JOY Eurovision

19 Sep 2013

The Update: Rigging, Ins & Outs and New Releases

This is The Update – a (semi) regular news post, keeping you up to speed with the happenings of Eurovision 2014 and the doings of the 2013 entrants. There’s been scandal, scandal, scandal around voting in 2013, plus countries start revealing their cards for the 2014 Contest. What’s happened lately?

Voting Scandal (again)

There’s been a question around Eurovision voting since the day after Emmelie de Forest’s win in Malmö, and it has reared its ugly head again. Swedish newspaper, Skånska Dagbladet, reported that there was alleged jury manipulation by a number of countries. This anonymous sourcing of information came after a Lithuanian website released video footage of students allegedly being paid to vote. Skånska Dagbladet‘s anonymous source was from one of the delegations, and named FYR Macedonia as a country that approached them to organise a vote swap by the jury.

This person says that they were contacted by a representative of the Macedonian delegation during the week before the semi-finals, who proposed that the countries would “exchange votes” with each other. The two were both at work in an office near Malmö Arena.

The head of the Macedonian delegation quickly denied and rebuked the allegation, saying that it has come from sources who are trying to discredit Macedonia. The source also named Azerbaijan in a vote-buying episode, revealing that the Azerbaijani delegation was open in their vote buying. The source was allegedly offered “enough money to live for a year” if they were able to award high jury votes. The Azerbaijani delegation were given an opportunity to respond to the story, but did not do so. In a third incident, another delegation

explained that in exchange for points they could arrange good PR for our artist in their country. So it seems more genuine.

In a response to the allegation, this delegation stated that it “is not only completely false , but also, even worse , defamatory.” The EBU, through event supervisor Sietse Bakker, responded to the reports, noting that stories of vote rigging have been around since the Contest began. He reiterated the security, transparency and validity of the voting process, explaining that juries are supervised by an official and randomly observed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers auditors. Bakker also noted that,

We have never been approached by any jury member (5 people in nearly 40 countries, since 2009, that makes a total of some 1000 people across Europe) that claims to have been put under pressure to vote a certain way.

The EBU’s investigations into the Lithuanian footage are continuing, with the summer break blamed for the lengthy process.

Ins & Outs

Now is the time when public TV networks all over Europe start showing their hands in relation to entering next year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Some TV stations have made definite decisions and others are toying with the European public.

Who’s in and who’s out?

Definitely in

Austria
Sweden
Belgium
Germany
Estonia
Switzerland
Iceland
Russia
FYR Macedonia
Denmark
Norway
Ireland
Malta
Georgia
The Netherlands
Albania

Probably in

Lithuania
Slovenia
Hungary
Moldova
Portugal
Ukraine
Montenegro
Latvia
Bulgaria
Belarus

Probably out

Turkey

Definitely out

Croatia
Monaco
Morocco
Liechtenstein
Slovakia
Andorra
Luxembourg

New Releases

Remember Mr Eyebrows, Farid Mammadov? He’s been busy recording and has released a new single K tebe. It’s another Euro-ballad, just like his Eurovision entry. He composed the music himself, with the help of Zahra Badalbeyli for the lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDPqG79HYz0

Greek rockers, Koza Mostra, have pulled out a pulsing number as part of a soundtrack for a project by a beer company. Overly sexy lead singer, Ilias Kozas, wrote the lyrics and music for the single Ti kano edo, translated as What Am I Doing Here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFmhuMCm1Xo

Italian sex symbol, Marco Mengoni, has had major success with his album #PRONTOACORRERE and the three singles already lifted from it. As well as his Eurovision entry L’essenziale, Mengoni had chart success with Pronto A Correre. He has released his latest moving ballad, Non Passerai.

Those Serbian girls who dressed like Strawberry Shortcake have been busy lately too. Nevena Božović, one of the members of Moje3, has released her first solo single. Pogledaj me (Look at me) was written by Aleksandra Kovać, who participated in the Serbian national final in 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c_nIdSA4uo