More Eurovision Political Bloc Voting Talk

After yesterday’s win by Russia in Eurovision there appears to be quite a lot of discussion regarding the question of bloc voting particularly by Eastern European countries. Stuff em Up the hill backwards agrees, but doesn’t think that countries such as the United Kingdom should wash its hands of the competition. Indeed, the blog says that certain benefits come with participation in Eurovision.

Many have called for the UK to scale back payments into the EBU though there are other benefits to membership such as access to sporting coverage rights and shared access to a knowledge base of broadcasting technologies and practices along with advocacy and agreement on open standards (Mpeg,DVB etc). […]

There was a lot of booing in the audience last night over selective examples of political and near neighbour voting and despite the restructuring of the semi finals voting system little has been done to change the present structure of voting in the finals so there is an argument for the return of independent (non democratic?) appointed jury system from each country to perform the final voting.

Does the voting reflect the realities of power in the new Europe, dominated by Eastern Europe? It may still be too early to tell. […] If the skeptics are right then the eastern European bloc vote would go on to disproportionately win the contest over the coming years if the voting system remains the same as at present. […]

The Rumor Man also offers an opinion on the current state of Eurovision as well as on geopolitical bloc voting. In most cases, votes from Eastern Europe and the CIS were predictable well in advance of even hearing the song.

The original intention of the contest was to bring Europe together after the war. At first when other states joined the competition it was nice to be more inclusive. As soon as Yugoslavia split and the former Eastern bloc countries joined you knew rather than adding more diversity to the mix, you were on a hiding to nothing - out gunned and out voted if you were not a ‘friend state’. […] The Russian entry was lame and cliché, but won, beating much stiffer competition - better songs, catchier tunes, better gimmicks, less cheese etc. It had bugger all to do with talent. […]

It’s not about winning - […] I just didn’t like to see genuinely good songs by other nations get left behind in the voting - the fact that anyone with half a brain and a modicum of historical and political awareness could guess who would be voted for in the top three votes by each nation is precisely why the contest is not about talent anymore […].