Eurovision 2016: The Aftermath

It's been a month since the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, and only now have I felt the need to sit down and write about it, because unlike many previous years.

1.   Logo kind of ruined Eurovision for me.

I have to say that at first blush, Logo and the Eurovision Song Contest seemed to go together quite well.   The Eurovision Song Contest has a huge gay following and Logo is the "gay" network.

But when my husband and I tuned in, I was kind of appalled by the slapdash commentary provided by Carson Kressley and Michelle Collins.   Neither of them knew much about Eurovision and Kressley's ignorance combined with vapidly pointless comments made me very angry.   It's something that I hope that they don't repeat in the future.

2.   There is no way for people in the US to watch Eurovision.

Because of the agreements between the EBU and Logo, the site at Eurovision.TV that allows you to stream the contest at will is not longer available here in the United States.     All the clips of the contestants are blocked, and this means I can't link to any of them here in this blog.

Croatia's entry was supercool, but I can't post it in my blog because I'm in the US.  (source eurovisionary.com)

I suspect that Viacom, the company that owns Logo and all the other NBC networks is attempting to cash in on Eurovision.   I don't see this happening any time soon and hope they will allow us to view them soon.  

I doubt that--it just means that I'll likely get a DVD of this year's contest and watch it on my European DVD player.

3.   The winning song was the best song in this year's contest.

There was a lot of sour grapes when the voting ended and Ukraine wound up winning the contest, especially among Russians, who felt that the rightful winner was the Russian entry.

But my little Eurovision party disagreed with that, as my friend Lori said, Jamala's performance "gave (her) goosebumps".  

Even in this clip, the winner's reprise, there is still power in the song

Jamala   "1944"

Needless to say, it was the winning song in my little Eurovision viewing party as well.   It's the first time my friends and the European public have agreed on the winning song.

4.   The new voting system worked.

I wasn't a fan of the new voting system, where the countries' jury votes were announced separately and the public votes were combined together when it was announced.   But when it was put into practice, the suspense was nail biting.

When the points for the winner of the televote were announced, Russia Sergey Lazarev, I fell on the floor when the points he received were not enough to win.

The voting can stay.

And that's pretty much it for me.   I wish I could say more, but the inability to share the clips here takes away most of the fun.

Hopefully things will change next year.