Tag Archives: voting changes

Cookie Fonster Picks Apart Eurovision 1971 Again: A Duet That Slowly Won Me Over

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Intro Post

< 1970 Review | 1971 Review | 1972 Review >

Introduction

There are some Eurovision years I’m passionate about and am looking forward to reviewing again. But before I reach them, I need to get through some of the contest’s dullest years, such as Eurovision 1971. I remember it not being a terrible year, just one with no songs I’m passionate about. This year was the first of seven to be hosted in Ireland; it took place at the Gaitey Theatre and was hosted by Bernadette Ní Ghallchóir. This production was a huge undertaking for RTÉ at the time, but the Irish have always known how to put on a good Eurovision show.

All the countries that skipped 1969 or 1970—Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden—returned this year, and the island country of Malta made their debut, though they weren’t successful in their first few years. This made for a total of 18 participating countries. The winner was Monaco for the first and only time, then in second place came Spain and Germany in third. The newcomer Malta landed at the bottom both this year and the next year, which discouraged them from further participation for the next two decades.

I’ll paste my description of the voting system from round 1: This contest completely redid the voting system, presumably to appease the countries that were mad about the four-way tie two years ago. This time, every country had a pair of jury members (older and younger than 25 years respectively), who each gave songs 1 to 5 points, and the points were all added up so that every country got no less than 34 points. I think that’s a cumbersome system with the obvious hole that a country could vote others low so that they’d comparatively score higher, but somehow it was in place for three years in a row. Plus, rating anything numerically is dumb because number ratings mean different things to different people. I’m also not a fan of this voting system because it means far fewer juries decide how many points each song gets, but I get why it was done: to make the voting more transparent and assuage the unhappy countries. It was temporary anyway.

The show opens with an opening film of a man riding a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Ireland and welcoming the guests to the Gaitey Theatre. It’s a tiny venue with a capacity of only 1145 seats, which I suppose was the best Ireland had at the time. Then the presenter introduces the show in Irish, French, and English, and the songs kick off. I love the pattern of the hosts introducing the show in Irish each time the show came to Ireland, and I hope it continues should Ireland win again. When speaking English, Bernadette sounded like she was trying to hide her Irish accent, but it slipped through a fair amount anyway. This year had postcards similar to last year: once more tours of each participating country. This time, the producers didn’t cheat and film four different postcards in Paris.

Last time I said I watched the contest with Austrian commentary, but it seems in retrospect it was a mix of Austrian and German. The YouTube upload I used this time is listed as having entirely German commentary, and I’ll trust that.

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Cookie Fonster Chronicles Eurovision 2006 (Final): The Victory of Halloween Costumes

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Intro Post

< 2006 Semifinal | 2006 Final | 2007 Semifinal >

Introduction

As with the last two years, the grand final of Eurovision 2006 (in Athens, Greece) featured 24 songs, ten of which had qualified from the semifinal. Overall the semifinal qualifiers scored much better than the finalists: ten of the top twelve (all but 4th and 9th place) had to get through the semifinal first. This was an early hint that the one-semifinal system needed an adjustment.

This year featured two changes to the voting. First, the countries voted in randomized order, which had only been previously done in 1974 and would be done every year up to 2010. Second, to speed up the voting sequence, the spokespersons announced only their eight, ten, and twelve points. Unfortunately, some spokespersons still were keen on hogging up their time in the spotlight, so this shortened the contest’s runtime only by 23 minutes. In all fairness, a lot of time was taken up by the extravagant opening acts. Greece did not hold back with those!

Finland scored their first ever victory this year with the iconic “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. In second place came Russian’s Dima Bilan, who would win two years later. And in third place was a Balkan ballad from Bosnia and Herzegovina, their highest result to this day. This is the second of four years in a row where all Big Four countries scored in the bottom half: the highest was Germany at 14th place. Although at least one Big Four/Five country has reached the top ten since 2009, these countries still have a less than great reputation in Eurovision (except Italy).

I couldn’t find the German commentary for this year, so I went back to Terry Wogan’s British commentary. I expect him to go extra-snarky once the voting begins. One more random fact: this was the first year in which the host country used the euro as their currency.

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Cookie Fonster Picks Apart Eurovision 1971: The Rise of Vocal Harmonization

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Intro Post

< 1970 Review | 1971 Review | 1972 Review >

Introduction

Eurovision 1971 was the first of seven hosted in Ireland, and the first of six hosted in Dublin. It had a total of 18 countries, including all that had previously skipped except Denmark, plus a newcomer: the tiny Mediterranean island country of Malta, which wasn’t even independent until 1964. This time, Monaco won for the first and only time.

This contest completely redid the voting system, presumably to appease the countries that were mad about the four-way tie two years ago. This time, every country had a pair of jury members (older and younger than 25 years respectively), who each gave songs 1 to 5 points, and the points were all added up so that every country got no less than 34 points. I think that’s a cumbersome system with the obvious hole that a country could vote others low so that they’d comparatively score higher, but somehow it was in place for three years in a row. Plus, rating anything numerically is dumb because number ratings mean different things to different people.

I didn’t expect the Irish presenter to actually speak Irish at the start! Even though I couldn’t understand it, I could tell it was fluent Irish and not just an English speaker who took two semesters of an Irish class, so that made me smile. She introduced the contest in French as well, then English, then the event commenced.

I watched this contest with German commentary from Austria, and I think that’ll be my default choice. Almost all of the media I watch and conversations I have are in English, so why not use this project to immerse myself in some more German? I may choose commentary in other languages too, depending on my mood and what’s available.

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