232 2024 Grand Final === [00:00:00] Mike: It was late. That was the last song in the lineup. everybody just wants this to end. Hello and welcome to the Eurowhat, episode 232, dropping on May 14th, 2024. We are a pair of Americans trying to make sense of the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm Mike McComb, and I'm here with my co host, Ben Smith. Hey, Ben. [00:00:33] Ben: Hey, Mike. [00:00:34] Mike: In this episode, we'll be talking about the Eurovision 2024 Grand Final. I am tired. [00:00:41] Ben: Just like, what is the opposite of post Eurovision depression? [00:00:44] Mike: We've both covered Eurovision for close to 15 years. This is the wildest one that I have encountered. [00:00:53] Ben: Yeah, like, the last 36 to 48 hours have just been a lot. [00:00:59] Netherlands Disqualified from Eurovision --- [00:00:59] Mike: We are recording this, Sunday morning U. S. time, and, hopefully nothing major happens since then, because the contest is done! Nemo has won, the code is this year's Eurovision champion, congratulations Switzerland, it was, very touch and go there, starting, uh, I want to say Friday morning US time, waking up and be like, alright, getting ready to edit our episode for the grand final preview. Well, this suddenly became a challenge. [00:01:46] Ben: Yeah, just like the, just like the gif from Community of Donald Glover coming in with all the pizzas for the party and just seeing the room on fire. [00:01:55] Mike: Oh goodness. A quick recap, since, it feels so long ago at this point, but, after Thursday's, semi final, Joost Klein from the Netherlands, had some sort of altercation with a member of the EBU staff. nothing physical, as far as I can tell. We'll have links to articles, in the show notes that are kind of recapping, the situation. it was an interaction that, was deemed threatening, and, police in Melmo were brought in, there was an investigation, Joost appeared in the flag parade during the tech rehearsal, and that was the last time he was seen on the Eurovision stage. Netherlands did not perform in the jury final that happened on Friday night. Instead, the performance from the second semi final was shown in place of Netherlands in the running order, which the jury then voted on. And then it was announced Saturday morning, US time, that the Netherlands had been disqualified from the contest. [00:02:58] Ben: That was just a wild thing to just sort of watch and not have any information on, like just the level of information vacuum that was happening. the level of rampant speculation happening about what had happened, what had provoked this. What was happening? What was going to happen? people were speculating that, oh, uh, Czechia's rehearsing. Even though there's, like, there's no proof, they're just baselessly speculating that somehow we're going to, load somebody and instead we're just gonna have 25 acts. [00:03:27] Mike: Just the fact that it was an ongoing investigation, they were like the phrase crisis meetings kept coming up, which is like, well, yes, I guess it is the technical term, but that's also a very sensationalized term. And yeah, so like, also really putting Google Translate to work, bouncing from Swedish news sites, Danish news sites, Dutch news sites, it really did seem like, uh, Eurovision was about to supernova. [00:03:52] Ben: the crisis meetings continued over the course of Saturday. Ireland, the UK, Portugal, Switzerland were all threatening to withdraw. Bambi Thug, Marina Saadi, and Nemo were not in the rehearsal flag parade. Bambi Thug didn't perform during the family show and lodged a complaint with the EBU around some of the comments that Israel's commentator team had made. [00:04:12] Mike: Spokespeople from the, juries were dropping out, Alessandra who represented Norway last year. She was supposed to be their spokesperson, she said no. Kaia dropped out as a spokesperson for Finland. Nikki de Jager, who was one of the hosts, uh, Netherlands in 2021, she pulled out and TROs, the Dutch broadcaster, pulled out pretty much completely. they are justifiably upset. They called this, penalty, out of proportion with what may or may not have happened in the incident. Like, we still don't have a clear picture of what exactly happened. TBD, what happens with Netherlands, next year, the next few years, like, this is a developing story. [00:04:57] Ben: Yes. Agreed. That was a fun little recap to have to give the various people attending my Eurovision party, like, hey, you may have seen some news. here's what's going on with that, as the