A Swede who lives in Finland and who is lost in Euroland - the wonderful world of Eurovision
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Friday, May 22, 2015

3 x nul points

When watching the 1994 Eurovision I remember a strange feeling emerging when, almost halfway through the voting, as many as seven countries were still clinging onto nul points.

(Then came Malta and punctured no less than four zeros on that scoreboard. By an extraordinary co-incidence they also went on to receive high marks from all of the countries in question. Lucky break.)

In the end, only Lithuania was left with a no points score and that felt unfair. I'm not really a fan of nul-pointers, I tend to feel mainly sorry for the people involved. It's a little bit of a relief that nobody ended pointless in a final since UK's Jemini in 2003.

This year - when every country will leave sixteen countries out in the cold - the risk is greater than ever that an entry will not make it into the top ten of any country. Especially as so many entries are similar to each other. Nineteen slower songs fighting for more or less the same attention - it is obvious that a couple of these will fall through.

France. UK. Austria. Poland. Hungary. None of these should feel particularly safe tomorrow.

If there has to be nul points anywhere at the end of the voting I am hoping for an old dream of mine to come true: the multiple nul-pointer. Since the introduction of the current voting system, we twice had two countries sharing last place with no points.

I'd like to see a three-way zero: three countries (or more) left with no points. Just for the sake of it.

When we finally get somebody failing to score in a final after this long time, it would be easier if several delegations shared the fate instead of one single performer standing there in the negative spotlight. And if we get several countries left with nothing as the voting is coming close to the end, the bottom of the scoreboard could well be more interesting to follow than the top.

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