Eurovision 2018 Semi-Final 2 Split Results: Who did the juries help or hurt?

[@kohlihb]

I don't get all the whining about Moldova's placing. I think their second place in the televoting is somehow understandable because their staging was really fun, but the song itself is rather bland so I don't really blame the juries for putting them 7th. Also, 7th place is not thaaat bad guys come on ^^

[@tacom1]

completely agree!

[@meseigot7glambert193]

Thanks everyone who voted to Viszlát Nyár, you saved our entry. :) And at least this time Melovin didn't come last by the jury. :D

[@zdskillz849]

Mese Igot7Glambert Your Welcome. I love the rock entries. I voted 6 times for AWS

[@meseigot7glambert193]

Yay! It's really nice. :D

[@Jettus]

I still find it funny that Sweden won with the jury, Denmark with the televote... but the last Scandinavian won the whole package of the semi... I personally didn't like the Netherlands, but I did like Latvia.

[@Alvaro-kg1gs]

The problem with Sweden was not the staging. The problem was that the song was too flat and didn't stand out and that he was trying so hard to look sexy with his dance, and it wasnt good to be honest.

[@Alvaro-kg1gs]

Wright Blan Well He was trying too hard

[@majasrensen7342]

The dance was sooooo cringe!

[@nilerra8181]

Alvaro discrepo hehe The staging was the big problem imo. It felt he wasn't in the same stage or even it wasn't live. That turn people off. Plus after 30 seconds people were just bored because it was the same for 3 minutes. It was impossible to connect. Plus it was cold and sterile..

[@Alvaro-kg1gs]

nil erra No digo que el escenario fuera bueno, sino que no fue el problema (en mi opinion claro). Pero si es verdad que parecia que no estaba ahi. Me paso lo mismo con la Republica Checa en algunas escenass, en las que salian solo bailarines

[@nilerra8181]

Alvaro Nose para mi fue el mayor problema junto la cancion claro. No ayudaba nada nose xD Yo estuve con amigos y la gente despues del primer estribiĺlo dejaron de prestar atencion y se pusieron hablar xD Rep Checa era muy videoclip la parte de los bailarines si pero es que daba muy buen rollo y no era todo el rato lo mismo a diferencia de Suecia :s

[@yeseniasrevenge3018]

Honestly, I prefer Latvia to Moldova. Sure, Moldova had a fun performance but Latvia's song is so much better.

[@Tarkris]

ArgyESC I disagree! Latvia's song was duller than Moldova's even in studio version

[@kennet7837]

Yup, Moldova's song is average at best. Loved the fun staging and coreography, tho!

[@MomLAU]

I love both of them. Denmark's my favorite, though.

[@davida3970]

I agree with Deban. The Malta situation shows why a jury is needed.

[@nilerra8181]

Malta always send boring entries. That's why they flop with televote. Simple. Exception: its amazing 2013 which did great with televote

[@davida3970]

I agree with you that 2013 was a good song and Claudia's song was a tad boring but did it not deserve 0 points and they should have qualified with Amber.

[@nilerra8181]

David A Anybody deserves 0 but that's part of the game. People only vote for what they trully love.. and Claudia or Amber didn't create any passion and impact to make people call. Maybe you did call and some fans but this kind of entries never appeal to ordinary peoplw

[@83cosdino]

No. Malta is always overrated with juries. It is actually worrying.

[@everegina2589]

As an Australian I am so happy with how well we did with the televote, 7th is qualifying and regardless of the final result, it shows we are not unwelcome and that makes me happy

[@marysteve6137]

William Birch is not about that , it just because the live performence was a bit messy and for me the song was not good

[@maruschka2337]

William Birch you are welcome here :) I actually never voted for Australia but I did enjoy every single of your entries

[@nathanconstable6833]

Australia came 11/12/13 in so many televotes in the final. Just got unlucky.

[@nilerra8181]

Nobody is unwelcomed :) Any country can win this thing. Also Australia did great with televote in 2015 and 2016 so...

[@birdiboombox6750]

William Birch Your entries have been my favorites (except 2015 was tho)

[@perin2000]

I'm still so devastated about Malta, the jury put them 5th which means they could have done so well had she got public support. Apart from my faves Madame Monsieur, Taboo is the only song I'm still regularly listening to :((

[@cynical3279]

Norway shouldn’t have won it was an embarrassment

[@XSunacX]

norway is my winner

[@mimi-xx]

oh please. it wasnt award winning show stopping quality but it was a fun catchy song and when there were vocal disappointments and lackluster acts i think calling it an embarrassment is incredibly disingenuous

[@tylerm7741]

no idea how people would think Swedens act is in another studio when at parts you can even see that hes on stage

[@innuendoshakespeare]

I don't think we have a good understanding of the juries. They're not looking for radio-friendly songs. They're not looking to save entries they know the public won't appreciate. They just vote for the songs they personally like. That's usually going to be generic pop songs like Sweden or Norway (at the expense of entries like Hungary and Denmark). I think the juries should be told what their purpose is in the contest, and which criteria they should use to vote instead of "oh I like this song".