person in the room who, who actively knows too much about this. there was a moment in both, like, in the script for the, the final show where it's like, have you been living under a rock? And honestly, at that point, I wish I, like, I was, I was checking Zillow looking at rock listings. [00:05:22] Mike: There were a number of other, content creators in the Eurovision space that after Liverpool, like, shortly after Liverpool, like, I think they had just finished sweeping up the confetti, were just like, you know, I think I'm ready to kind of dip out for a little bit, take a break. And I'm just wondering what sort of tea leaves they were reading, because, I need a subscription. [00:05:41] Ben: Yeah, and like, I, yeah, like, I'm also really interested to sort of watch the fan media community after this year to see what kind of reaction comes out of the, like, the last two years combined. [00:05:53] Mike: Yeah, because it has been exhausting. And I'm also thinking of like the broadcasters that decided to sit out this year, particularly Romania. Like I'm just picturing the budget committee, they're all giving each other high fives to be like, wow, we avoided a major train wreck. So It's been wild, but, uh, yeah, like, even to the point where it's just like, mm, will there be a Eurovision next year? Like, we were even, having some discussions of just like, uh, yeah, so what does Endgame look like in various scenarios? But, uh, yeah, so, that was fun. I normally have my therapy sessions on Saturday mornings, and typically I cancel them. Eurovision Day, but it's like, you know what? I think I'm gonna hang on to this one. This was a good use of an hour, yesterday morning, so, uh, but it all seems to have, mostly worked out, or at least worked out in a way where, we're still hanging around, I think is the point of that story. Yeah, [00:06:51] Ben: were keeping an eye on things, though. [00:06:53] The Actual Grand Final --- [00:06:53] Mike: when it came to the actual grand final, though, it didn't seem like there were really any major incidents that made it to TV. [00:07:02] Ben: I think, like, the level that made it to TV was Perhaps not the minimal level, but also not the maximal level. Like, this, the wheels could have really fallen off more than they [00:07:11] Mike: Oh, absolutely. [00:07:13] Ben: we did have 25 performers in the final. I did not prepare any sort of, like, bingo card or even, like, a little running order or print off this year, because, like, as of Saturday morning, I was like, I don't know how many acts we're gonna still have by the time this kicks off. [00:07:27] Mike: I did the foolish thing of printing off the pre made ballots we had, Friday evening. And when I woke up Saturday morning to the news, like, the first thing I did is just like, all right, grab a Sharpie, went through each one and crossed off slot five. that was the only edit that I had to make. [00:07:45] Ben: There were, like, a few things that made it to air. So, like, Iolanda's nails were painted in a design, reflective of Vikefija, and Eurovision delayed publishing the grand final performance video as a result. Uh, there was like something weird during the broadcast of Austria's entry, just like TV wise. [00:07:59] Mike: Yeah, I was wondering if you had heard anything about this because we were watching it on Peacock and right after the dance break piece of it, it kind of turned into an overhead shot of the arena and it seemed like the audio was a little rushed. I don't know, it could have just been a hiccup with the Peacock feed or something. [00:08:19] Ben: I feel like I saw reports of it beyond just Peacock, so it just could be somebody in the control room accidentally pressing the wrong button. [00:08:26] Mike: my first thought was just like, oh no, there's a stage invader, but, can't find anything, and I have a feeling that song might be something that gets, auto blocked on YouTube, so I haven't been able to find any audience video yet, so It was late, that was the last song in the lineup, so, it's just like, uh, everybody just wants this to end, so. [00:08:43] Ben: Yeah. [00:08:44] Mike: Good performance, though, like, no shade towards Colleen, but, uh, yeah, it was just the only, performance incident, there was just like, uh oh, what's going on? That, set off an alarm bell in my head, [00:08:55] Ben: Yep. overly primed yesterday for some level of shenanigans to be happening. at the end of the show, within 10 minutes, Nemo had broken the trophy. Like it's a very precarious design. [00:09:07] Mike: like, uh, and