Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The season 2013 I mean. It is. Krista Siegfrieds declared already the week after "Eurovision is so last season" and launched her Amen video. For Carola the season never ends... Tomorrow it's June 1, 2013 and we can put the Eurovision 2013 in the history book. The songs are slowly disappearing from the various charts, rumours and gossip for the next year's artists are slowly starting....  speculations about the voting and stuff will continue for a long time still I guess but quite frankly I'm bored with all that already. Three months to take it a bit slow, before the new season kicks off on September 1, 2013. Until then I will be like Farid Mammadov and his dancer....  Weekly videos will continue, and news every now and then, too, so stay tuned and have a wonderful summer! And most of all thank you for this season. The 1,5 million visits milestone is here, and nearly 100.000 visits this month warm my heart like the record heat (in May) outside. It's...

Awww, isn't this nice? San Marino TV has thanked Valentina Monetta with a newspaper ad in Il resto del Carlino:  "Thank you Valentina. You were the GREATEST.  For us in Malmö you were the winner! :-)"   How sweet it this? I doubt any other TV-station appreciates the effort of their singer this much?

Eros Ramazzotti is like wine, he just gets better with age. Vocally great, amazing musicians, great backing singers including Lidia Schillaci , who should have won the Operazione Trionfo back in 2002. But Eros, despite looking a bit tired and uninspired at first got the concert going soon and in the end the whole Hartwall Areena was on their feet dancing and singing along to Fuoco nel fuoco. Terra promessa, Dove c'è musica, Se bastasse una canzone and L'aurora got also Finns going. And most didn't mind he did a lot of his old songs, all the way from his two first albums. An old fart like this blogger was in heaven to hear songs like Una storia importante, Adesso tu, Un cuore con le ali, Cuori agitati and Musica é , songs that were made and listened when we both were young, Eros and I. After Infinitamente he sent a kiss to heaven to late Little Tony with "Ciao Tony!". I guess no one in arena got that. But I did. Beautiful stage with its multifunctional boxes,...

Another concert. Another Eros Ramazzotti concert. Hartwall Areena. Helsinki.  Questa nostra stagione

EBU has finally released the rankings for the semifinals and final split by juries and televoters, here .  Denmark was a winner for both in the final. In general the juries favored Moldova, Belgium, Sweden, Georgia, United Kingdom, Estonia and France, while televoters favored Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Belarus and Ireland. Both agreed spot on in Malta and Spain, while Finland came very close, 18th and 20th. In the semifinal Finland was 6th with the juries, 10th with the televoters.  Wiwibloggs has counted down the differences between the jury votes and the televotes - this is maybe the most interesting data: Country Televote Jury Difference Romania 7 24 -17 Hungary 8 21 -13 Greece 4 14 -10 Belarus 13 22 -9 Ireland 14 23 -9 Iceland 12 17 -5 Russia 5 10 -5 Armenia 15 19 -4 Germany 16 20 -4 Lithuania 21 25 -4 Ukraine 2 6 -4 Denmark 1 1 0 Malta 9 9 0 Spain 26 26 0 Az...

These post-Eurovision weeks are always busy by fans into charts and stuff like that. And proves some real success - which songs people are willing to buy/download in various countries besides maybe voting them in the final? And Krista Siegfrids and Finland may have resulted in somewhat disappointing 24th place in the final after the high votes in the semifinal vanished somewhere (maybe to same place the Azeri votes for Russia went?). Despite that she's among the about 10 songs making the various national charts across Europe and elsewhere in the world like Australia post-ESC 2013... Anyways, if she managed to create the biggest media fuss ever for a Finnish artist in Eurovision, matching and maybe even beating Lordi, she's also proven to have chart success, also matched by no other act but Lordi before her.  So far she has charted with Marry me as #6 in the official Finnish download charts (there has been no physical release) as well as in radio charts. She was #29 in I...

Another concert. Another Eros Ramazzotti concert. Hartwall Areena. Helsinki.   Un angelo disteso al sole .

There's no doubt what is the hottest thing in Italy this season. Marco Mengoni. His tour continues from sold out triumph to another, his esercito of fans following him everywhere, waiting for him outside hotel and theaters screaming like it was Beatles all over again.... Mengonimania indeed! His Eurovision entry has become a real sing-a-long song as everyone sings along, leaving him at times to only stand and watch visibly moved.... like here in Padua. After Eurovision L'Essenziale has charted in iTunes in 30+ countries and the album #prontoacorrere in 12. Slovenia, Malta, Spain, Hungary and Greece seems to have taken to their hearts the most. Tomorrow the tour will be in Rome.  Here are the current iTunes positions for L'Essenziale: #5 Malta #9 Spain #10 Hungary #11 Greece #13 Slovenia #22 Italy #25 Luxembourg #32 Malta  #41 Netherlands #41 Switzerland #45 Italy #46 Austria #52 Sweden #53 Denmark #54 Spain  #62 Germany #70 Belgium #90 Norway #120 Aus...

