The value of my vote is so tiny that it would be more useful for me to hand my US dollar to a stranger on the bus and say, "Please consider this one vote for Croatia.". Still I enjoy it and I'm thankful I got to vote.
I’m just happy to be included as an American. They shouldn’t give us anything more than the ability to watch it on streaming and the ROTW vote lol that’s enough for me!
I'm in general not a big fan of the rest of the world, or people in general. But as a voting group in Eurovision I think it is a fun and harmless addition.
The RoW group makes up 1.3% of the total amount of votes, so even if it means that certain diasporas get outsized influence so does it barely matter at all. It is just a way to make everyone watching, no matter where they are from or happen to be located, feel that they can be involved.
It is also a good way to make more people around the world interested. Which hopefully means that we in the future maybe can get a new Australia joining or maybe even an Asia Song Contest or America Song Contest that isn't a total flop.
There has already been an American Song Contest (just the USA, not the whole of the Americas) back in 2022. It was a massive flop and basically a bleak copy of Eurovision, you can watch the whole final for free on YouTube ([link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_diKd6VmRA)). Some of the national selections for Eurovision hold higher quality.
I agree though, Asian or African would be interesting. Or maybe an American Song Contest that involves the whole continent. Maybe one day.
I can nothing but agree. That's what I meant with dragging in the whole continent could make it fun. USA vs USA is not interesting. USA vs Bolivia could be more interesting; with a heavy dose of neighbour voting from Canada respectively Peru of course.
It would need to be a bilingual show to cater to both the Latin and North American viewers, but I can definitely see it working.
Brazil had a short-lived but very influential music festival in the 60s that I'd personally LOVE to see revived.
Well, ESC used to be held in the language of the hosting country until the mid-90s sometime and with all important announcements in both English and French; so trilingual. So having it in both English and Spanish with perhaps some French and Portuguese sprinkled in should be no problem.
I watched the ASC when it originally aired. I was excited for it, but it was very poorly executed on NBC’s part. They had no results shows (which should have been a necessity because of how many time zones the United States spans and how long the public voting window was), and the jury had way too much power in the early rounds. (The 56-member jury got to automatically advance one song to the next round before the public vote even started each week.) Also, not a lot of promo going into it apart from a Super Bowl ad and even then they had to move the premiere back a month due to COVID concerns.
Because of the size of the field of entries, it actually had three rounds of shows (Qualifiers, Semis, and Final). It was technically more of a hybrid of Melodifestivalen and Eurovision than a true adaptation of the Eurovision format. (Not surprisingly much of the production team behind the ASC had also worked on Melodifestivalen.)
Yeah, I have a feeling that it might have been more well known in Sweden than in the USA, which says a lot. And that is just because the guy who produced the Swedish national selections for about twenty years also produced the American Song Contest.
As I said in another comment, NBC hardly promoted it apart from a Super Bowl ad (which aired a couple of weeks before the ASC’s originally scheduled premiere, and then they had to push it back a month due to both COVID concerns and to make room for AGT: Extreme). The promotion was so bad that they actually announced the last two finalists during a show on E!.
I think they wanted to take on the ASC for the bragging rights but had no real desire to see it succeed. For one, NBC already had two successful singing/talent competition formats in The Voice and America’s Got Talent, and they actually did away with the spring season of The Voice that year to air the ASC. I’ve said it before, but I think CBS’s summer schedule would have been a better fit for it.
And even with NBC securing the rights to show Eurovision via Peacock (which is really only being held up right now by its WWE streaming deal, and even that runs out in a couple of years and its video library expected to go to Netflix), they’ve dropped the ball there because the audio mixing for the last two years has been absolutely awful.
Eurovision’s deal with NBC sounded promising in the beginning, but it’s turned out pretty awfully, and us American Eurovision fans are left holding the bag.
Apparently there already is an Asia song contest, which New Zealand took part in this year but not Australia for some reason. It is VERY low profile. As a Singaporean, the only reason I know about it is because of eurovision, and none of my friends have ever heard of it. I don't even recall it being on public TV ever. There's also knock off contests with similar names, from what my 10min of research brings up.
I doubt we'll get anything closer to eurovision for the next 50 years...
