Yas come through!

They are excellent ratings and the best for years, interesting now how the BBC will approach selecting the song next year, now that they have made a huge breakthrough it could be the start of the UK doing well again at the competition as it highlights when the right song is picked any country can do well.

Actually, on the comments sections online, people are moaning about losing, moaning about only coming 5th on the public vote, and moaning that Ukraine won due to politics. They are saying it confirms their views that they hate us and that it's all political!!!

 

prob Tories worried that people might actually start to support a unified Europe when their aim is to destroy European unity with the help of Russian bots.

 

Fact: The UK came second.

 

Conclusion: People will vote for what is good, across the board. Ukraine was a one-off message of support against a fascist propaganda regime trying to destabilise democracy. There's no point arguing with people who have no factual basis to their viewpoint that they can point to. Russia has won. Ukraine has won before. UK has won. These are all facts.

My view on it

 

Ukraine could have entered with anything and it would have won. I understand the positive message it sends but I would have preferred if a better song had won (Ukraine was probably around the 25th placed mark out of 40 for me)

 

That being said, if you took the Ukrainian vote away, I think Spain would have won. The extra public votes would have won it for them

 

I do think there are certain countries who will never give the UK the maximum 12 points on a public vote and that will always make it harder to get the overall win. You can always rely on Malta for some votes though!

Sam did incredibly well on the public vote. It's evocative of all the reasons that people love our music scene abroad, Bowie and Elton, all the lyrics about space, as well as being one of the strongest pop songs in the pack, this was pretty perfectly positioned to remind people that we have a fantastic music scene with many legendary artists while also showing them something new and the thing is... that's not a one off, we can do this regularly if we want to.

 

There's so many British artists with a great reputation abroad and sending something inspired by them that also sounds new and fresh is quite possible. I think we could easily win the televote in the next few years if the BBC are looking at this as an opportunity, and it sounds like they are.

I do think it's short sighted to deny ANY political voting but surely Ukraine would have done well anyway, top 5 probably, even without the sentiment behind what's going on. It was a unique song amongst the pack, catchy, performed well. There was definitely some merit to the song, although I think in terms of the average televoter, there was always going to be more of a push towards support for Ukraine. But a good song won either way, I'm not mad.

 

It is the most UK at Eurovision thing ever though that the one time we genuinely could have won, it ACTUALLY was political voting at play in a way :lol:

Yeah, that's the thing, was it political when Conchita won? Or was it a social statement? Was it political when Jamala won? Or was it a call back to history?

 

The contest can't be divorced from reality, part of its magic is just as much being a continent-uniting movement as it is a ranking of the best songs. This year, there was really something to be said about the entire continent uniting in solidarity behind one of our own being attacked.

 

And maybe it was just way more obvious than those other times and it may feel for some as if it were a foregone conclusion... but the right thing to do... certainly. And "Stefania" is a great ambassador for the values it's showing off. If Ukraine had sent "Boys Do Cry" or "Fade To Black" then I would have called bullshit, but the band have expertly placed "Stefania" in the context of Ukrainian culture, of loving their country and their people, Ukrainian mothers crying out for the blood being spilt, sung really heartfelt in anguish at the plight of the country. It deserves the win.

Certainly Ukraine's overwhelming landslide on the televote was down to the fact Europe wanted to show their support and stand with Ukraine. The so-called 'political voting' we saw this year, which as a term especially in UK media, is seen to divide and separate us, was actually an incredible show of unity of the European public with Ukraine and against the very horrific threat to us all. I don't see how you can be disappointed with the result in that regard.

 

In any way, if this terrible war had never happened, I honestly think Ukraine could have still won the televote this year, just obviously not with the numbers they did. 'Shum' came second on the televote last year and 'Stefania' is not a million miles away. It was always destined to be a top 5 contender, some people seem hellbent on trying to say that an obvious non-qualifier was handed the biggest victory of all time. In fact, in terms of the ranking of the winners based on the percentage of maximum possible points, 'Stefania' is 24th with 65.73%.

Finally getting around to a proper comment on the results~

 

SO pleased for Konstrakta grabbing a top 5 smash :wub: giving me shades of SHUM as the bizarre and left field entry that somehow managed to win over the public. Also Ukraine are more than worthy winners xxo yes they had an obvious advantage going in, but it was certainly one of the best songs/performances of the night (people will try telling you it wasn't, but my opinion is fact sooo)

 

What a result for the UK though! I'm happy to see a strong public vote for them too as it proves a lot of people wrong *.* (ofc those same people will still be whining since they're programmed to view everything through a cynical/political lens, but whatever) also good for Spain after a rough patch of their own, that 'Dancebreak edit' from the live performance slaps hard so I'm gonna pretend that's the real version now

 

Amazing result for Portugal too, I would've liked for France to do well but I always figured that was heading for a low finish sadly

 

Re: semi results which threw a few surprises, I expected big public/jury discrepancies for San Marino and Malta but they both got roughly the same, and fair play to Belgium getting through on the public vote (turns out we didn't need Switzerland or Azerbaijan though lol) - also Circus Mircus snatched the wooden spoon bitches!!!!! I really wasn't joking when I compared it to a Trifoski entry lmao