Another concert. Another Eros Ramazzotti concert. Hartwall Areena. Helsinki. Parla con me .

In our Valentina Monetta competition we asked you to guess the Valentina's placement in the semifinal and now we know it was 11th. As she was a big pre-contest fan favorite, 82% of you got it wrong by placing her in the top-10. Curiously enough, no one placed her first! Nor was she placed last but all spots between 2 and 15 were guessed, the average placing being 6,8.  The winners of the Sammarinese promo single have been privately contacted and informed. Thank you all who participated. See you next year with more contests!

Emmelie de Forest's Only teardrops enters the official Finnish singles Top-20 charts at #17. This is the real charts, not iTunes or similar download only. On the official album Top-50 chart the Eurovision 2013 compilation jumps from #25 to #9, while Krista Siegfrids debut album Ding Dong climbs from #24 to #19. Agnetha Fältskog 's A debuted at #15 last week and is already dropping to #22. Patricia Kaas debuted at #17 thee weeks ago with Chante Piaf but is moving out of the chart at # 46. Her high debut was helped by her tour that brought her to Turku, Tampere and Helsinki giving four concerts to her Finnish fans earlier this month.

The Barbara Dex award, or the award for the worse dressed went to Serbian trio of dancing cupcakes Moje 3. Their win was very convincing - over one third of the 2747 votes went to their direction. At the same time the trio announced they have split up. These two events are not related, it seems... :-) The runner up was Cezar from Romania followed by Moran Mazor from Israel. Read more here . And all the winners are here .

Weekly videos return after two weeks Eurovision break but tonight we go on with Eurovision artists. First Margaret Berger with Samantha . This is an old track from 2006 but it's still good. And with an interesting Eurovision twist: it's produced by Jukka Immonen, the man behind Roberto Bellarosa 's entry for Belgium this year. Talking of Roberto, he has released the London underground mix of Be heroes , one of his three national final songs. Krista Siegfrids story continues with Amen . Finally Loreen and her We got the power , the song premiered in the Eurovision 2013 final.

Another concert. Another Eros Ramazzotti concert. Hartwall Areena. Helsinki. L'ombra del gigante .

Another concert. Another Eros Ramazzotti concert. Hartwall Areena. Helsinki. Terra promessa .

Brandwatch, one the world's leading providers of analytics of social medias has summed up the Twitter buzz during the Eurovision 2013 final on May 18, 2013. Over 1,8 million tweets have been analyzed and it's rather fascinating stuff. On top you can see the figure showing topics. Romania and Ireland got the tweeting go wild as did Greece, Belarus, Malta and Armenia. And you can see political tweets took over during the voting..... The figure above is for the emotions. Once again Romania and Greece got it going wild. A lot of love and joy was spread all over during the show while hate & anger increased during the voting. Is someone surprised? But have a look and analize yourself here . And here you can access to country by country details. Did Ukraine's giant get people's attention? or Moldova's outfit? Did Ireland have sex factor? Or Azerbaijan? And what about Belgium's dance routine?

Here it is, Krista's follow up to Marry me, Amen ! The story continues....

Eurovision has been good to Marco Mengoni. Already for the second day in a row he has been the most downloaded Italian artist in the world - after Andrea Bocelli. Considering he was pretty unknown outside Italy just weeks ago this is a great result and maybe a start of something big. He has recorded already songs in both English and in Spanish and will most likely follow other big Italian names to the Latin market... Meanwhile in Italy he is continuing his L'Essenziale tour that was interrupted by the Eurovision circus in Malmö 2013. Tonight he's in Florence.... The tour continues until October so the rest of the wolr dhas to wait.... L’ESSENZIALE ANTEPRIMA TOUR 2013 8 May MILAN – Teatro degli Arcimboldi 20 May TURIN – Teatro Colosseo 21 May GENOA – Teatro Carlo Felice 23 May FLORENCE – Teatro Verdi 24 May PADUA – Gran Teatro Geox 26 May NAPLES – Teatro Augusteo 27 May ANCONA – Teatro Delle Muse 29 May ROME – Auditorium Parco della Musica 30 May BOLOGNA – E...