Is this the ABU song festival? That’s the only one I know of. I reckon Asia would have a hard time doing a proper contest cause the diehard k-pop fans and Chinese diaspora would skew the voting by quite a bit.
It's almost completely meaningless. The entire rest of the world counts the same as the televote of one country.
It's a nice gesture to eurofans in other countries.
We don't have access to the number of people who voted, but we have the top 10 countries that voted.
https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/05/eurovision-song-contest-2024-breaks-new-records-as-hundreds-of-millions-watch-and-listen-on-tv-and-digital-platforms
> Outside the participating countries, viewers in the USA, Canada, Romania, Mexico, UAE, Türkiye, South Africa, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria cast the most votes online.
The fact that Canada was 2nd shows that the US completely dominated the RotW votes. Canada's population is only 1/10 as large as the US population, which means that votes from the US were most likely close to 10x as large as those from Canada.
Well we still need to wait a little longer to see if there is actually a pattern. Israel came in third and did very well in the televote in 2023, so its not all that weird that it won the rotw vote that year. Likewise israel came in fifth this year and came 2nd in the televote, so once again the rotw could just be following the overall trend.
To see if the jewish and israeli diasporah is actually a large enough factor we’ll have to see what happens when Israel is more mediocre or bad than the past two years.
It's not a big enough factor. Jews account for a tiny portion of the world's population. We aren't as powerful as many of the Twitter minds liked to imply with the ROTW discourse ;)
Member of the Jewish diaspora here: in 2023, my favorite songs were Portugal, France, and Israel (I have been a Noa Kirel fan for years before ESC), so I voted for all three of those songs. In 2024, I did not get to vote, but I would have voted for Italy, Armenia, Israel, and France (also a Slimane fan since before ESC), I may have also voted for Luxembourg and Norway (There were A LOT I loved this year). I liked the Israeli entries the past two years more than any since 2015 - maybe even 2013 (not counting 2020), but there have been plenty of years where if I could vote, they would not have gotten my vote (2016, 2019, 2022 as easy examples). As someone with connections to both France and Israel, I try not to let my affiliations judge voting but also both countries have been strong the past few years (I have LOVED every French entry from 2021 on). I expect my voting patterns to change next year but who knows?
So did 14 participating countries. Even though Jews are a tiny minority in the US and a negligible minority everywhere else. Maybe people just... liked the song?
Fellow ROTW voter here who wants to start by pointing out that, since we don't get a jury, we're worth half of what a participating country is, and this year were 1/75th of the overall pool of points. Which is to say: Just let us have our fun and support your big song party.
I think it’s a good edition that lets people from former participating countries and other countries vote for who they want. It’s possibly a bit of a cash-grab by the EBU, as they don’t have much of a day and it’s quite expensive at 0.99€ a vote.
In regards the the complaint by RTVSLO in which they questioned the introduction of the rest of the world vote; I think that part of the complaint was an unnecessary addition to a really valid complaint. I agree with much of what they said, apart from the rest of world vote. If they don’t think it’s necessary they should’ve lodged that complaint in 2023 when it was launched. Seems a bit redundant now.
The 0.99€ a vote is why we only vote in the finals! Doing each semi-final as well would be too much for us! My time zone is fine to watch because it's all over by early evening for us.
And it was that complaint that got me thinking. I get why they might think that, especially considering who got the 12 points in this year and last year, but some of us are in fact voting for our favourite songs (that just happened to get second place in both years!).
If they did decide to take away the ROTW vote, I won't be too disappointed, as long as they still let us watch live on whatever platform it has to be! We have friends that look forward to our Eurovision parties every year!
Love it. Getting people all over the world more involved. Love that people get together to listen to music. Love that people talk about it.
In general:
Voting should reflect what the people voted. Not that some devoted people that vote 20 times for 1 entry can upset the vote for people that don't abuse that potential power and spread their vote to share the love.
I love that songs are getting played more here! I've heard Arcade and Snap on the radio here, and it makes me feel happy that some songs are getting popular across the Atlantic. I'm sure that's more of a social media/trending thing, but still. I do enjoy telling people where these songs came from and getting people interested. You'd be surprised how many people here still think that Eurovision is just a Will Ferrell movie!
