Eurovision farce: Political votings all time high in 2012 contest

[yerushalmi]

Europe may be voting for a song contest, but the voting is anything but fair play. Political or 'neighbor' block voting reached an all time high in Yesterday's Eurovision 2012 final. While the winner is still determined by a very wide consensus which narrowly defies the blatant political block voting, a study of yesterday's voting patterns concluded some countries recieve 12 and up to 50 points from neighboring countries regardless of the quality of their acts, amounting to 80 and up to 100% of their total points from neighboring countries alone. Attempts by contest officials to combat block voting by including selective judging panels which now make up 50% of votes, have thus failed.
Some stats on the 'grand farce' of yesterdays 2012 Eurovision contest:

32 out of 42 (~75%) of participating countries awarded the highest 12 points to a neighboring country.

13 of the 42 countries (~25%) awarded 12 points to the same neighboring country for the second time in a row or more.

50% of countries that awarded 12 points to the winning song by Sweden, gave the next highest mark - 10 points, to a neighboring country.

Some of the 13 countries with no fair play and consecutive political voting in disregard for the contest are Greece - Cyprus ; Romania - Moldova ; Spain - Portugal ; Turkey - Azerbaijan ; Serbia - FYR Macedonia

Balkan countries were the worst 'offenders' of political voting in 2012, with 7 countries awarding 2 or 3 of the three highest marks to two or three neighboring countries. These countries were Serbia, FYR Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Albania, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro. The findings concluded 65% of voting patterns by participating countries for the three top spots were influenced by block voting.

[Kappa21]

Oooo nooooo ....ooo noooooo Europe...who had centuries of bitter conflicts and ethnic cleansing decided to go with an annual song competition and found out that former enemy countries from the Yugoslavs and those horrible Scandanavian nations that invaded one another in the times of the vikings are stealing the show and winning the contest by having immigrants sing for them and grandma's put on a talent show......

Maybe one day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan...and what the hell....Iran can join this magical bullshit called Eurovision and vote for us
Send votes.....not bombs!

[rover_777]

The resuls of the Australian televote for the Final are (number of televotes):-

1. Sweden 72,186
2. Russia 55,270
3. Ireland 50,314
4. Italy 36,130
5. Denmark 33,638
6. Cyprus 27,538
7. Germany 24,958
8. Greece 22,328
9. Ukraine 22,172
10. Iceland 21,430
11. Moldova 21,220
12. Malta 20,878
13. Turkey 20,402
14. FYR Macedonia 18,842
15. Norway 17,694
16. Serbia 17,160
17. Lithuania 15,472
18. 14,164
19. Romania 13,424
20. United Kingdom 12,862
21. France 12,150
22. Estonia 11,824
23. Albania 10,902
24. Azerbaijan 9,400
25. Bosnia & Herzegovina 8,776
26. Hungary 7,336

[rover_777]

Clasament final Eurovision 2012 Baku
Imediat după ce a cincizeci şi şaptea ediţie Eurovision Song Contest Baku 2012 s-a încheiat au fost postate rezultatele celor două semifinale şi punctajele obţinute. Puteţi vedea mai jos cum a arătat clasamentul final.

CLASAMENT FINAL Semifinala 1

1. RUSIA - 152p
2. ALBANIA - 146p
3. ROMÂNIA - 120p
4. GRECIA - 116p
5. MOLDOVA - 100p

6. IRLANDA - 92p
7. CIPRU - 91p
8. ISLANDA - 75p
9. DANEMARCA -63p
10. UNGARIA - 52p
11. ELVEŢIA - 45p
12. FINLANDA - 41p
13. ISRAEL - 33p
14. SAN MARINO - 31p
15. MUNTENEGRU - 20p
16. LETONIA - 17p
17. BELGIA - 16p
18. AUSTRIA - 8p

CLASAMENT FINAL Semifinala 2

1. SUEDIA - 181p
2. SERBIA - 159p
3. LITUANIA - 104p
4. ESTONIA -100p
5. TURCIA - 80p

6. BOSNIA HERŢEGOVINA -77p
7. MALTA -70p
8. UCRAINA - 64p
9. MACEDONIA - 53p
10. NORVEGIA - 45p
11. BULGARIA -45p
12. CROAŢIA - 42p
13. PORTUGALIA - 39
14. GEORGIA - 36p
15. OLANDA - 35p
16. BELARUS - 35p
17. SLOVENIA - 31p
18. SLOVACIA - 22p

CLASAMENT MAREA FINALĂ

1. SUEDIA - 372 p
2. RUSIA - 259p
3. SERBIA - 214p
4. AZERBAIDJAN - 150
5. ALBANIA - 146
6. ESTONIA - 120p
7. TURCIA - 112p
8. GERMANIA - 110p
9. ITALIA - 101p
10. SPANIA - 97p
11. MOLDOVA- 81p
12. ROMÂNIA - 71p
13. MACEDONIA - 71p
14. LITUANIA - 70p
15. UCRAINA - 65p
16. CIPRU - 65p
17. GRECIA - 64p
18. BOSNIA - 55p
19. IRLANDA - 46p
20. ISLANDA - 46p
21. MALTA - 41p
22. FRANŢA - 21p
23. DANEMARCA - 21p
24. UNGARIA - 19p
25. MAREA BRITANIE -12p
26. NORVEGIA - 7p

În finală cele mai multe 12 puncte le-au primit:

SUEDIA (de la 18 ţări)
ALBANIA (de la 4 ţări)
AZERBAIDJAN ( de la 4 ţări)
SERBIA (de la 4 ţări)
CIPRU (de la 2 ţări)
GRECIA (de la 2 ţări)
MACEDONIA (de la 2 ţări)
LITUANIA
MOLDOVA
ROMÂNIA
RUSIA
SPANIA
TURCIA

[Kappa21]

I liked Israels song..

