In an effort to curb neighbour voting, this year's Eurovision Song Contest sees the return of jury voting - but will the best song win?
THIS IS A historic year for the Eurovision Song Contest. For the first time in 29 years, Sir Terry Wogan will not be providing live commentary for BBC television, depriving the contest of the ironic, often hilarious banter that is the reason many people tune in.
The other major change has the potential to affect the contest's results: jury voting is being reintroduced to the Eurovision final for the first time since the late 1990s, when televoting became the exclusive system for deciding the results. This year, 50 per cent of the result of the Eurovision final will be decided by music industry juries in each of the 42 participating countries. They will have the opportunity to watch rehearsals and familiarise themselves with the competing songs in advance. Televoting will decide the remaining 50 per cent.
According to Ruurd Bierman, chairman of the Eurovision Reference Group (which governs major decisions regarding the contest), the change in voting is being implemented partly as a result of the public debate over neighbour - and diaspora - voting that has raged in recent years.
The debate Bierman refers to regards the increasing dominance of non-western countries over the contest. Since 2001 all Eurovision winners have represented countries from the southern, eastern, and far northern corners of Europe, many of which are new nations formed from the splintering of the USSR, and which have proved tightly loyal in their voting patterns.
With neighbour countries in these areas practically guaranteeing high scores to each other, and immigrant populations making their presence felt by voting for their home countries, western nations without as many close allies have found themselves at a disadvantage.
In 2008, a second semi-final was introduced, with neighbour countries with a history of voting for each other separated into different nights. One of 10 qualifiers in each semi-final was chosen by a jury, not the public. The result? A healthy mix of non-western and western finalists and, in the view of Barry Viniker, editor of the site esctoday.com, "the best standard of song quality in the final we've seen in years".
One nation, of course, that did not qualify for last year's final was Ireland, which was represented, controversially, by Dustin the Turkey singing "Irlande Douze Points". The European voting public was not amused.
But then came the televote-decided final, in which the Russian pop star Dima Bilan triumphed with a song, Believe, and an extravagant stage show (featuring simulated ice skating and Bilan ripping his shirt off) that had not impressed contest insiders as the year's strongest entry. As Bilan's victory, and the rock-bottom position of UK entrant Andy Abraham, became apparent, Terry Wogan lost the rag. "Russia were going to be the political winners from the beginning," he raged. "Western European participants have to decide whether they want to take part from here on in, because their prospects are poor . . . I'm afraid nobody loves the UK. It just isn't funny any more."
The next day, composure somewhat regained, Wogan added that "I'd like to think that the British music industry and the European Broadcasting Union will find some way of making the voting a little bit fairer."
"I honestly don't know if what Wogan said had an effect," says Julian Vignoles, assistant commissioning editor at RTÉ and a member of the Eurovision Reference Group, "but the voting in recent years has affected the credibility of the contest. Neighbourly and diasporic voting make the voting section of the show predictable, and historically that's been the most popular part of the evening."
That's a broadcaster's perspective, and it's an important one: Eurovision is, after all, a blockbuster three nights of entertainment for the television stations. The increasing dominance of non-western countries cannot have been welcomed by western broadcasters or the European Broadcasting Union itself, who have an interest in the contest not seeming like it's sewn up in advance.
The other side of the argument about recent Eurovision results, however, is that, call it neighbourly, diasporic, or bloc voting, the processes since the introduction of televoting have been democratic. Voting based on geographical, cultural, and political affinities is also nothing new to Eurovision: statistical studies have proven that Mediterranean, Scandinavian, and English-speaking countries have exchanged votes for decades, long before televoting. "Let's not forget", points out Vignoles, "that we in Ireland would be upset if we didn't get 10 or 12 points from the UK."
And let's also not forget, amidst all this talk of politics, the not-insignificant issue of song and performance quality: many eastern European countries have taken the contest more seriously than their more complacent and jaded western counterparts in recent years, working harder to send unique and well-written entries, often with a pop-culture-inflected ethnic flair. Eastern performers see the contest as a potential means to launch themselves into the global music industry.
Much is at stake, therefore, in this year's contest and its results. How will Graham Norton fare as Wogan's replacement? How will eastern European countries react to the voting changes? And might the contest be won for the first time in nine years by a country from the traditional Eurovision heartland?
If the bookmakers and fan sites are to be trusted, the answer to the latter question is yes: Norway's entrant Alexander Rybak is the favourite to win. It is hard to predict how Ireland's entry, Et Cetera, performed by Sinéad Mulvey and Black Daisy, will fare this year. The song is currently ranked a disappointing 28th in the odds, but Viniker is optimistic: "It's young, it's fun, it's catchy; I believe Ireland deserve to be in the final. And if they do qualify, I think juries of music industry professionals would like to support an act of young, talented female musicians."
One thing seems certain: that the Eurovision Song Contest, 54 years after its founding, continues to be a lightning rod for controversies that speak to issues far beyond pop music.
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The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 semi-finals are on RTÉ2 next Tuesday and Thursday at 8pm. Ireland are in the second semi-final. The final is on RTÉ2 and BBC1 on Saturday next at 8pm
Going la-la
Six to watch this year:
Germany
Marilyn Manson's ex-wife, stripper Dita von Teese, will be doing a duet, and who knows what else
Czech Republic
Gypsy music in a superhero outfit. Just the sort of mind-boggling awfulness Eurovision excels at
Ukraine
Giant cogs, wandering drum kit, ridiculously sexual moves by topless male dancers and a disco tune - the polar opposite of anything Ireland would ever do
Macedonia
The obligatory big-haired rock act, Next Time are twin brothers from Skopje who were not only born in the 1980s, but seem to have been stuck there since
The Netherlands
The Toppers are three middle-aged men singing a dance track, Shine, about how we should stop fighting and just get along. And they do it while wearing silver suits
Ireland
The second song in Thursday's semi-final, there's no simple la-la-la for 21-year-old Sinead Mulvey and band Black Daisy. Instead, she'll sing "Et cetera" a few times. The bookies will have to be very wrong for it to do well.
SHANE HEGARTY