I thought that they had tried to reinforce it, but that is one of my, favorite traditions of Eurovision, because this is not the first time it's happened. It certainly will not be the last time. So [00:09:19] Ben: just say what you will about, like, the weird parade of, the trophy changing, shapes into being, like, some sort of, like, very nice coffee table thing over the course of, like, the 90s and 2000s, but, like, they were built in a structurally sound [00:09:30] Mike: yeah, it's just that stem. [00:09:32] Ben: Yeah, it's real top heavy. [00:09:34] Mike: That was the one thing that did translate to the American Song Contest, 'cause the trophy broke instantly then as well, . Nebo also broke their thumb, in the course of it. I think it may have just been like a little too excited in the performance, or the articles used the term broke. It could have also been getting cut on however the glass broke. Uh, but yeah, NA NAMA was wearing bandages, in the press conference, so, yeah. In terms of, actual incidents, it was pretty light considering [00:10:02] Ben: Considering the previous 24 hours [00:10:04] Mike: Yeah. So yeah, should we get into the results? [00:10:07] Eurovision Results Data Dive --- [00:10:07] Ben: Yeah, let's do it. [00:10:09] Mike: Alright, so, in the grand final, Switzerland won the jury with 365 points. That is the second highest jury score after Portugal in 2017. Nemo received 22 twelves, which is the most ever in the current split system. I haven't been able to go back to see if that is the most ever, ever, but that would not surprise me if that were the case. Estonia finished last with four points. my room had our eyes on Estonia, because, like, we liked it enough, but it was just like, oh, please, please get out of the zero, please get something, [00:10:44] Ben: Yeah, I was keeping an eye on that too. And then Croatia won the Televote with 337 points from that. And this is the first time three countries have received more than 300 points in the Televote. you have Croatia, you have Israel with 323 points, and you have Ukraine with 307 points. Looking at how that breaks down into the various 12s and 10s and so on Israel received 15 sets of 12s, including the rest of the world vote. I believe that's the second time in a row for the rest of the world vote. [00:11:09] Mike: sounds right. [00:11:10] Ben: Switzerland only received one 12 points, from the televote from Ukraine. only seven countries received more than 100 points. And as I was watching the televote come in, I was seeing a lot of low numbers where I'm like, Oh, this means that like a few things got a lot of televotes. [00:11:23] Mike: unfortunately, the UK was not one of them, traditions carried forward, and they received nil point, but did finish 18th overall, [00:11:31] Ben: It was a good showing, and I'm not reading that as televoters didn't like the UK, I'm reading that as televoters had a very small number of things they wanted to give a lot of votes to, which meant that the things that they might spread their votes over Suffered as a result. [00:11:46] Mike: that was kind of my read too. And UK was in slot 13. I don't think that was a good spot for that particular performance. it was right before a break. It's halfway through the lineup, so people are getting drinks, people are going to the bathroom. At least they didn't double nil. So there's always that. [00:12:04] Ben: Like, we now know that that's on the table, so like, oof da. yeah, and then Germany, did shockingly well. Like, I thought that was gonna be on the second half of the scoreboard, just given German entries as of late, and they were 10th with the jury and 12th overall. [00:12:19] Mike: that kind of feels right. I mean, coming out of that conversation that we had with Chris, it was just like, that style of song is popular at the moment. [00:12:26] Ben: Mm hmm. [00:12:27] Mike: yeah, good job, Germany. [00:12:29] Ben: Germany tends to pick things that tend to be a little bit more radio friendly, which doesn't always translate with the contest, but when it does, it [00:12:34] Mike: Yeah, yeah, especially this year when, I mean, you do consider what was at the top of the scoreboard. It's just like, oh, not, not your usual radio pops. [00:12:43] Ben: Ireland came 6th, that is their best placement since 2011 with Jedward. [00:12:48] Mike: Yeah, that, that was very popular in my room. [00:12:51] Ben: in my party as well, it was not necessarily anybody's musical taste, but like, you cannot deny that staging. [00:12:57] Mike: fantastic job. Ireland