[@sharkan44]

that's exactly the point of my comment

[@adenmcgrath5894]

I liked Latvia

[@Tobi-md1fq]

aden mcgrath ok

[@hi-nj5uz]

Ukraine was underrated, Melovin was brilliant!

[@violentbob]

Thank you televoters for putting Denmark first❤

[@nilerra8181]

《 marije 》 Deserved :)

[@yepitsthatguy5278]

The role of the jury should be to provide some support through votes for entries that: - Have bad placing in the running order - Have artistic integrity that the public may not recognise - Are from countries that don't traditionally have a other countries with similar music industries - Represent genres that may not be the traditional pop that the public likes to vote for But fundamentally their voting should be unbiased and based on some minimal understanding of what the public actually likes. Why is it then that they continuously vote too generously for Sweden and Australia whilst ignoring countries like Spain, Portugal, Ukraine, Denmark, Finland etc that either had bad placing or don't have that many neighbours?? Having said this, I do think that this year, despite the Jury and Televote being so different in parts, the overall voting results seemed somewhat fair judging by the success of countries like Albania, Lithuania, Ireland, Austria in the Final who I thought may be super underrated. I also think compared to recent years the juries have really stepped up their game as far as equalising the competition, so I'm really not sure if there is anything we can do to close the voting gaps between the jury and televote

[@kennet7837]

YepItsThatGuy I agree, but the juries ranked Georgia last below Russia? They were clearly not doing their job there! The guys from Georgia had an ethnic song on which they sang harmonies perfectly on pitch like true professionals. Meanwhile, Russia had the poorest vocal performance and a bland pop song. Malta's entry sounded like a Melodifestivalen throw-away song, also generic and bland, somehow it ranked 5th? Must be because the songwriters were Swedish...

[@littlemissgrumpy939]

I agree on what you said about the jury vote for Hungary. It's not because it's not something you like, that it's not a good song... Cause it was. Musically, it was. And something I was thinking about on the juries in general. For our jury (Belgium), for example, Laura Tesoro is in there.. And I mean nothing against her, she's amazing and she did great 2 years ago, but that doesn't make her the perfect fit for a professional jury... Cause I honestly feel that she would go for the radio-friendly, "what do I like as a song" entries.. Which aren't always the best songs, something the juries should vote for... But hey, that's just my opinion. :)

[@sharkan44]

I don't understand how people associated radio-friendliness with quality. Major radios are playing safe and therefore radio-oriented songs are very medicore in order to please as many people as possible. This is not what jury should go for. They should appreciate stuff which public cannot: either what is artistic or what pushes limits. Therefore I am extremely annoyed with Hungarian jury result (but not surprised based on jury's voting in the past). This song has very artistic well-structured meaning which corresponds with the way how it is presented. Moreover, it pushes limits of Eurovision by re-introducing heavier music to the contest. I am sorry but if juries are like that (and if we have people from esc bubble like Guri Shanke or Bryan Rice). I don't want juries at all.

[@cameronclarkhull]

I felt sorry for Malta, 2018 was one of their best entries. Loved this song and the performance

[@edvardskalva]

Hungary is the ONLY performance that gave me chills and for me they are the winner

[@saskia2727]

People didn't vote for Sweden because they just... didn't like it? Did yall ever think of that?

[@nettle8605]

Apparently, this is what happens when you put all three Scandinavian countries in the same semifinal. Sweden wins the jury vote, Denmark wins the tele vote, yet Norway wins the semifinal. It's as if Sweden and Denmark were too busy fighting each other (as usual) to realise Norway casually snatching the first place from both of them... However, Norway still doesn't reach a top ten in the grand final, while both Sweden and Denmark do.

[@nettle8605]

... and none of them win lol

[@else1133]

Williams reaction to the Netherlands is so out of place. At first he praised Waylon and the song and only after an argument with Waylon does he find it necessary to burn him off completely. So petty and unprofessional of him!

[@Ryan-1704]

Great video! :) Sorry for spam but hopefully you see this comment. It would be great if you could do a recap of all 43 songs of eurovision 2018 like you did last year as it was so funny!