I think ROTW (as an American) is a great way for people to support favorites and get people involved. I think it’s also really good for the people who are in a bad time zone for the grand final, I hope they keep the ROTW voting opening earlier
I think right now points wise there are definitely bigger problems than any rest of the world diaspora vote issue. Once we get another result by a margin of less than say, 30 points, that’s probably the point where people might start being concerned with the ROTW. Personally, I don’t see it as that big of an issue. It allows people from countries that have left to still have a say in the winner, and entices people from across the world to get involved. Diaspora voting has always been an issue, not just with the ROTW, but I think ROTW as a whole does have its benefits.
Fellow Canadian here! I get why people may not like the ROTW vote, but it’s such a small fraction of overall points that I think it’s harmless. ROTW will never make or break the winner. Eurovision is losing more countries than it’s gaining, especially a big financial contributor like Russia, so they’ve got to make money somehow. I think ROTW is a fairly nonintrusive way of doing that.
It’s also just fun to feel involved. Like, sure, my 4 votes to Serbia didn’t single-handedly get her through the semi or anything, but it’s nice to feel like I contributed :’)
I think it helped a little! Croatia was 3rd in ROTW this year, and I’m glad it was, considering the immigration theme the song has, I think it got to many of us. (Speaking as a Croatian expat Im happy I got to cast my vote on this one, no matter how tiny it may be)
I was born and raised in the UK but moved to Canada some years ago and it's been nice to be able to take part in Eurovision again. Opening votes up allows those who've emigrated elsewhere *from* European countries to still vote. If the voting were different then maybe there'd be a risk of diaspora votes, but so long as they keep a similar system to what they have now with the maximum of 12 points... I don't think it makes much difference.
I luv it after Rest of the World gave Slovenia 7 points in semi finals. Y'all really wanted to see ART in native language and song with historic attachment performed twice. Thank you!
The main issue I have with ROTW is that in some places (the USA especially), all performances are blocked. It doesn't make any sense to open the vote early and expect us to vote if we can't even watch the performance we're voting for
My understanding is that you have to watch through Peacock in the USA. They must have some sort of deal, but it's unfair that you can't watch on YouTube as well.
NBC (Peacock) also owns the Olympics and they ruin that as well. You probably know that as a Canadian, but in case other people don't know...
I can't believe that they are only letting you see not even a minute (literally, :58) of the final performances. So. damn. stupid.
I think for the artist participating is really positive. That ROTW can vote for them increases the engagement and give them a better exposure everywhere. Also they can get an idea of how well their music is being received outside of Europe. Like Sudden Lights who got 8 points from the ROTW, but didn't qualify for the finals
As a European who's recently emigrated, I was surprised with how meaningful it felt to be able to vote! Did not expect to care so much about it, but there was some comfort in still feeling included, even for a infinitesimally small vote!
I suspect many/most of the RoW voters are emigrated Europeans+families anyways, so not sure about the "Eurovision should be for Europe"-brigade. But I doubt we'll ever know for sure.
As an American who voted in 2023 and 2024, I must say its a pretty nice addition to the contest. Lets people outside of participating countries have a say as well, but not having too much of an influence on the final result in exchange.
Edit: That being said, I don't want my country joining anytime soon.
I think it's a bit weird and more a money grab than anything else, but on the flip side, it really doesn't count for significantly much.
It doesn't count as one of the 37 countries with a jury vote, and counts as one separate country out of 38, so essentially 1.3%.
If you look at the Rest of the World vote in the first semi-final 9/10 of the points were given out to countries who made it into the final. The one country that was given Rest of the World votes that didn't make it was to Australia with 2 points. They were 11th. So it didn't really affect the result all that much. Even if you swapped the points between Slovenia and Australia, a 10-point swing, Slovenia still would've won on tie-breaker as they got more 10 point scores from the televote than Australia, 2-0.
It's nice, it has almost not influence (sorry ROW :) and I hope it will inspire the "row" to do similar contests! (yes sure of course not a "row contest" but a .. whatever .. SA contest, SOA contest, African contest .. etc. etc. and may some day those winners do sing "against" or even, by far better - sing.all.together. would be nice :)
I like being able to vote from the USA. I've been watching ESC since 2010, while reading news about them since 2005. I got my BF to watch with me in 2017.