[NorthPole]

LOL.
I'm surprised you are surprised. Block voting were always and since the phone voting got introduced years ago, it's the main criteria.

[yerushalmi]

They realized its a problem or they wouldnt have moved 50% of the vote to judging panels who give the points the night before the actual show (another pretty weird move Im sure not many vieweres are still aware that has happened).
Only thing is that doesnt seem to have made any change.
The organizers at least need to deal with the dual 12 points every year. its annoying when you know already who moldova will vote 12 and who cyprus will vote 12 for about half the counties next year and every year.. come on.

[skymantle]

If I can just throw my 2cents into this discussion.

Firstly, personally I'm not a huge fan of this tacky, albeit fun and fanciful festival, which isn't supposed to be taken too seriously anyway imho.

As for bloc voting, it's not so black and white as you may imagine and there is some logic in what may seem like bias and blind support.

For example with the ex-yugoslav case. Many of the voters actually like their neighbouring countries songs because of the style of music and lyrics being presented. They can relate to it, or even understand it when it's a language similar to their own. Therefore they're actually supporting something they can 'connect with'. Furthermore these songs are played often before the contest and the audiences grow to love them. It's just as much a question of taste as it may seem that it's bias. Greeks and Cypriots will more than often vote for each other's artist because these pop-stars are heavily promoted in each respective country before the song contest, their song played on radio and TV, and audiences become familiar with them. Same applies for other similar cultures who vote for each other, so really in the end it could be perhaps described as 'cultural leaning and preference', but of course it's understandable that it just may seem like political bloc voting to outsiders even though that's not necessarily the case.

[yerushalmi]

I dont like the people in the media that always use it as excuse to say dont participate lets pull out..
but I think you are trying to paint it in too nice colours.
When countries vote for each other 10 times in a row, its actually very black and white that its wrong. it hurts the competition, the fairplay, the artists who want a fair chance. not always will there be a wide margin of consensus on the winning song and sometimes every score counts.
Its not fair for artists who perform to know that from 60%-70% of the countries they dont have a chance to get 10 or 12 automatically
because they only vote for each other or a neighbor.
Im sorry but as much as its just a show and doesnt need to be taken so seriously, still I think many loyal viewers agree that they
need to address the problems in voting and make some system to delete points from countries voting 12 for each other, maybe if two
countries vote 12 for each other cut the score by half and give 6 for both. it could be fun to watch.
I think that each country should also go back to singing in its language, song after song in bad english accents with 5 word lyrics.. no!!

[Fizmo1337]

Don't forget that countries like Belgium, Netherlands and Germany always give Turkey lot's of points because of all the turkish immigrants in those countries. Such voting behaviour isn't even in those statistics, only neighbouring countries' votes.

[yerushalmi]

My issue isnt with mass immigration or minorities voting for a parent or same religion country, thats life.
The concern right now should be with countries giving each other 12 points automatically and consecutively,
despite adding judging panels. So my suggestion would be this: If two countries award each other 12, cut both their score to 6 points.
This would cause them to award each other 'only' 10 or 8 so that the score doesnt get cut.
It wont solve block voting but now the 12 points will go to someone else and at least it will mix things up a bit.
Another rule should be 3 strikes, give the 12 for 3 times in a row to the same country and "8-10-12" gets taken away for one year.
Also, they can give a 1-2 points "head start" in the semi final to songs not in english to diversify
3-4 of these small changes to the rules will go a long way to making the voting fair and also more interesting.

[taha.d]

GREECE New 2013 Eurovision Song
Athilias Thasos - Yam Yam Style

He is one of the most famous Greek singers. Born 4 February 1975 in Thebes, Greece as Athillas Thasos.

Eight of his personal albums released between 1997 and 2003 have surpassed 1,5 millions sales, the only Greek male singer to do so. The fact that most of the above mentioned albums have been of a different music style, produced with different composers and released between constant time periods demonstrates her unique and indisputable figure in contemporary Greek music.

He also has respectable audience from Turkey and various her songs were sung in Turkish especially Ola Se Thimizoun (Everything reminds me of you) as "Olmasa Mektubun"(Unless your letter) by Yeni Türkü Dinata dinata as "Sarışınım" (My blonde) by Sezen Aksu and Gülşen.

Because of the respectable amount of Turkish audiences, he changed his name as Atilla Taş. That was a great gesture to Turkish people.

We love Athillas Thasos. George Dalaras, Yiannis Parios and Athillas Thasos are the best for me.



Athilias Thasos Greek BlueSky Tv



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