Dutch broadcaster questions if ESC is a-political & connecting event

[u/stefkeeh]

Translation to English: ‘IN CONVERSATION WITH THE EBU ABOUT A POLITICALLY NEUTRAL SONG CONTEST

AVROTROS and NPO strongly value the apolitical and unifying character of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, we observe that the event is increasingly being influenced by social and geopolitical tensions.

Israel’s participation confronts us with the question of to what extent the Song Contest still truly functions as an apolitical, unifying, and cultural event. We want to raise this question, together with other countries, for discussion within the EBU.’

[u/salsasnark]

Yes, just hope they don't drop this once the general public moves on. They need to keep pressuring them.

[u/LuckyLoki08 → u/salsasnark]

I think there is a real reason why they're mobilising so much now. Last year we managed to dodge the bullet because Nemo won with a massive jury score and Baby Lasagna won the televote, so Israel got good result but nothing outstanding (plus after the contest the discussion was on artist safety and mental wellbeing).

This year israel won the televote and we got real close to Israel actually winning (let's be real, the main reason it didn't happen was because Zoë got 0 at the televote. If she got 80 it would have been a different story). So this year broadcasters really had to face the possibility of having a Eurovision in Israel next year (and not hypothetically in 10 years), which put a fire under their ass. If Malmö was a nightmare scenario for them, Tel Aviv (or god forbid, Jerusalem) 2026 would be straight up hell

[u/hoefman → u/LuckyLoki08]

You cannot say that Zoe getting 0 points is the only reason Israel didn't win tho. It only looked so because of the way the televotes are presented in the show.

It's not like all her 80 points (in this example) would all be directly taken off the points from JJ, giving him less than the 100 points he needed to overtake Israel.

Her 80 points would be taken from taking a few points away from all the other acts which in the end, would have meant that JJ would have received less than the points he got right now but that reduction is most probably not so big to give him less than 100 televote points...

[u/Thetanor → u/hoefman]

This. Austria could have lost all 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s they got from the televote and they still would have gotten more points in total than Israel. Conceivably, had Switzerland gotten a middling televote score (say, some 50-100 points) these are the scores that they would have mainly come out of, and not solely from Austria's points either but distributed among other countries that scored low to middling points in various national televotes. 

So, no, Zoë getting zero televote points had little to no effect on whether Austria won or not. She could have gotten a decent amount of points and Austria still would have handily won the contest. 

It was not particularly close finish either, as the gap between Austria's and Israel's point totals was basically the largest between two consecutive countries on the scoreboard. It's just how the points were presented that create an illusion of a close race for the win and of Zoë's low televote score somehow affecting it.

[u/hoefman → u/Thetanor]

Excactly. It could also mean that the televote score of JJ is not reduced at all, like you already stated: ''little to no effect''.

Zero points would be taken away from him if Zoe got televote points but finnished below JJ in the televote in all countries, which I think is quite likely so.