should be proud. Ireland, please be more outside the box, than you have been previously. [00:13:03] Ben: know what you have to do, look at the last two years, what doesn't work, what does [00:13:06] Mike: Italy finished 7th, which I think was a little bit lower than, people were hoping for, Italy was very popular in my room as well, but, this is their 7th top 10 placement in a row, so, uh, great job, Angelina, looking at other, Sort of notable entries in this year's field, Luxembourg finished right in the middle of the pack at 13th place, Latvia, finally made it to the final, they're in 16th, Georgia is in 21st, and Norway finished in 25th place. [00:13:34] Ben: That blew my mind. I did not have that one, failing with both the jury and the televote as much as it did. [00:13:42] Mike: I thought it was going to do something kind of along the lines of Blind Channel, but maybe, since there were other more accessible rock entries? Available, like, I still think it was a fantastic performance, but [00:13:53] Ben: Agreed. But yeah, it just didn't, it was not resonating as much as I thought it was going to. And then shortly before the grand final, there was the announcement of the Marcel Besançon awards for this year. The composer award went to Switzerland, the press award went to Croatia, and the artistic award, which is voted on by the commentators, went to Switzerland. So. the top two things, were the top with the Besenso awards as well. [00:14:15] Mike: congratulations to them for that. after the grand final, Eurovision released the results from the two semifinals in the most incomprehensible way possible. Like, that website is very difficult to navigate, so I'm kind of waiting for, somebody to upload it to Wikipedia, so it's like, oh, an actual grid, thank you. But, looking at semifinal one Croatia was the winner with 177 points, followed very closely by Ukraine with 173 points, Australia was 11th, they were 6 points behind Serbia, Poland was close by with 6 points behind Australia, and Iceland finished last with just 3 points. [00:14:59] Ben: Yeah. Mm hmm. It was a good semifinal. I think if you're you were really focusing on on your Croatia's and your Ukraine's, you were not really giving points to your Iceland's. with semifinal two, Israel was first in the televote with 194 points. the Netherlands was 12 points behind them, so again, very close towards the top. Just missing qualification, Czechia came in 11th with 5 points behind Norway, Denmark was in 12th and they were only 2 points behind Czechia, so the second semi final, like, 11th and 12th, very close, and then like, after that you kinda have a real big drop. Albania and Malta finished 15th and 16th with 14 and 13 points respectively. [00:15:38] Mike: For last place in semi final, those are still pretty good scores, so I don't know how much comfort that provides, but it's like, hey, it's, uh, yeah, I mean, you did better than Iceland, so I guess Iceland did finish in absolute last place. [00:15:51] Ben: as much as that one had risen up my rankings, that also does not surprise me at all. [00:15:56] Mike: yeah, so, sorry, Hera, we still love you. [00:15:58] Ben: Watching the news today, the day after all of this has happened, Croatia is thrilled. This is their best placement ever. They were essentially having the Croatian version of Torila Tava Tan The town square is full, baby lasagna was very emotional. [00:16:14] Mike: Aw. [00:16:14] Ben: the video I have found is very good. [00:16:16] Mike: speaking of videos, for the first time since, geoblocking was introduced to the contest, , there are clips of the performances available on the Eurovision YouTube channel for us viewers. they are like peacock branded clips, and they're only about 40 to 45 seconds, of a given song. you get to see, some of the best parts, and then they'll be like, watch the rest on Peacock. [00:16:40] Ben: A, why can't we watch the rest here? Just like, point me to Peacock. B, on Peacock, could we get like, either the full clips, give me the full three minutes, or give me chapters in the semifinals, so I can easily find stuff, I was trying to fast forward to Netherlands after the party yesterday, just so that people could see this is, this is the entry, and the number of times I hit the restart from beginning button while trying to like, scroll over to where I know the end is, is very frustrating. [00:17:06] Mike: yeah, uh, after the show wrapped, my husband put on the music video for Uropapa just to show the people in our room, and, uh, They are not as online as