How Eurovision Actually Works: A Musical Explanation (SJ Eurovision Deep Dive Intro)

I will probably be watching your journey even though it is not a good reflection of current European music. Just some background and recent developments: There is a major change in the voting systems that from now on only the televotes determine who survives the semi-finals and the jury no longer plays a role here. This change was made after the irregularities in the jury voting of a number of Eastern European / Caucasian countries in 2022. In the final everything remains the same and there is 50% jury vote and 50% public vote. Only 37 countries are participating this year which is the smallest number since 2014. Russia has been excluded from participation because of their war on Ukraine. North Macedonia, Montenegro and Bulgaria have indicated that they will no longer participate. The first two because of the costs, the reason given for the last is: 'After analysis it was decided that this program does not present an interest for the broadcaster any longer.' This suggests a permanent drop out of Bulgaria. Even if the music is not allowed to make political statements, the voting is very political with enemies not voting for each other and slavic countries voting for each other. Some countries will never give points to each other like Turkey and Greece who are in conflict over territory and like the Balkan countries who hate each other, with Serbia and Kosovo even being on the brink of war this year. And then there are some countries which will always vote for each other no matter the quality of the song, like the Baltics voting for each other and Germany for Turkey because of the huge Turkish population in Germany. Certain countries like Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary receive a lot of criticism within the EU because of their autocratic and anti-democratic politics and this reflects in the voting. It is therefor very difficult to not see the political aspect of the contest. Even though politics is not a subject we talk about on ETS21.

Hadewijch

Oh, and Australia and Isreal qualify because they're a part of the European TV network

Bethan Williams

You're right about countries deliberately trying to lose. It was costing RTE (the Irish broadcaster) a fortune in the 90s to keep hosting as Ireland kept winning. Then suddenly they started submitting rubbish songs! Remember this btw when you watch the Father Ted Eurovision episode

David Ridley

You must must must watch the Royle Family