That's what the town of Horsens intend to do in case they get it. Welcome city number 5 to bid for it. Most likely one of those "what the heck, let's go for it and get some free publicity!" campaigns and indeed it works: I'm writing about it, too, and moment ago I didn't even know a town like this exists :-) But if the name rings a bell, it may be because they already hosted the national final back in 2005, 2007 and 2008. And an open air affair with 10.000 people standing in local prison is their offer. Not a chance I'd say but the idea is rather amusing, isn't it? And Horsens is also Nokia's twin town in Finland. Would Nokia sponsor it then?

Esma never gave the interview to the Serbian paper, and the homophobic comments were their invention. Today an official statement was given that you can read below. This blogger feels relieved and loves Esma again as before! The news were hard to believe anyways.... Dear Editors, I have been asked to write on behalf of Esma regarding the false media stories that are circulating in a number of Eurovision Song Contest fan website alleging that Esma is homophobic. The story published in the Serbian tabloid n ewspaper ‘Kurir’ is a complete fabrication. On behalf of Esma, her management and the Macedonian Delegation for Eurovision, we strongly repudiate these falsehoods. Apart from an interview that will be published on escxtra.com this weekend, Esma has not given any other interviews to media since her return to Macedonia. Esma does not follow any of the Eurovision fan sites, Facebook, twitter, etc. and was most distressed when she was told this morning of this false ...

Aalborg that already entered and wihdraw in favor of Herning has now joined the race after all it seems. The chosen venue would be Gigantium, already the venue for the national final in 2012. Today also Fredericia, a town of some 50.000 souls enters with its fair centre The Messe C that can have up to 8.000 people has showed interest.

This news made me very sad. Wiwibloggs reports both Esma and Lozano, representing Macedonia and failing to make the final have blamed gays for their unfailure. Esma stated Eurovision is "hijacked by faggots who organize gay parades worldwide". Oh well, I'm very disappointed in Esma, she seemed such an open and nice person in our interview here . She also said Lozano, who I think was one of the best singers in the contest, “couldn’t even leave the hotel or go to the Euroclub. There would be instant ass-grabbing.”..*). But on the other hand, when I saw photos from Malmö 2013 from any event or party - who were there? Esma and Lozano! So I guess Lozano's ass may have liked the grabbing bit after all... at least a little! UPDATE*) this statement was first referred to have been said by Lozano himself, but apparently it was Esma who said it after all.   UPDATE2: Esma and Lozano have responded before the dawn in their Facebook that all this isn't true and Esma n...

It was a good Eurovision season for YLE in Finland. Not only the national selection show UMK made it a household name and found it's audience (unlike in 2012 when it passed totally unnoticed). In 2013 the high expectations and media attention to Krista Siegfrids gained already 286.000 viewers for the marathon preview videos show, 554.000 watching the semifinal and 1.128.000 for the final compared to last year's 558.000 for the final. This is a good foundation for 2014 season, that has already started. UMK will be back and the song submission has started and go on until September. In December YLE will announce the ucky 12 entries that will be cut down to 8 for the Febaruary 2014 final. Just like this yar. Hopefully a few bigger names would participate again to keep up wth the good flow!

Here we go folks - the first rumor of the Eurovision 2014 season! Valentina Monetta is hardly back home in San Marino and hasn't propably even emptied her luggage yet and she is suggested to do it again next year! She's got the TV's blessing, after all she has done 14th and 11th in semifinal, the tiny country's two best placings to date. But who's she rather have represent the country? Read here . Should she do also 2014 she would follow Austrian Udo Jürgens. He did 1964 with Warum nur warum? (6th), 1965 with Sag ihr, ich lass sie grüßen (4th) and finally 1966 with Mercie, chérie and won the whole thing. Note that also he did better every year.  But also Lys Assia did three years in a row, let's not forget that: 1956 with Refrain and Das alte Karussell (winner and who knows?), 1957 with L'enfant que j'étais (8th) and finally 1958 with Giorgio (2nd)

Ok, it's Tuesday after Eurovision final on the night between Saturday and Sunday aka Day 3 post-ESC and most fans are still suppering from PED but DR and Danish are in full swing already. Today Pernille Gaardbo was appointed as the executive producer of Eurovision song contest 2014 in Denmark. She's more than ready for the job and says it's an ultimate dream come true for someone with her CV including national finals and X Factor, and in all 17 years in DR already. She will have in her team the Head of Entertainment Jan Lagermand Lundme and the Head of DR Event, Søren Therkelsen . The premiliminary dates for the next year's Eurovision are May 13-17, 2014. The venue will de decided later, but it's going to be either Herning or Copenhagen. And more coutries have today confirmed their participation also next year and we have already Denmark, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Hungary and one can understand by some statements ...