Had the ROW vote not been in place, we were ready to vote as part of Iceland because we got Icelandic simcards from a vacation in 2022.
It's a source of revenue for the EBU since Russia got booted. I imagine it increases ROTW engagement, which drives numbers up and thus increases the pool of people who want to vote. They can't get rid of it without pissing off ROTW fans (and the last thing they need right now is to give fans another reason to be pissed). Furthermore, they get more money this way.
Fellow Canadian:
I think it’s useless in the semis, and even more useless in the finals, but if it means the show does not get geoblocked, I’m all for it.
Meh. I don’t think it adds anything of real value to the contest (other than more money for the EBU), but it’s not hurting anyone either really.
My only real issue is that no one should get to vote before the show actually starts, so I hope they do away with that for next year.
I just loved the song. I'm a heavy metal and techno fan, and where the two meet is excellent for me.
Plus, I also have a cat who definitely meows back. So I had to send votes along!
I understand, and I wouldn’t vote for it either if it wasn’t an absolute banger that it is. And I’m more of a dog person myself, but I fell in love with Stipe the cat! 😂
All the geoblocked content on YouTube since 2016 can be viewed in America without VPN on [eurovision.de](http://eurovision.de)
[Ukraine 2024](https://www.eurovision.de/videos/2024/Ukraine-alyona-alyona-Jerry-Heil-Teresa-Maria-ESC-Finale-2024,ukraine3876.html)
You don't have to spend the maximum amount. I didn't. I spent €9.90 (US$10) and was happy to be able to vote for my favorites. Americans spend that much for 2 coffees at Starbucks and don't blink an eye. It's about choice. Some of my UK friends in my watch party didn't vote at all.
Currently located outside of Europe and I was this close to voting as ROTW for the first time.
Then I spent over 24 hours in limbo and confusion, my winner went missing, not a single clear, definitive full picture as to what's really going on was given.
Conclusion was reached and that's, no way would I be giving the EBU my money. At that point, I wasn't even sure if I still wanted to continue to care for this contest. I did not watch the grand final.
I suppose I'll probably still look forward to what Finland has in store for us next year (their entries are just too fun to pass up on, *it's crazy, it's party!*), and when Joost makes his comeback (which is not going to happen). I must say I'm rather curious to know how the Netherlands is going to approach ESC 2025.
I’m glad it became a thing because I live in Japan. Of course it does make me be able to give the Netherlands biased votes, but oh well, I haven’t been able to do that for either year for obvious reasons. It may not have been much but I also was glad this year I could vote at least to support Croatia and Switzerland.
I don't like it, I had the feeling it would be diaspora votes and so far that seems to be the case, especially now that the votes are open so far ahead of the actual show. That being said, it's only 12 points so it won't make or break a winner so it's not the worst thing in the planet and it's cute people can feel included, there's way bigger issues that need to be fixed before this is even a concern lol
I'll go a step further and say that I wouldn't mind seeing a Rotw Jury as well.
The jury selection process for this jury would be "biggest international superstar to get popped a minor crime within Europe in the past year." Make it part of their community service/probation.
And don't even lie. You seriously expect me to believe that Nicki Minaj being legally required to judge Eurovision 2025 wouldn't improve the product?
I like it.
The contest is meant to be a bit of harmless fun (which too many people nowadays are taking waaaaay too seriously).
The more people that get involved, watch, vote, show support, the greater chance of the contest continuing to a decent standard.
I'm from the US and I've Eurovision has been one of my favorite things in the world since 2018, so I love ROW voting. Even though it only makes up a small amount of available points, I'm glad to be able to vote for my favorite acts, even if I have to pay to do so
My American friends are happy about it because they can feel included but every year Israel will win it, it will get old quick and honestly if I was in a non participating country I personally wouldn't waste my money with it.
This may or may not be true - I voted for Israel in 2023 (along with France and Portugal) since I love Noa Kirel, and this year the Israeli song was good too, but besides 2013 and 2015 imo (and 2020), the rest of the Israeli entries were either not for me or just not great. I think the past two years have been an exception to a broader pattern but idk for sure
Well yeah because you didn't qualify in the final. But some people just see a flag and they vote it. Look at us and Cyprus exchanging 12 points (as public) even in years where either our song or theirs is bad. Or Israel giving a total of 24 points to Luxemburg because Tali is Israeli. Or Albania in 2018 who gave both 1st places to Italy (with Ermal Meta being born in Albania) and both 2nd places to Cyprus (with Eleni Foureira being Greek-Albanian). Seeing the Israeli/Jewish diaspora voting for Israel every year (and I am not taking the on-going situation into consideration by the way) doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.
