had closed at the point, but her behaviour doesn't really help the cause does it!

Do Spain and Germany complain that Europe hates them too? Because they’ve not performed much differently than the UK over the last ten shows:

Spain: 23rd place-10-25-10-21-22-26-23-22-24
Germany: 10-8-21-18-27-26-25-4-25-25
UK: 11-25-19-17-24-24-15-24-26-26

Couldn’t it just be explained by the three of us being big five countries and entering less than amazing songs? The weaker songs from other countries are picked off in the semi-finals, so we’re competing against the best of the bunch.

That said, I haven’t seen last night’s show yet (or heard all of the songs) so maybe I’m wrong and we deserved better.

@Unreasonabubble

No the time has come to face reality. The UK will never now be accepted in the show. So why the f*ck do we put most the money into the show?

Get a grip UK. We voted to leave the EU, so why on earth would anyone vote for us? So why not bow out with any funding for the show?

I counted 11 non-Eu members in the final 26. 3 of them in the top 10.

Yeah but we've still the best scientists so who cares
They hate us. Some of them so badly they refused our vaccine
Sod them.
Just re-enforces why we were right to leave in the 1st place. It's about time we told them to stick this political and back scratchy bollocks.
Any event where Israel is welcome and voted for isn't worth our time

This show is pure Eurotrash. It’s a laugh and a giggle for a night.

Who is paying for our contribution to it? Is it our taxes or TV license? I don’t want to pay for it. Even if Nile Rogers produced a complete winner, stick a British sticker on it and we’d still come last.

Basically we are annually humiliated and pay them to do it. They must be laughing at us. It’s time to drop the Eurodrivel.

I've just said the same to dh. Why do we even bother entering it? I think we're hated even more by European countries since brexit.

Eurovision is a competition for members of the European Broadcasting Union, not for European countries; Australia has been competing since 2015 and is definitely not in Europe. Nor is Israel.

The history is rather beautiful:

"The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la chanson) was first held in 1956, originally conceived through a desire to unite European countries through cross-border television broadcasts following World War II, and in doing so to test the capabilities of international broadcast technology."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest

I think we should just embrace that we will probably always come near the bottom and make sure whoever we send is fully briefed that they will likely come last. Our entry handled it really well. As long as people keep watching it I think we should pay and enter, so many people enjoy watching it so it's only fair we contribute.

unwuthering yes I think it's symbolism is more important than winning it.

UK Contrbution

So, contribution is based on who has the most money as a nation. Like EU membership. It’s taken from the BBC license money. In 2013 it was around £330K which was going up significantly every year, so it’s probably about 500K now.

So basically, we are funding this crap whilst throwing good UK artists under the bus at the same time.

You couldn’t make this crap up. When are people going to wake up to this?

I think the real question is yes the British entry was not great but is it deserving a big fat zero like no other? Surely relatively some of the other entries (in the finals) must have been as bad if not worst

Can anyone actually name another country that was worse in the final? I thought Belgium was very dull but can see that they were doing something a bit different, and Germany were ridiculous but at least they were memorable. Our song had no distinct appeal, was melodically dull and the staging was beyond uninspired.

Our song got to number 42 in our U.K. charts. Isn't it arrogant that we expect Europe to enjoy and vote for something that we don't even like?

At least he handled it well when it was announced 🤷‍♀️ but we need to do better.

@TangledUp789

Do Spain and Germany complain that Europe hates them too? Because they’ve not performed much differently than the UK over the last ten shows:

Spain: 23rd place-10-25-10-21-22-26-23-22-24
Germany: 10-8-21-18-27-26-25-4-25-25
UK: 11-25-19-17-24-24-15-24-26-26

Couldn’t it just be explained by the three of us being big five countries and entering less than amazing songs? The weaker songs from other countries are picked off in the semi-finals, so we’re competing against the best of the bunch.

That said, I haven’t seen last night’s show yet (or heard all of the songs) so maybe I’m wrong and we deserved better.

This is probably the most sensible comment I've seen so far.

Switzerland should have won. Powerful song (watch the official video). Superb!!

I can't be bothered to do any more but here are the U.K. chart positions and Eurovision finishing positions for the last dozen years. Weirdly, the songs that do better in our charts also do better at Eurovision. It's almost as if they are better songs and politics has nothing to do with it... 🤔

2009 "It's My Time" Jade Ewen. U.K. Charts: 27. EV: 5/26

2010 "That Sounds Good to Me" Josh Dubovie. U.K. Charts: 179. EV: 25/26

2011 "I Can" Blue. U.K. Charts: 16. EV: 11/26

2012 "Love Will Set You Free" Engelbert Humperdinck. U.K. Charts: 60. EV: 25/26

2013 "Believe in Me" Bonnie Tyler. U.K. Charts: 93 EV: 19/26

2014 "Children of the Universe" Molly. U.K. Charts: 23. EV: 17/26

2015 "Still in Love with You" Electro Velvet. U.K. Charts: 114. EV: 24/26

2016 "You're Not Alone" Joe and Jake. U.K. Charts: 81. EV: 25/26

2017 "Never Give Up on You" Lucie Jones. U.K. Charts: 73. EV: 20/26

2018 "Storm" SuRie. U.K. Charts: 50. EV: 20/26

2019 "Bigger than Us" Michael Rice. U.K. Charts: 27. EV: 26/26

2020 "My Last Breath" James Newman. U.K. Charts: 15. EV: N/A

2021 "Embers" James Newman. U.K. Charts: 42. EV: 26/26

@TheLovleyChebbyMcGee

Because everyone's hates the UK? Look at Amanda Holdens comment after saying 2 phrases in another language:

'I don't even know which is which'

It comes across as very ignorant!

This comment was massively embarrassing, I cringed for her and also for us because she's representing us!!

@YourSexNotGenderIsOnFire

I think the real question is yes the British entry was not great but is it deserving a big fat zero like no other? Surely relatively some of the other entries (in the finals) must have been as bad if not worst

Can anyone actually name another country that was worse in the final? I thought Belgium was very dull but can see that they were doing something a bit different, and Germany were ridiculous but at least they were memorable. Our song had no distinct appeal, was melodically dull and the staging was beyond uninspired.

Our song got to number 42 in our U.K. charts. Isn't it arrogant that we expect Europe to enjoy and vote for something that we don't even like?

At least he handled it well when it was announced 🤷‍♀️ but we need to do better.

There were loads worse than us The girl who sang Sugar? She couldn't hold a tune at all The we had poundlands Gaga, Billie Eillish and Timberlake Germany looked like Bieber the Crack years They were shit. Not saying ours was amazing but sorry, we know why. It's racism and bigotry at play And as I say I have no respect for countries who vote for Israel right now And Ireland needs to take Louis Walsh back frankly