[@solkafomina9979]

MELOVIN The Best♡♡♡

[@annip5573]

I like very much what you Deban and William have done here! Thank you!

[@maaikexox]

Deban has got it right by the Netherlands!❤️

[@alcyonemeissa5223]

Deban stop acting like jurors don't have a swedish bias, cos they clearly have

[@DavidEriksson372]

YES. And as a Swede it's really annoying because Eurovision fans from all other countries are starting to hate us for it! Benjamin shouldn't even have qualified...

[@alcyonemeissa5223]

David Eriksson I think he was good enough for the final, but second with the jury? No, just no. To be fair sweden usually sends quality entries, but so does Estonia for example, and Estonia qualifies only once in every three years, while Sweden is basically another big 5 country except they have guaranteed spot in the top 10

[@priya9194]

Denmark and Italy literally swinging from bottom to top was the highlight of my final. didn't care who won. chicken and fire makes a good roast 😄😄😄(purely literal point of view)

[@nathanconstable6833]

I can really see why juries voted for Latvia - they worked the lights so well with the songs and the song itself was great. If I was a jurer I would've too. But my televote side went to Jessica because she had so much energy and I was dancing along at home.

[@ESCKrish]

At this point, the juries just need to go. I'm struggling to see positives out of the results from this year

[@birdiboombox6750]

ESC Krish Well, there are people like me who would love to keep the juries :-))

[@eschk4478]

Tell me that again when televoters ranked Russia and Albania in 11th, Latvia and Switzerland in 15th ;)

[@joselo4270]

I wish I could be a part of this conversations with you two!

[@adamora_obscura]

Sometimes I think the jury is right, sometimes I agree with the televotes. Honestly, I think having a 50/50 split is the best option.

[@jlhabitan50]

The Netherlands' staging really came together in the end. It looked more cohesive than from what I've been reading during rehearsals.

[@EurovisionFan91]

If Poland would have qualified instead of Serbia, them i would have been very happy. All the other 9 qualifiers were good songs

[@dacruise4439]

This was such a bad semi-final. Traditional finalists like Russia, Romania and Poland all sent their weakest entry for many years. Sweden and Norway were both kinda "meh". Serbia, Montenegro and Georgia used the same formula as previous years. San Marino was terrible as always. Malta tried but couldnt get it right. I really only like Hungary, Denmark and maybe Slovenia cause those songs stood out from the rest.

[@nilerra8181]

Jesper Kruuse-Jensen Same. Hungary and Denmark slayed :) Norway and Moldova made me feel happy tho :)

[@Lukas50667]

Still confused and sad about Malta! The Stageshow was so mesmerizing! 😍 Overall I agree with you completely, this semi was so hard to predict and it was so far off from my predictions! 😅

[@swishswish9060]

Televote always kills my favs lol

[@mimi-xx]

i definitely think the juries need a rework but things would be a disaster without them. we just need more transparency, more variety, and maybe a bigger panel.

[@mattspintosmith5285]

I think Malta was low because the song has an unusual feel so that the chorus feels like a pre-chorus - as though there is something missing. But because of the theme of the song, the incomplete feel is part of the meaning. Audiences wouldn't get it on first hearing.

[@nathanconstable6833]

I wish we didn't have to talk about diasporas and block voting anymore. It should be purely about the songs and the performances.

[@nilerra8181]

Nathan Constable Totally agree. Look Russia, Poland and Romania. They did bad in such weak semifinal. Song and performance is what matters

[@ahsffamoos2274]

MELOVIN ♡

[@hsvfan-gl9nc]

The Jury voting is disgusting. There is just no reason to put Hungary 13th. The fact that they almost kicked them out instead of romania and gave Latvia 4 times the amount of points still makes me angry. The juries need to take more responsibility for their votes. I guess if you asked them why they voted like that they would say either "I dont like metal" or "He is just screaming" and both is not a reason because a jury has to vote for the quality and örs definetly has one of the best voices this year its just another type of singing. Dont get me wrong i think this voting system balances very well in the end and the juries are also doing good things (Albania, Netherlands) but they have to be more open minded towards other genres because they are putting damage to eurovison if they want to exclude some styles of music (they would have done the same with lordi). The public seems to be much more open minded because they vote for a lot of different songs...

[@Ecd4life23]

Seems like the maths are wrong combined score 111 with televoting score 116? How does that work? The Eurovision website is better for the figures. Also Malta scored 8 points on the televoting amongst others.