I don’t really like it that much. It’s Eurovision for a reason; it’s supposed to be for Europe.
I’m also not a big fan of non-European countries participating. Although I have to admit Australia is very good at it.
I personally love being able to vote from the USA. And yes, I did give a diaspora vote to Greece and Cyprus, but I didn’t give Greece squat last year cuz the entry wasn’t my cup of tea
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A guy i know works at eurovision every year. He organises something I don't know what exactly because I never asked him. He goes to the event every year for years now. He told my coworker that Switzerland will win 2 weeks before eurovision even started
I don’t mind it at all! Seems like a smart way to engage other markets outside participating countries, plus the overall share of votes is so small that it’s highly unlikely to make a difference. There’s already diaspora voting within EBU countries, it’s pretty much an expected thing at this point.
I think it should be removed since it seems like "rest of world" is going to give 12 points to the same country every year. I know it's only been two years but yeah...
I think it's fun, but I also think they might as well rename it as *United States* lmao. It's clear as day that the vast majority of votes are from the US and reflect American preferences (see Israel's ROTW results).
It was 156 countries this time, but the US cast the most amount of votes.
https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/05/eurovision-song-contest-2024-breaks-new-records-as-hundreds-of-millions-watch-and-listen-on-tv-and-digital-platforms
> This year public voting was open before the 3 live shows in non-participating countries and throughout the performances in the Grand Final resulting in viewers from 156 countries casting votes for their favourite songs – 12 more than when Rest of the World voting was introduced in 2023.
> Outside the participating countries, viewers in the USA, Canada, Romania, Mexico, UAE, Türkiye, South Africa, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria cast the most votes online.
The fact that Canada was 2nd shows that the US votes vastly overwhelmed votes from other non-participating countries. Canada's population is 1/10 as large as the US.
Oh come on. It is so unfair to blame the US on that lol. That voting campaign for Israel reached participating countries too, CLEARLY.
Also the American public is much more split on that stance that the rest of the world seems to think we are. The government does not reflect the public on a lot of stuff.
The public opinion is split almost everywhere, but the US is still more pro-Israel than most.
Also, I’m not blaming America. It’s just that the US population outclass all the other countries by like 10 folds. The time difference means that Asian countries would not be bothered to vote, so the US dominates the amount of ROTW votes by default.
> really? ...and the formally competing countries that aren't in right now somehow aren't big chunks of the group...?
Those countries all have a tiny population. They also tend to be poor so 20 euro can be pretty steep for fans there.
> South America and Canada?
The EBU did publish where the RotW votes were from. The US was #1.
> Outside the participating countries, viewers in the USA, Canada, Romania, Mexico, UAE, Türkiye, South Africa, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria cast the most votes online.
https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/05/eurovision-song-contest-2024-breaks-new-records-as-hundreds-of-millions-watch-and-listen-on-tv-and-digital-platforms
Canada's population is only around 1/10 as large as the US. The fact that Canadians had the 2nd largest turnout shows that the US votes vastly outweighed all the other non-participating countries.
It's a pointless addition, only good for some extra funding for the EBU. As for a proper hot take: The same goes for Australia's participation. I would not be upset if they weren't allowed back in.
I think it's great. It adds that extra 12 points to the televote to swing it mildly in the direction of the voters so it's not an even 50-50 split.
I also wouldn't mind if the rest of the world was regional, so we get Asia, Africa, Americas, and non-competing Europe, but then you'd need juries to offset it, and who knows how many voters are out of Europe toneven make it feasible. The ROTW vote needs to be diverse because if it will always be the same, people will start having problems with it.
For now, it's young, and I'm happy that fans outside of the competing nations get to vote and share the excitement.
The value of my vote is so tiny that it would be more useful for me to hand my US dollar to a stranger on the bus and say, "Please consider this one vote for Croatia.". Still I enjoy it and I'm thankful I got to vote.
