The Eurovision Song Contest is OVER – Let the Whinging Begin !

The 2007 Eurovision Song Contest is history. Marija Serifovic from Serbia won. She is unquestionably talented. Serbia has friends. Now begins the requisite whining and whinging from the losers.

That’s unfair. There are no losers at the Eurovision Song Contest, from any reasonable perspective. Every performance was excellent. The production was, too.

Swedish tabloids Aftonbladet and Expressen whined about the production and the “neighborly” voting. Swedish hard rocker The Ark was tipped by British bookies to win…once.  

British media – not limited to the tabloids – whinged more than usual. Some called for splitting the contest into two parts, one east and one west. Others want an independent jury to avoid the fun of watching each country vote for their favorites – song or country.

BBC Radio’s Terry Wogan, who has made a career of trashing each years’ Eurovision Song Contest, emoted, “We won the Cold War but we lost the Eurovision.”

The UK entry scored second from last. Get a life, folks! This is television, not curing cancer.

Ireland’s entry finished dead-last, receiving points only from Albania, but Ireland’s media remained rather calm, except for the Irish Times which called the winning tune “whining.” Public broadcaster RTE suggested “it might be time to reappraise our approach.” Irish entries have won more than any other country.

Also on the “we was robbed” list of whiners are Andorra, Malta, Netherlands and Switzerland

Local Geneva, Switzerland newspaper Tribune de Genéve whinged about a conspiracy. DJ Bobo didn’t make it passed the semi-finals. (DJ Bobo’s entry is a great little tune. But, as my ol’ daddy used to say, “Them’s the breaks.”)

Turk newspaper Zaman headlined : “Old days of Eurovision are over as Dogulu makes it into top five.”

The show was A-OK. YLE and Eurovision did the job. And does anybody doubt that Krisse Salminen is a star? Next year we’ll tune again for a Serbian showcase.

But, we leave the last word on the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest to the French. It was the venerable Le Monde that said “finally, a good song has won.” - Michael Hedges May 15, 2007

Keywords:Eurovision Song Contest,European public television

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