[@marysteve6137]

Euan Crabb the points from televote are not correct (they are from semi final 1)

[@Ecd4life23]

For all that editing as well they fail to spot that big error 🙈

[@Rebecca-kl8xs]

Latvia was underrated...

[@dustincsk]

that song was not good for qualifying even if the vocal is superb, same case with Croatia.

[@rinorg1003]

They like The netherlands and they shamed Latvia non stop . Wow such great taste wiwibloggs

[@Rebecca-kl8xs]

Wright Blan i think maybe the staging could have helped it a little bit more if it was something different...

[@Rebecca-kl8xs]

Rinor Grajqevci i like The Netherlands and Latvia 😂

[@modernmoonlight7350]

For 101 time - LATVIA WOULD HAVE WON WITH MADARA.

[@sugarjagar1552]

Latvia 92+27=119?? Top 9

[@pogodziej]

Malta should've sent Richard and Joe. I said that from the beginning. "Taboo" had trite lyrics and an ultra-generic melody. Noone remembered it. Who cares if she had screens and stuff.

[@PatrykEurovision]

For the first time in a while I have to disagree with you guys. I very well understand why the juries marked Latvia higher than Moldova. Laura sang the song amazingly and her stage presence was amazing, Moldova looked like a cheap high school play. Latvia deserved to qualify!

[@dmytro5864]

You probably have a mistake somewhere cause here jury + tele ≠ combined

[@kaibriggs2290]

If you just added up the jury and televise points, Latvia would have gone through instead of Serbia... Just saying

[@hugfal-animepiano1178]

Latvia should have gone thru...

[@ryanwalker8212]

I’m new to this channel. But the on on the right I almost completely agreed with, and tbh I cackled at him, loved it

[@ruseneca90]

Come on, Bulgaria has 4 participating countries as neighbours and still they didn't vote for us. And it's OK! If you dislike a song, you simply don't vote for it! I am completely against this neighbor voting. I am writing about Malta! It seems that people didn't connect with the message. If Malta were in my Semi, I would vote for the song because I like it very much! Countries must not rely on neighbors or diaspora to save them. As for Sweden, I have the feeling that I've heard this song trillion times before! The problem is not in the staging, there were wide shots as well. It's the song.

[@rayjaygee]

I don't understand the fanboyism of Malta. Televoters got it right. The song and production were vanilla. It took itself way too seriously.

[@Tony-kr8hy]

I don't know who I would swap, (ok, maybe Australia) but I wished Montenegro had a second chance in the Grand Final! Vanja for president

[@ididntwanta2partname424]

Did the jury not realise how little sense Norway's song made?

[@rolanddupuy2753]

RIP Malta. Deserved to go through.

[@dimpap3034]

Wiwiblogs i must tell you that the greek broadcasting channel is talking with tamta to represent us next year😀

[@ESCMartina]

Mélovin was great!

[@esperanzabarriosdelgado9128]

Denmark is my winner this year. I love the Dan his song, is my number one.

[@RensBras89]

Yes!!!! You Made my sunday Morning!!

[@Nyla16]

Malta was quite boring in my opinion also i couldn't stop starring at her mouth like she opened it so wide it was just enormous. Australia idk i didn't like the song and her dancing was really strange... also she look quite big in the outfit. With Sweden i felt like those were such a long 3 minutes idk the song just felt like it lasted ages. The Polish singer had some really bad notes. And idk i could probably tell more about thing i didn't like but i've probably already made a lot of people angry so i'll stop here :D

[@kennet7837]

Fran Verbist Because her dancing was based on native Aboriginal dance.

[@birdiboombox6750]

Fran Verbist no continue, I’m interested

[@buddhidev7877]

Good job again. Thanks

[@kazamafraz]

Actually there is a decent sized Maltese diaspora in Australia. That’s why they got some points from us. But yeah I was shocked the difference was that much. And Georgia ☹️

[@nilerra8181]

Yep.. Australia is too nice with Malta xD Even in 2016 Malta got points from your televote :s

[@nilerra8181]

Netherlands was 10th on average ranking with televote

[@amusementfun4157]

Hello, can I ask you something?

[@nilerra8181]

Amusementfun Sure

[@amusementfun4157]

What did you think about Finland 2017 and 2018 (songs and results)

[@nilerra8181]

Amusementfun Are you from Finland? :) I really liked Blackbird in 2017. Should have qualified imo. Beautiful song and performance. I'm not the biggest fan of Saara and Monsters tbh but I kinda enjoy the performance. We had a lot pop female acts this year which means it was hard to stand out. About the results.. Well juries seem to don't like Finland for some reason (except 2014). 2017 should have been voted by juries imo. 2018 was more or less what I expected.