EBU and Jan Ola Sand have responded today to all accusations of voting irregulations or whatever may have or may not have been going on with the Azeri votes in each way. Were people paid to vote for them, or did or did not Azerbaijan vote for mother Russia. Read all about it on eurovision.tv here . Today however even Montenegro is wondering about their votes but could it be only that the new way of counting votes (not only the top-10 but putting in order all 26 songs) has caused these differences that first may seem a bit strange? Let's wait and see if EBU will release all votes and placements in all countries to set this all straight.  Meanwhile the Finnish jury told that they had actually a police around all time of the voting, and they couldn't even excuse themselves to go to the bathroom alone.... Serious stuff. Today also Kuunkuiskaajat throw some wood to the fire. They told there were asked to talk to the Finnish jury members in Eurovision 2010 to vote for a certain...

If anyone should wonder if the juries are really useful, have a look at the Italian televotes below. Diaspora reigns. It's also rather astonishing number of invalid votes, 20,89%! Did Marco Mengoni fans, his #esercito , still try to vote for him after all?! Just in case... Anyways, the jury seems to have liked Norway a lot, Lithuania, Malta, Spain and Denmark, too. Not so impressed with Romania, Russia and Moldova and maybe they both agreed on Greece? Judge yourself: 12 Romania 23,20 (instead they got 1) *unvalid/Italy? 20,89 10 Moldova 13,79 ( instead they got 4) 8 Ukraine 13,23 ( instead they got 5) 7 Greece 11,94 ( instead they got 7) 6 Russia 5,01 (instead they go 0) 5 Denmark 3,20 ( instead they got 12) 4 Malta 3,07 ( instead they got 10) 3 Hungary 2,93 ( instead they got 3) 2 Azerbaijan 2,47 (instead they go 0) 1 Lithuania 2,27 ( instead they got 6) 0 Georgia 1,95 0 Norway 1,77 ( instead they got 8) 0 Netherlands 1,64 ...

Yes, seven years! How time flies! Tonight, exactly seven years ago Finland walked on stage in Athens and Eurovision 2006 with some monsters, the pyros were flying and after that more votes this direction than ever before until then anywhere ever. Hell froze over. Finland won Eurovision! It may have taken 45 years and Finns lost hope on the way but it happened and nothing has been the same since.... Hard rock hallelujah !

Did you think Marco Mengoni's choice to wear Ferragamo was a casual one? Think twice!

So it seems. According Azerbaijan TV they should have awarded Russia's entry 10 points Saturday night, but instead gave a flat zero. President Aliyev has ordered an investigation and votes are being recounted. An announcement is expected tonight. "We sincerely hope that this incident, possibly initiated by certain interest groups, will not cast a shadow over the brotherly relations of the Russian and Azerbaijani peoples," Camil Guliyev, head of the country's state broadcaster said, without elaborating. Read more here . With a quick glance, even if Russia would get its 10 points, it wouldn't change the final position on the scoreboard. But if they worry about their relationship with mother Russia over an Eurovision result....

It could take a bit more than 14 kms to the next year's contest from Malmö 2013 after all. Copenhagen is one candidate but gets a strong competition from Herning. Aarhus that was to apply as well, has withdrawn in favor for Herning and together they stand up to Copenhagen's capacity in hotels and all that extra stuff needed besides the venue itself. The formal bidding process starts now but it's between these two options. In Copenhagen it's The Parken, already Eurovision 2001 venue, and in Herning Boxen, already a venue for the national final this year, and X Factor finals in 2011 and 2012.  Herning is a town of some 46.000 souls about 80 kms from Aarhus, and Aarhus is Denmark's second biggest town with some 1,25 million people in its urban area.

Or a top place? It's the eternal question. It emerges most every year and there's also proof about it in the past. The finger has been pointed to Azerbaijan previously (and country's run in Eurovision is rather unique: 8th, 3rd, 5th, winner, 4th, 2nd). This blogger heard the first rumours about it right after the second semifinal and today there seems to be proof as well. Sort of. Check out this article in our partner 12points.tv 's website. Let's see how this ends and will EBU take action and if, what kind....

