Eurovision Song Contest 2019
The Eurovision Song Contest 2019 was the 64th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Tel Aviv, Israel, following the country's victory at the 2018 contest with the song "Toy" by Netta. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC/Kan), the contest was held at Expo Tel Aviv, and consisted of two semi-finals on 14 and 16 May, and a final on 18 May 2019. The three live shows were presented by Israeli television presenters Erez Tal, Assi Azar and Lucy Ayoub, and Israeli model Bar Refaeli.
Eurovision Song Contest 2019
14 May 2019
16 May 2019
18 May 2019
Expo Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv, Israel
- Amir Ukrainitz
- Sivan Magazanik
Zivit Davidovich[1]
Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC/Kan)
41
26
None
None
Each country awards two sets of 12, 10, 8–1 points to ten songs.
Forty-one countries participated in the contest, with Bulgaria and Ukraine not returning after their participation in the previous edition. Bulgaria cited financial difficulties as the reason for its absence, while Ukraine, which had originally planned to participate, ultimately withdrew as a result of a controversy surrounding its national selection.
The winner was the Netherlands with the song "Arcade", performed by Duncan Laurence and written by Laurence along with Joel Sjöö, Wouter Hardy and Will Knox. Italy, Russia, Switzerland and Sweden rounded out the top five; due to a voting error, Norway was originally placed fifth, but placed sixth after a correction. The Netherlands won the combined vote, but placed third in the jury vote after North Macedonia and Sweden, and second in the televote after Norway. Further down the table, North Macedonia and San Marino achieved their best results to date, finishing seventh and 19th respectively.
The EBU reported that the contest had an audience of 182 million viewers in 40 European markets, a decrease of 4 million viewers from the previous edition. However, an increase of two percent in the 15–24 year old age range was reported.[2][3]
The lead-up to the contest was met with controversy on multiple fronts, primarily on issues surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict – this eventually led to demonstrations by interval act performer Madonna and Icelandic entrants Hatari during the broadcast of the final.
Format[edit]
Voting system[edit]
On 30 March 2019, the EBU announced that the presentation of the televoting results during the final would change for the first time since the current voting system was introduced in 2016.[79] The jury results' presentation remained the same with a live spokesperson in each participating country revealing the top song from their national jury that earned 12 points.[80] In a change from previous years, the televoting result was revealed in the order of jury ranking, from the lowest to the highest.[81]
Contest overview[edit]
Semi-final 1[edit]
The first semi-final took place on 14 May 2019 at 22:00 IDT (21:00 CEST).[84] Seventeen countries participated in the first semi-final. Ukraine was originally allocated to participate in the second half of the semi-final, but withdrew from the contest due to controversy over its national selection.[29] Australia won the most points, followed by the Czech Republic, Iceland, Estonia, Greece, Slovenia, Serbia, San Marino, Cyprus and Belarus. The countries that failed to reach the final were Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Georgia, Portugal, Montenegro and Finland.[85] All the countries competing in this semi-final were eligible to vote, plus France, Israel and Spain.[86]
The first semi-final was opened by Netta performing a new version of her winning song "Toy", while the interval featured Dana International with "Just the Way You Are".[87] The French, Israeli and Spanish artists were then interviewed, and clips of their competing songs were played.
Detailed voting results[edit]
Correction of the results[edit]
The Belarusian jury was dismissed following the revelation of their votes in the first semi-final, which is contrary to the rules of the contest. To comply with the contest's voting regulations, the EBU worked with its voting partner, Digame, to create a substitute aggregated result (calculated based on the results of other countries with similar voting records), which was approved by voting monitor Ernst & Young, to determine the Belarusian jury votes for the final. In these results, Israel, which did not receive points from any other jury during the final, received 12 points from Belarus.
However, Twitter user @euro_bruno noted on 19 May that an incorrect substitute Belarusian result was purportedly used during the broadcast of the final.[104] The mistake was later confirmed in a statement issued by the EBU on 22 May. According to the statement, the EBU "discovered that due to a human error an incorrect aggregated result was used. This had no impact on the calculation of points derived from televoting across the 41 participating countries and the overall winner and Top 4 songs of the contest remain unchanged. To respect both the artists and EBU Members which took part, [it wished] to correct the grand final results in accordance with the rules."[105]
The error, a reversal of the Belarusian aggregated votes, led to the bottom ten countries receiving points instead of the top ten. Malta, which had been incorrectly ranked last, would receive Belarus' 12 jury points, and Israel would end up with no jury points. The corrected point totals also changed some rankings: Sweden finished fifth overall instead of Norway, Belarus finished 24th overall instead of Germany, San Marino ended 19th despite losing four points, and North Macedonia won the jury vote instead of Sweden.[106][107]
The mistake made by the EBU and its voting partner was criticised. Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad said the EBU had to present the new vote totals "blushing with shame", calling the situation "chaos".[108] British newspaper Metro thought the EBU had "screwed up", while the Daily Mirror named the accidental reversal of the aggregated vote total a "scandalous blunder".[109][110]
A similar situation occurred in the 1976, 1977, 1979, 1996 and 1998 contests, and in the semi-final of the 2004 contest, whereupon the results also had to be corrected after the broadcast due to an error with the votes.
The corrected results have been used in all following scoreboards (where applicable).
Incidents[edit]
Religious requests[edit]
On 14 May 2018, Yaakov Litzman, leader of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism and Israel's former Minister of Health, drafted a letter to the Ministers of Tourism, Communications, and Culture and Sports, in which he requested the event not violate religious laws: "In the name of hundreds of thousands of Jewish citizens from all the populations and communities for whom Shabbat observance is close to their hearts, I appeal to you, already at this early stage, before production and all the other details of the event has begun, to be strict [in ensuring] that this matter does not harm the holiness of Shabbat and to work in every way to prevent the desecration of Shabbat, God forbid, as the law and the status quo requires".[208] According to Jewish religious law, Shabbat is observed from just before sunset on Friday evening until Saturday night. The Saturday evening broadcast of the show, which were to start at 22:00 local time, would not conflict with this. However, the Friday evening jury show and Saturday afternoon rehearsals would. Similar protests arose in the lead-up to the 1999 Israeli-held contest, but then there were fewer competing delegations, which allowed for certain adjustments to be made to accommodate the issue. The chairman of the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group (the contest's executive board), Frank-Dieter Freiling, noted that he was well aware of the tension, and had plans to address it in his communications with host broadcaster Kan.[209] Shalva Band, who performed as the interval act during the second semi-final, withdrew from Israel's national final citing similar concerns on possibly performing during Shabbat in the rehearsals for the final, should they have won.[210]
Media related to Eurovision Song Contest 2019 at Wikimedia Commons