Terry Wogan was moaning on about "block voting" when I ran the selection process for the UK entry to Eurovision in the mid 90s. I decided that a hit song (1996 - Just A Little Bit) wasn't enough when we came 8th with Gina G. We needed a star performer too. So I chose Katrina and we won in 1997 with the biggest margin ever - virtually everyone voted for the UK "en bloc" because we had a hit song by a great singer. This year Andy Abraham did a good job of a devastatingly bad song. Not surprisingly, nobody voted for us. End of story.

JK2006 wrote:
... This year Andy Abraham did a good job of a devastatingly bad song. Not surprisingly, nobody voted for us. End of story.I hope it is the end of the story. Rarely has a performer been the subject of such vicious backbiting. Give the man a break. Or better, a song worth singing.

I was in Belgrade, and never heard a bad word about Andy. Everyone was praising his performance. The problem was always with the song, not the singer.

Was the British song really worse than the Spanish song? I like the British song and it was well performed. The way to found out whether there is some kind of voting problem is to look see who each country voted for the last few times. Do Turkey Cyprus and Greece always vote for each other? Do the old Soviet block always vote for each other? Do the Scandinavians always vote for each other? If there is a clear pattern of this kind of block voting, then we know that Terry is right.

I watched it with my family and we were able to predict who most of the countries would vote for in advance.

I wonder if we could re-arrange the semi finals so that western European countries vote on Eastern European songs, and vice versa. Then an equal number from each side can go through to the final.

Ah Denise - my theory is... given a real global hit sung by a good performer and the public will vote for it.

Anything less and they will vote for neighbours, similar looks, gimmicks and so on.

So we can expect "block voting" when the songs and performances are average to good.

Only the GREAT will cross boundaries - and quite right too.

Denise wrote:
Was the British song really worse than the Spanish song?

No, Denise, but what it had was a comedy value. The worst thing to be in a format where the public vote on their favourite is average. Bland songs will always do worse than ridiculous songs. There has to be something to make you remember the song. As JK says, the best thing of all is a class song by a class performer. Croatia gave 12 points to Katrina in 1997, not to their neighbours in Slovenia.

The term "block voting" suggests an element of cheating. People simply pick up the phone and vote for what they genuinely believe to be their favourite.

Just as a random throw in, not proving anything, I thought I'd share the fact that a friend of mine in Latvia thought that the UK song was the best. He's not the type to just say that because I'm English. Maybe he was the only one, but somebody out there liked it. And he voted for it.

I wonder if other countries can be as sure of their phone voting system as we are of ours (I jest). So many scandals recently which have shown how vulnerable such systems can be. I watched the show but I didn't vote - for that reason.

I think to be fair, JK and Anthony have far more knowledge on Eurovision than myself, so maybe if another Katrina and the Waves or a well-known group/artist wants to represent the UK, then perhaps we could do well again.

Remember Jessica Garlick's entry in 2002 and we finished 3rd (or was it 2nd), all of other entries from Gemini, James Fox, Javine, Daz and Scooch, were all awful songs and badly performed.

However, I still stand by the fact that Andy Abrahams should of done far better than 14 points, I'm certainly not saying he should of won, but I think a mid-table finish would have been a better reflection. I'm sure people from Eastern European countries buy Rolling Stones, Coldplay etc CD's, so we are not hated by them, however, their is still some political bias with the break up of some of the countries in Eastern Europe?

I also stand by the fact that Wogan seemed fed-up with it as he championed Andy Abraham's bid to the hilt and judged it on performance rather than the song. Michelle Gayle would have been the better choice. Maybe it is time for something new, the BBC will not stop spending money on a show that had 9.5 million viewers watching it, so a change of format may be long overdue.

You make some good points, Mike. The 6 points San Marino gave to UK was probably a jury vote where the members give the song a mark out of 10. I expect that if all countries voted that way, Andy may well have been mid table. I doubt the song would have been the least favourite in the minds of many viewers, but they are only voting for their favourite, and the BBC needs to take that into account when choosing the UK finalists.

There was not one song amongst the six which would have fared much better.