The Marcel Bezencon awards were announced yesterday before the grand final of Eurovision 2013. And what do we have here? Same countries/persons as last year? Really? Press award for the best song (voted by the accreditated press and press on spot): Waterfall - Georgia Artistic award (voted by the commentators): Farid Mammadov - Azerbaijan Composer award (voted by the participating composers): Robin Stjernberg, Joy Deb, Linnea Deb and Joachim Harestad Haukaas for You - Sweden Last year the winners were Sabina Babayeva, Thomas G:son and Peter Boström and Loreen.  I may have had risen eyebrows here....

Surreal , said Sarah Dawn Finer in the after party around 4am when asked how she feels. She wasn't only Lynda Woodruff, but also did ABBA's The winner takes it al l live in Arena before the voting started. So nice of SVT to let her shine there, too. Hopefully she participates in Melodifestivalen again and actually goes to do it for Sweden next year! #MILF. That's all we remember from Eric Saade's useless appearance in the Green room. Petra Mede might be a milf indeed, but ... tasteless! YIkes! Disappointed . That's what Sweden's own Robin Stjernberg was visibly for the 14th place even if his mouth said something else. Top-10 was what he wanted. Swedish smörgåsbord . Petra Mede offered us a lot of goodies from meatballs to the wind machine finally blowing Carola way. Enjoy !

That is how she commented her disappointing placement in last night's final if we think of the predictions and polls. "I'm happy I managed to help the equal marraige rights campaign and sexual equality in general. It is much more important than winning Eurovision. We made history!  The lesbian kiss may have cost us some votes but I don't regret it! I know some countries are much more conservative than we are" she said. "The world has already changed. In 2003 EBU denied the Russian t.A.T.u's kiss and said they would be disqualified if they do it. No one said anything to us this year!" She admits being a little disappointed to the outcome (24th place out of 26) but "more for the fact Europe wasn't ready for this" referring to the protest from Turkey, Georgia and Greece for the kiss. Strangely she did get votes from countries like Azerbaijan (in semifinal) and Israel though.... And maybe to sing as number 4 wasn't so good after...

The first viewing figures are out. In The Netherlands Anouk continued her boom. Over 4,8 million Dutch followed her adventure and the peak during her performance was 5,9 million. That's the best figures in The Netherlands in 14 years. In Italy Mengoni didn't manage to attract that well but there is a rise, nearly 1,9 million Italians tuned in (last year 1,4 million and in 2011 1,3 million). That's still 0,5 million more, it's a jump! And it was against very popular Amici reality show on Canale5 (4,7 million viewers last night). During Mengoni's performance the audience went up to over 2,4 million with the share of 20%, more than any other channel!

Or so the tabloids try make it. But indeed none of our neighbours gave us any votes in the final; Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Russia... not even usually generous Iceland. Nor Latvia. Sweden and Estonia are especially targeted by the media. Finland gave points to both of them. Indeed if you check the votes given in the semifinal and final one can only wonder how those 7 points from Iceland, 5 from Hungary 8 points from Latvia, Norway and Spain just vanished? The only ones keeping the trend were San Marino (from 7 to 3), Germany (from 3 to 1) and France (from 7 to 3). Israel is an opposite; one point in the semifinal, 4 in the final! Thank you!  The most shocking votes are perhaps Azerbaijan's 3 in the semifinal! In Ilta-Sanomat poll 70% of the voters believed in better placing. Also no one is blaming Krista (an old Finnish media habit: first you support, then you massacre) adn everyone is saying she did a great job. It is also reported especially British and Spanish were also ...

Krista Siegfrids is very happy about her performance she declares, despite coming only 24th. She's proud of her Team Ding Dong (and so are we!) and tweeted right after the results congratulations to Emmelie and stated that she will kiss everyone tonight! Way to go, girl! Ding dong! It wasn't such a good day for Finns, first we lost to Sweden in ice hockey world championships and will play only of bronze tomorrow instead of gold, and then the success that all polls and betting odds promised in Eurovision didn't materialize....Also the zero points from Sweden made headlines in the media..... But YLE is ready for Denmark  2014 and has launched UMK 2014 already....

Emmelie de Forest, the happiest girl in the world is meeting the media right now....  Happy and relieved. She tells Loreen was the first artist to congratulate her (so, no one in green room did?!) and she thought her worst competitors were Norway, Swedem Ukraine and Azerbaijan.... DR said they will host the contest, but where will be decided in coming months. Jan Ola Sand welcomed DR to Geneva in June to start preparations and said Emmelie is a worthy winner. Good night Europe, see you in Denmark 2014!