you or I, are, so, um, kind of a baffling experience. I think the stage performance would have been better, but we would not, like, we would not have had the patience to try to find it on Peacock to do that, so. Peacock has some work, uh, also with the closed captioning, like any song that was not in English was, captioned as, singing in a global language. It's like, uh, okay, sure, [00:17:39] Ben: Could you be more specific about which global language at the very [00:17:41] Mike: exactly, yeah, and it's like, yeah, it's not like these lyrics haven't been available for the past three months, but, you know, so, whatever, [00:17:49] Looking Toward Eurovision 2025 --- [00:17:49] Mike: I guess we can start looking forward to planning for next year's contest. [00:17:55] Ben: Yes, I have already sent an email to my primary care physician asking if both of my kidneys are necessary. For Switzerland. It's expensive. [00:18:02] Mike: Oh, yes. Okay. Just like, where are we going with this? What have I not read? Yeah, I think that was one of the main reasons that I was supporting Croatia this year, if I'm being perfectly honest. [00:18:14] Ben: Croatia is Technically, like, it's a bit over touristed, but like, it's also a lot cheaper than Geneva or any of the other, Swiss cities. [00:18:22] Mike: Geneva has already submitted their application, and they have a distinct advantage because that is where the EBU is headquartered. So, um, yeah, like, I could think just in terms of Commuting times. that, that is going to be, an attractive option. I'm already kind of preemptively calling next year's contest the Geneva Convention. Um, I'm sure that's not going to be problematic. Uh, so far, a handful of countries have officially indicated interest. so that would be Switzerland, obviously, Belgium, which has already confirmed that they're going to be using Eurosong. for their selection process. Denmark, which has already confirmed that March 1st will be the date of Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. Luxembourg will be returning, so they must have had a good time this past week. Malta has also signed on, and Spain will be doing Benidorm again to select their entrant. [00:19:19] Ben: Hooray! [00:19:20] Mike: It'll be interesting if next year gets back into, like, a Eurovision we're familiar with, back to its roots, which may also mean that there's only seven countries that are going to choose to participate, uh, given the [00:19:31] Ben: yeah, I, yes, I am, I'm gonna watch what happens with some delegations, cuz, yeah. the Swiss broadcasters, once they decide who is gonna be the main one, I'm looking forward to, like, what the vibe of next year's contest is, cuz this was kinda Sweden on autopilot, and we coulda used, uh, somebody at the wheel. [00:19:50] Mike: I really think with the way, particularly the last 48 hours have gone, this is probably going to be a case study in like business classes, PR classes on brand management. And I could see an entrance essay being what decisions would you have made of like, what would you have done differently? Why or why not? [00:20:12] Ben: Yeah, cuz, like, this was a laundry list of what not to do. [00:20:16] Mike: I would not be surprised if there are some personnel changes as a result of this, and yeah, I mean, it's still very speculative, like, I think the next week there's going to be a lot more dirt, uh, [00:20:28] Ben: it's like, it feels like there are still a lot of loose ends to tie up, with this year's contest, and a lot of developing stories, a lot of Yeah, just like, what's going to shake out, because coming out of this, I really want to see what changes happen, particularly around, the safety, both physically and mentally, of the actual artists and participants, because like, this was a pressure cooker for them, on a level, like, the contest is already a pressure cooker, and like, this year, in particular, [00:20:53] Mike: the COVID contest 2021, like that was a, that was a pressure cooker just because it was just like, okay, we are experimenting and people maybe putting their lives at risk. And that was such a joyous event in the end. whereas this one, I'm very curious if anybody had a good time. [00:21:13] Ben: Yeah, Sylvester Belt, who performed right after Israel yesterday, has been fairly open already about just sort of like where he was at mentally yesterday, and was like, this was not fun. [00:21:22] Mike: Yeah, I think there were a lot of decisions that could have been made, should have been made, and I think the failure to really Read