FROM ESCTODAY.

 

FYR Macedonia threatens Eurovision withdrawal

 

According to , The FYR Macedonia national broadcaster, MKTV will demand a change to the Eurovision Song Contest voting procedure for the semi finals at the next Reference Group Meeting. The broadcaster is furious that having finished in 10th place in the semi final in 2008 and 2009, the country has missed out on a place in the final due to the jury choice going to a country with fewer televotes. Eftim Gastov, director of MKTV has also threatened a possible withdrawal from the competition.

"When it happens for the second time that we are unfairly excluded from the final, the question which cannot be avoided is, is it necessary for us to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest? We would like to continue to be a part of this European event, but we are planning to hold a televised TV debate in order for professionals and the public to give their opinion on the event." Mr. Gastov was quoted as saying at a press conferene in Skopje yesterday.

 

The rules for qualification for the final have been agreed and set since the introduction of the two semi final system in 2008. The top nine songs by way of televote qualify for the Eruovision Song Contest final. The tenth qualifier is the country highest on the jury score card that has not already qualified. In 2008, Sweden took the jury choice in the FYR Macedonia semi final. This year, Finland were the jury choice from the semi final.

 

Despite the rules being clear and the methods for qualifications agreed to in the rules, MKTV are now furious that they have just missed out on qualification for the final two years running. Poland finished 11th in the Eurovision Song Contest twice in 2005 and 2006 when only one semi final was held and the top 10 counties qualified.

 

"The boys of Next Time definitely did not deserve this injustice. They and their band represented Macedonia in the best and most dignified possible way at the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow." Mr Gastov said.

 

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Yeah, so don't send absolute shizzle next time. Get over it. You've been in the final a lot more than some other countries. :mellow:

Edited May 20, 200916 yr by Cæl

Oh boo hoo. Stop spitting out your dummy. You entered crap this year, and Finland was a little better despite the terrible performance. Then again, FYROM 2008 was amazing :wub:

it was a terrible song, but FYR Macedonia did get there fair and square and they have a fair point...I think they should drop this 'jury joker' thing to be honest...

I know what you mean - it didn't do much good this year. In fact on the jury votes, Croatia and Finland do even worse in the final :rofl:

Well i can understand they maybe be peeed off as think about it if this happened your country wouldnt you be peeed off as if it was ireland i woul dbe ripping. Th ejury vote is stupid really as if the song doesnt get the votes in the semi final it wont in the final and that has been clearly shown in 2008 and 2009, the semi finals should be the top 10 songs voted by the public or do what they did for eurovision 50% jury vote 50% public vote

Also, if they were the jury pick, they wouldn't be complaining about the system. Sour grapes, methinks. But I do think the jury wild card is a bit silly, I'd prefer a 50:50 approach like the Final...

to be fair though they ranked in the top 10 so they should have been in over any song that didnt

Sour grapes...awful song anyway.

 

But no, the easiest way to solve this is to just remove the jury pick and make it 50/50 for the semis as well!

I think the 50/50 method is the best way forward tbh, however it clearly is just sour grapes. Horrendous song, deserved to be lower imo!

i agree terrible song but it was voted top 10

It's better to miss out in the Semis than do Finland this year imo :heehee:

It's annoying to have these jury wildcard picks in the semi-finals, because no band that finishes worse than 10th place with the tele-voting in the semi-final is going to have a shot at winning the whole thing (unless maybe there was a performance glitch in the semi-final.) However, the goal of the juries is to increase Western influence. Replacing Macedonia with Finland accomplished that. (Replacing Serbia with Croatia... not so much.)

 

 

Nah, the semis should be 100% televotes

50/50 in the semi would be more fair as that's the new system for the final!

and we won't withdraw I'm sure about it...the newtwork director is just beaing a big old DRAMA QUEEEN :lol:

Good news :D

 

However, the goal of the juries is to increase Western influence.

 

Are you sure about that? Who said that and when? :unsure:

 

"Mindful of the Eastern block voting, the Eurovision authorities have reintroduced the national juries, which will count for 50 per cent of the vote." --www.reallyuseful.com.

 

"After the public debate about neighbour and diaspora voting, we decided to give the national juries a say." --www.eurovision.tv, quoting Ruurd Bierman, Chairman of the Eurovision reference group

 

"Other competing nations, including Greece, Turkey and Russia, have benefited from neighbourly votes and those cast by communities living in other European states. Fans of the contest, who have become disgruntled with the voting system, have been calling for a return of the jury vote." --BBC News

 

The diaspora angle is best explained by this less newsworthy source:

 

"We, the fans of the Eurovision Song Contest, are not happy with the, currently, unfair nature of the voting system. We feel that the voting result of, not only the eastern countries, but the western nations as well, are being adversely affected by the number of immigrants in each country. It has become a tradition that Germany will always award Turkey 12 points, this could be interpreted as suspicious as the largest population of immigrants in Germany are from Turkey. The same is happening in all of the Eurovision countries. Ireland has for the last two years given 12 points to Lithuania in the final. This is also highly suspicious because the highest population of immigrants in Ireland are from Poland and the second highest number are from Lithuania..." --oikotimes.com, 2007

 

The trend of Ireland voting for Lithuania continued in 2009, with Ireland being the only country to give 12 points to Lithuania (in the semi, watered down to 7 points in the final after the jury influence.) Ireland didn't get a chance to vote for Lithuania in 2008.

 

While droves of Turks have moved to Germany and droves of Lithuanians have moved to Ireland, very few Germans have moved to Turkey and very few Irish have moved to Lithuania. When Eurovision officials say they want to reduce the effect of diaspora, they mean they want to take votes away from Eastern countries and give them "back" to Western countries.

 

Hmmm, fair enough. I wasn't aware of them having said this explicitly is all...