[@amusementfun4157]

Sorry for late reply Yep, I'm Finnish :) I agree with everything that you said about Blackbird. I really like Monsters as well but I can see why you don't like it very much and why it didn't do well. Anyways I'm glad that we finally qualified this year (I started watching in 2015 so I have never seen Finland qualifying before) I also wonder why juries don't like us.

[@karleduard7725]

Honestly i'm very satisfaced by the qualifiers, i don't think in exchange anyone

[@hugfal-animepiano1178]

Just me that think the televote is the weird part this year overall

[@worldsasuri9430]

You mistaked!Latvia didnt get 16th place in televoting but 15th place!

[@mediadixitworld7128]

To get more points from the televote Malta needed just another art direction

[@zdskillz849]

Latvia got robbed

[@ysfpn]

to be fair, it's not about juries have distant tastes than televoters, both parties have different set of judgement, so the outcomes would differ too we need juries for decent but unpopular songs, we need televoting for the sake of interactivity my only issue is the jury comprises of only 5 people, compared to million of voters, it's not comparable, we need more music professionals to balance the erratic tastes of 5 juries..

[@teo43]

During the show, I predicted the qualifiers counting songs and staging AAAAAAND all the real qualifiers were in that top 11 (I switched Poland and Slovenia) It wasn't so unpredictable...

[@earl.c]

The numbers aren't adding up.

[@8lys0n]

Ukraine should've got more

[@escfanforever569]

There is a lot of Maltese in Australia, which probably explain the 7 points form Australia in the televote

[@1992girlll]

Thank you jury's for puting Waylon in the final!!! Waylon is the best he should have won the competition!! And why did the televoters put Poland in the final? It was extremly off key.

[@adambudinsky1898]

WTF Denmark 40 points jury and 173 Tele and after all 204 WTF who count All of theese points

[@ahuman6953]

The only replacement I would do is replacing Norway with Malta.

[@makkapakka7547]

Denmark 1st in Public and not even qualifying with the jury

[@nettle8605]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[@annjul6024]

Latvia should have qualified

[@erionplays1]

0:35 LMFAO WILLIAM FARTED

[@mimi-xx]

anyways the netherlands definitely didnt deserve 5th jury placing and our staging was a hot mess BUT i do think whole package its good waylon reached the finals. lower end but vocals WERE good enough to carry through imo.

[@libraryofbook]

Yeah I agree Australia needs much better staging

[@paolo5807]

Why are your televoting results completely different to the official televoting results?

[@jensvervekken4838]

pn98 its from semi final 1. Forgot to change the points

[@M2003ESC]

Australia was amazing, ugh

[@aubin2208]

Your scoreboard are not correct :/ Hungary combined 111 but 23 + 116 = 139 :/ They did'nt receive 116 but 88 by the public (not enough in my opinion ;p ) Same with Sweden ;)

[@Sabrinajaine]

I’m shocked that Malta came last in the televote! I would agree with them in not putting the Netherlands through though. Poland should have gone through instead

[@beluga1450]

guys come on vote from Malta

[@watching.everything]

Something is wrong with the televote results. They are the same as Semi-Final 1.

[@Northfan42]

I love Waylon's song and I'm glad he qualified simply based on that. However, I do agree with William that The Netherlands' staging in Lisbon was a hot mess. I've shared this song with quite a few friends but I always link them to his song selection performance, not the performance in ESC proper. There were too many elements from unrelated genres and the glue simply didn't stick.

[@else1133]

Northfan42 The staging was no mess at all, it is a freestyle dance, the outlaw dance.

[@escleon2000]

San Marino got its first 12p!!

[@modernmoonlight7350]

I think Malta was killed by their staging. It was so flashy and messy. Hard to look at. I tought I'd get epillepsion

[@Rebecca-kl8xs]

HEY if anyone’s interested I just uploaded my thoughts and review to the 43 songs x

[@mattspintosmith5285]

Do juries automatically disregard music theatre type songs? How else justify the treatment of the Danish entry?

[@garyodufeso8947]

The crime was Malta not making it to the grand final

[@tweetybird30]

Could you tell me what happened with Croatia when it came to voting today??

[@keithharth1219]

Overall televoting hates Malta. In 2017 they finished last with it as well, and they gained little support in 2014 and 2016.

[@davidellul1803]

Malta got 8 from televote not 6 XD

[@robbyraines6725]

How about a prediction versus results video?

[@elinorarar]

Love denmark!

[@vegardsolb]

Just to correct; the scores of the televoting on the table you were showing of the overall results of this semi was incorrect!