the room. is the most basic decision that I think SVT and EBU failed at this year, at least acknowledge that things are not normal right now. Yeah. And the reluctance to do that I think is really, it's damaging to the brand and that that is one of the rules of the contest. do not bring the contest into disrepute, but what do you do when it is the organization putting on the contest that is breaking that [00:21:59] Ben: causing the disrepute. Yeah. Well, and a matter of just like just thinking about reading the room, the last 24 hours. Admittedly, they have filmed all these little interstitial things. But the Linda Woodruff thing, which mentally, I love Linda, uh, I feel like it's, it's a joke that as many jokes do have, not aged as well as we think they have over time, like when we were pulling together the one day that we did for Learned League on the last decade of Eurovision, one of the questions that I put together. Was a megamix of Linda Woodruff saying things and then going through all the clips I was like, oh, this is aging to be a little bit mean spirited and then this year Mentally, I like the concept of okay. We're doing like the Vogue breakdown, but it's all of the previous supervisors But to have the lead into that be a, Isn't Martin Ustredal sexy, ladies? When the last 24 hours for Martin have not been great, they are not using the in arena, uh, crowd noise on him. Or if they are, it's not working. [00:22:59] Mike: Yeah. Like the level of booing that was happening, like during the live show, during the tech rehearsal on Friday, it was, palpable. [00:23:06] Ben: I was just like, okay, we're just not gonna do this interstitial. Just like, honestly, just like, play the, how has Abba changed Brighton clip again? Cause like, that joke Exquisite. Like that, that little 60 second, like, little intro. Oh, it really hasn't. Boom, done. Great. [00:23:20] Mike: Yeah, it's weird, like, where they're being flexible and where they're being inflexible, it'll be nice to have A different driver at the wheel next year. [00:23:29] Ben: Would I have liked Croatia to win? Yes. Am I excited by the prospect of Switzerland, who has not hosted since Celine Dion won, getting to do something and provide a perspective it feels like we haven't seen? Yes. [00:23:41] Mike: Next week will be calmer in the sense that it's all aftermath type stuff. But, there's still a lot to talk about. [00:23:49] Ben: just thinking about the, the number of crisis meetings that were had in, like, the last 36 hours, I would love for there to be a post mortem. so, what went [00:23:55] Mike: yeah. [00:23:56] Ben: cool, that five minutes is done, okay, let's, let's, let's walk through these things, like, what, we're, like, what can we learn from this, how can we change things, because Nemo in their press conference was saying, hey, I broke the code, I broke the trophy, mate, there might be some stuff broken at the EBU that needs to be looked at, and like, that was a killer line. Yeah, [00:24:14] Mike: Oh, I'm looking forward to the off season. I think we have a lot of topics to, uh, to work with here. So, In terms of our schedule, we're going to be tying up some loose ends next week, and then we'll be going into our, every other week off season schedule. But we've already got some fun stuff planned, so, that'll be good. And then we'll have, again, the post mortem. I look forward to reading all of the post its, all of the, all of the color coded messages of just, like, what went well, what, what needs work, uh, what should we never ever do again, and [00:24:46] Ben: Yeah, let's see, if this becomes a case study, I'm absolutely, reading that. I want, like, the full breakdown of, like, here's every place where things went off the rails. [00:24:54] Mike: anything else. [00:24:55] Ben: Nope. [00:24:56] Mike: Finally. [00:24:57] Ben: Ha ha ha ha, fu [00:24:59] Mike: All right, well that's going to do it for this episode of the Eurowhat. Thanks for listening. The Eurowhat podcast is hosted by Mike McComb, that's me, and Ben Smith. [00:25:09] Ben: That's me. if you'd like to help support the show and access a ton of bonus content, head over to patreon. com slash eurowhat. [00:25:15] Mike: Our full coverage of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest can be found on our website at Eurowhat. com. You can also follow us on social media at Eurowhat. [00:25:25] Ben: Next time on the Eurowhat, we'll tie up some of these loose ends with our special guest from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, Dr. Jess Carnial.