The Jury
Btw, for most of the history of the contest each country sent a team of professional or amateur critics to sit on the country's jury. Each jury voted to determine the winners of the Song Contest. Fans of the jury system claim that they were more likely to reward quality music. Critics say the jury system was rife with bribery and abuse. Just recently a documentary film claims that English Pop Star Cliff Richards really won his contest back in the 60s, but Spanish dictator Franco bribed or strong-armed the other juries into awarding the top prize to Spain in order to enhance the country's International reputation. Which does also imply that Western Europe's recent bitching about 'Eastern Europe's shameful and embarrassing Eurovision politics' is a little bit of creative forgetfulness on their own history. Breathe. But anyway.
In recent years technology advances and Television 2.0 led to the televote - and accusations that neighboring populations (Cyprus and Greece, Sweden and Norway, Former Soviet republics and Russia, but alas no one is friends with Switzerland) and ex-pat communities (mostly Eastern workers in the West) give an unfair advantage to some entrants. Not only did this year's semifinal format attempt to make the contest fairer by splitting friends and neighbors apart - this year saw the return of the jury.
This year in addition to the televote, each country's jury also ranked the top candidates who could advance to the final. In the event that the televoters and the juries didn't agree - the juries were able to elevate one finalist wildcard to go with the televoters nine finalists. (Also sounds like a handy way for the Eurovision Broadcasting Union to literally do a bit of jury rigging for the final).
The question tonight is which, if any, of the 10 advancing finalists was jury rigged.
My guess: Norway
In recent years technology advances and Television 2.0 led to the televote - and accusations that neighboring populations (Cyprus and Greece, Sweden and Norway, Former Soviet republics and Russia, but alas no one is friends with Switzerland) and ex-pat communities (mostly Eastern workers in the West) give an unfair advantage to some entrants. Not only did this year's semifinal format attempt to make the contest fairer by splitting friends and neighbors apart - this year saw the return of the jury.
This year in addition to the televote, each country's jury also ranked the top candidates who could advance to the final. In the event that the televoters and the juries didn't agree - the juries were able to elevate one finalist wildcard to go with the televoters nine finalists. (Also sounds like a handy way for the Eurovision Broadcasting Union to literally do a bit of jury rigging for the final).
The question tonight is which, if any, of the 10 advancing finalists was jury rigged.
My guess: Norway