The Myth of ‘Political’ Voting at Eurovision
Pretty much ever European blog commenting on the Eurovision Song Contest this morning is bringing up the political voting (you know, where Greece and Cyprus exchange 12 points if they can, the Scandinavian countries vote for each other, and so on). Lets get this right. The voting in each country is now a 15 minute window for phone voting - normal people picking up their phone and dialing (or SMS’ing) and these are collated to share out the 12, 10, 8, etc points. If the voting was a single man, or even a small ten person jury in a TV studio, then I could understand the shouting of “fix” that has risen from every country except Russia today.
The simple fact is that countries in continental Europe who are next to each other share musical tastes. Is it any surprise that Sweden makes music that Norway likes, and vice versa. When you think about the issues which would influence what people like (two that spring to mind are the cross-pollination of transmitted media and emigration patterns between countries), then is it any surprise that neighbouring countries like the same music?
You can see this in the case of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Latvia’s pirate song only had two countries give it one of the three big scores (8, 10 or 12 points). And they came from two countries who are next to each other, and who share the same musical tastes. Did we conspire to vote for Wolves of the Sea?
Plus the blocks are only at most 5 or 6 countries - with 43 countries voting you still need to appeal to a much larger group of people to gather the votes you will need to win. That’s where a good song (and a good performance) will actually help you. It’s one reason Lordi swept to victory two years ago - yes they had the votes from their fellow countries but they also picked up a barrel load of points from around Europe. Was that a fix? Or just that they appealed to a cross section of people (specifically the metal-heads motivated in the forums and boards leading up to the show) who all voted for them. Dima (the Russian winner) is a bona fide heart throb in the region, is it any wonder people voted like crazy for him? And when other Europeans saw him fell under his charms? No.
I think we’re seeing ghosts where there are none, we’re looking for complicated patterns where they don’t exist. People are voting for the music they like, and as Europe (or more specifically the European Broadcasting Union) expands, there are more musical tastes coming on board; tastes that may seem inexplicable in Iceland are understandable in Azerbaijan.
That’s why I think political voting is nothing more than a short-hand way to describe complicated social issues, but it’s not an evil plot. Much as it makes a fun story it does the contest a dis-service and threatens it’s continued existence.
May 25, 2008; Digital Music, Multimedia, Politics;
Possibly Related posts:
- Jury Voting Returns To The Eurovision Song Contest
- The Jury Returns to Eurovision
- The Political Fix for Russian and the UK In Eurovision Is On!
- Eurovision 2007, Congrats to Serbia, Sweden were Robbed (and Scooch Sucked)
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3 Responses to “The Myth of ‘Political’ Voting at Eurovision”
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I don’t know… my observation is that countries with a lot of expats from a certain other country tend to send votes into their home country at a higher rate one would expect were it only due to musical taste. Maybe the absence makes their patriotism stronger.
We always have no votes from Austria for Germany (…), France voting for Portugal, Germany voting for Turkey etc.
This iste has some interesting comment: http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/12003
We’re in complete agreement with respect to the myth of bloc voting but do you think there’s room to expand the disallowance to vote for yourself to include your neighbouring countries too?
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