Watched a bit of Eurovision via RAI on Foxtel.
Firstly, I was surprised that RAI could have the rights to it down here.
Secondly, I found that the RAI commentators talked over the Eurovison hosts.
Miss Sam and Julia⌠
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I guess they have the rights to screen on RAI rather than just in Italy. The same thing happens with ERT via Pay TV. They also talk over the hosts in Greek. I suppose they need to have it in their own language rather than English.
But then again, even the SBS coverage has the commentators talking over the hosts in parts.
I was gobsmacked by the results this year - the top 3 or 4 acts were all forgettable and nothing to me. I was hoping something more fun or catchy would win like Sweden or Romania.
For me Joel and Myf did a decent job. I liked that there was a bit of humour in their commentary and laughed to a lot of Joelâs comments.
As for the streaker during Jamalaâs performance - I do wonder if that affected our votes. If Iâm not mistaken voting lines were still open when this happened? It really looked like an Aussie making a mockery of the competition which would have reflected badly on us. Itâs great to see Isaiah finish top 10 but also a little frustrating that once again we ranked pretty highly in viewer votes but dropped due to public votes. I thought he definitely performed better on the night and deserved where he got.
Iâm starting to wonder if we will participate next year. Voting showed a backlash so it wonât surprise me if they decide that our time in the competition is done.
They are not going to decide not to invite us based off one year. There are many countries that do poorly each year and they are still there every year. The fact is that our song whilst definitely not the second worst wasnât that good or memorable. That we finished top 10 in the last three years is a fantastic result.
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No there definitely seems to be a backlash from Europe about us still being in the competition. The first year the was a lot of buzz around it but itâs fading. Even last year to be voted jury #1 but a fair bit lower in viewer votes was probably the first sign of that. Last night we had a streaker on the stage with an Australian flag basically protesting against us still being there - I think itâs a sign of what a lot of people have thought about us being in the competition.
Of course other countries rank low and come back. Iâm just saying that 3 years was probably a fair stint for us given we are just a wildcard entry and if the public arenât so keen on it anymore it wouldnât surprise me if they give us the chop next year (or give another country the wildcard entry). I would however love for us to still be involved.
I assume SBS pays the EBU a fair amount of money for us to participate, so I think we will still be involved. Also who else are they going to give the wildcard to? China or USA who have just started broadcasting Eurovision? That would be a joke.
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I think youâre reading too much into things. Last year Australia came in 4th with the viewers votes which is decent considering that aside from Poland, the other two countries that came above us (Russia and Ukraine) also did very well in both the jury voting and overall.
As to this year, Isaiah wasnât going to do as well as Guy Sebastian and Dami Im because there was hardly any âbuzzâ about his song going into it and on the night, it didnât âraise the roofâ in the venue like Guyâs and especially Damiâs songs did. Frankly, we did far better in the jury vote and far worse in the public vote than what we should have. As such, SBS and Blink TV have some soul searching to do if Australia does participate in 2018 as to what type of song is entered. Since their aim should be for Australia to win the competition, itâs no use them selecting songs year-after-year that do extremely well in the jury voting only for them not to be âappealingâ (for lack of a better term) enough to also do well in the public vote.
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One thing that is missing in Australia is public participation in the selection of a candidate. If SBS could come up perhaps a 2-stage selection process - with part one an internal industry/jury selection of come candidates followed by some form of public vote. That might include a one-off televised event with the candidates performing their chosen songs. You would think that the song/artist selected would at least have some appeal to the TV audience as compared to just the jury. It could also help engage the audience better and give higher ratings for the finals.
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Pretty sure Sony Music pays much of the entry cost on behalf of SBS. But as long as they are willing to pay i think EBU will be pleased to have Australia on board. Especially as other countries may drop out, either voluntarily or otherwise. The situation in Israel where IBA has been shut down may see that country drop out of the contest unless another broadcaster steps in (as I think happened in Greece a few years back).
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I recorded the evening screening of the Grand Final bevause I wanted to catch the interviews that Myf and Joel did after the ad break.
I was wondering whether they were going to pixelate the streaker but they didnât. What was interesting was that they edited tje comments from Joel. In the morning he said âGet off the stage, Australiaâ but they cut it at âGet off the stageâ. They also said something about this is why Australians dont get invited to things because they spoil it, which was also left out.
They also flashed up a message (pardon the pun ;P) âIt has been confirmed that the streaker is not Australianâ. Good that they did that.
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As youâd be aware, it wasnât known until after the show ended that the guy was Ukranian. SBS clearly sought to clarify the situation during the re-run.
Like how the 1st semi-final was plagued with all sorts of commentary troubles - apparently affecting a number of the various commentary booths onsite. So the live broadcast had very little commentary (âcan you hear us?â) for a large chunk of the program but all was fine with the re-run. I would assume that the commentators also record a dry run during the dress rehearsals just as a back up.
Also just saw this on Twitter, some footage of Armeniaâs entry showing how the cameras are all cued up to the music, so thereâs no manual switching itâs all pre-programmed. Iâd never really given it any thought but just shows that everything is mapped down to the fraction of a second:
Iâd be interested to hear whether they did that or had to rerecord some comments for the later edition. Or whether the commentary was recorded locally but just didnât broadcast back to Australia.
Completely agree. I think people are reading too much into the lower public vote this year. There were a few factors at play but basically our song this year just wasnât as good. It was bland and not catchy. The crowd in the stadium just loved Damiâs and Guyâs songs but were completely underwhelmed with the song this year.
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Where did you find that survey? Its not on the SBS website, Facebook or Twitter.
I signed on to receive surveys from SBS ages ago. They often send them after certain shows.
It it clear from Graham Nortonâs commentary over the years that he passionately hates Australiaâs participation in Eurovision. Not sure now much that is shared by the BBC and UK in general. BBC is of course one of the biggest contributors that funds the show.
He managed at least 3 tweets about Australia during the broadcast.
The Aussie song got the viewer vote it deserved.
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Oh for goodness sake.