Paphos Life

It's that time of year again.

The bookies favorites are ......

Drum roll ......


CYPRUS.


Yes indeed.

Eurovision 2018 final voting: How to vote in the Eurovision Song Contest 218 final

EUROVISION 2018 is finally here as the 26 countries prepare to take to the stage in Lisbon tonight. But how do you vote in the Eurovision Song Contest? Here’s everything you need to know.

The day has finally arrived and the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest is taking place tonight in Lisbon, Portugal.
Latest odds from bookmakers all place Cyprus in first place to win the entire competition.
Elena Foreira’s energetic summer hit Fuego blew fans away at the semi-finals so she is expected to do very well tonight.

Following Cyprus are Israel and Ireland respectively who both stand good chances of scoring well at the Altice Arena tonight.
The musical extravaganza kicks off at 8pm on BBC One and will also be live-streamed via the official Eurovision YouTube channel.

How to vote in the Eurovision Song Contest 218 final

Residents in any of the 43 participating countries can vote in the Eurovision 2018 Grand Final tonight.

The voting only takes place after all the acts have performed.

The voting window opens after the last song has been performed, and ends 15 minutes later. These votes determine 50% of the outcome.

Voting takes place via the official Eurovision app or through phone or SMS via numbers shown on screen.

Individuals can vote up to 20 times each but cannot vote for the country they are voting from.

The final decision is made based on both the public vote and the votes from the professional jury.

A new voting system was introduced in 2016 that sees professional juries and televoters from each country each award a separate set of points from 1 to 8, 10 and 12.

This now means the top 10 countries in both the jury and televote will receive points.

Who will vote for the UK in Eurovision 2018?

Based on last year’s results it’s likely that Ireland, Malta and Australia will be awarding some points to the UK at this year’s competition.

In 2017 Welsh singer Lucie Jones ended up in 15th place in the competition having received four points each from Ireland and Malta, three from Australia and one from Spain.

The politics of the voting is a huge topic every time the Eurovision rolls around but countries tend to vote in geographical blocs.

Traditionally, the country that votes for the UK the most is Ireland.


https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-ra ... l-televote

Whoops, apologies folks. I did not see those other threads.

I didn't like the Israeli song. Cyprus missed out big style tonight...

Honestly, do you all stay up watching this total rubbish?, the voting has for many years been very political, apart from ABBA who can remember the winners? go to bed is the best option.

Jim,
I agree with you,
I didn’t bother watching it. Israel won it and isn’t even in Europe...
Dee

It makes a change from most of the rubbish that people watch on telly.

I liked the performance of the Austrian contribution (not Australian!) He was also first, voted from the Jury.

Max

We always watch it and discuss the entries worldwide over social media. It's one big multicultural music party shared across the world.
Made even more entertaining by the voting process. Incidentally, for those who did watch the show right to the wire, what did you think of the way the votes came in this year?
We thought the new system was great, a real topsy turvy thriller to the end. It kept our maths heads on!

I was NOT referring to your comment, why should I ?

Hmmm.... wonder if there will be countries refusing to appear in Israel... if the middle-east situation worsens...

I watched it all and loved it. It was good that the result wasn't obvious until the end, as sometimes you know half way through the voting.
What interested me was the fact that the juries of experts (whatever that means) voted a certain way, and then the public vote changed everything considerably. On reflection I assume that the juries voted for the song, which is supposed to be the point of it all, and the public voted for the performance and song combination.

One point, and this comes up every year, is people's misunderstanding of eligibility criteria. The Eurovision competition is nothing to do with the EU, or the continent of Europe. It is open to members of the European Broadcasting Union. Currently there are 72 members from 56 countries, including Israel, Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. In the UK the BBC, STV, ITV, and S4C are members.
There are associate members all over the world and the competition is watched in countries such as China and the USA.
With regard to the "Australia issue", Australia was allowed to compete as a guest entrant as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the event. In 2016, Australia was invited back as a participant after their success in 2015. Following their success again in 2016, Australia competed again in 2017 and 2018.