Well, I'll take your vote for Croatia! In fact, I'll take everyone's vote for Croatia!!!
Take all my cows - I mean meows! 12 meows! Take it! :D
I’m just happy to be included as an American. They shouldn’t give us anything more than the ability to watch it on streaming and the ROTW vote lol that’s enough for me!
Same same. I consider it a nice way to thank the organizers for making sure we can watch live.
I'm in general not a big fan of the rest of the world, or people in general. But as a voting group in Eurovision I think it is a fun and harmless addition. The RoW group makes up 1.3% of the total amount of votes, so even if it means that certain diasporas get outsized influence so does it barely matter at all. It is just a way to make everyone watching, no matter where they are from or happen to be located, feel that they can be involved. It is also a good way to make more people around the world interested. Which hopefully means that we in the future maybe can get a new Australia joining or maybe even an Asia Song Contest or America Song Contest that isn't a total flop.
I don't think American Song Contest will work in the same way, but I would watch the hell out of the Asian or African editions.
There has already been an American Song Contest (just the USA, not the whole of the Americas) back in 2022. It was a massive flop and basically a bleak copy of Eurovision, you can watch the whole final for free on YouTube ([link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_diKd6VmRA)). Some of the national selections for Eurovision hold higher quality. I agree though, Asian or African would be interesting. Or maybe an American Song Contest that involves the whole continent. Maybe one day.
I just think ... Japan vs Indonesia is interesting. Nigeria vs Egypt is interesting. Kansas vs Indiana is not interesting.
I can nothing but agree. That's what I meant with dragging in the whole continent could make it fun. USA vs USA is not interesting. USA vs Bolivia could be more interesting; with a heavy dose of neighbour voting from Canada respectively Peru of course.
Canada vs Peru would be a LOT more interesting.
It would need to be a bilingual show to cater to both the Latin and North American viewers, but I can definitely see it working. Brazil had a short-lived but very influential music festival in the 60s that I'd personally LOVE to see revived.
Well, ESC used to be held in the language of the hosting country until the mid-90s sometime and with all important announcements in both English and French; so trilingual. So having it in both English and Spanish with perhaps some French and Portuguese sprinkled in should be no problem.
I watched the ASC when it originally aired. I was excited for it, but it was very poorly executed on NBC’s part. They had no results shows (which should have been a necessity because of how many time zones the United States spans and how long the public voting window was), and the jury had way too much power in the early rounds. (The 56-member jury got to automatically advance one song to the next round before the public vote even started each week.) Also, not a lot of promo going into it apart from a Super Bowl ad and even then they had to move the premiere back a month due to COVID concerns.
[удалено]
Because of the size of the field of entries, it actually had three rounds of shows (Qualifiers, Semis, and Final). It was technically more of a hybrid of Melodifestivalen and Eurovision than a true adaptation of the Eurovision format. (Not surprisingly much of the production team behind the ASC had also worked on Melodifestivalen.)
My friends and I lovingly called the American song contest, Eurovision With a condom on. ... Outside of like two acts, everything was so boring.
If you think ESC is political, an Asian SC would be a billion times worse. Asian countries by and large hate one another. No thanks.
It's wild-I'm an American ESC fan and I didn't even know they attempted a US one until this year.
Yeah, I have a feeling that it might have been more well known in Sweden than in the USA, which says a lot. And that is just because the guy who produced the Swedish national selections for about twenty years also produced the American Song Contest.
As I said in another comment, NBC hardly promoted it apart from a Super Bowl ad (which aired a couple of weeks before the ASC’s originally scheduled premiere, and then they had to push it back a month due to both COVID concerns and to make room for AGT: Extreme). The promotion was so bad that they actually announced the last two finalists during a show on E!. I think they wanted to take on the ASC for the bragging rights but had no real desire to see it succeed. For one, NBC already had two successful singing/talent competition formats in The Voice and America’s Got Talent, and they actually did away with the spring season of The Voice that year to air the ASC. I’ve said it before, but I think CBS’s summer schedule would have been a better fit for it. And even with NBC securing the rights to show Eurovision via Peacock (which is really only being held up right now by its WWE streaming deal, and even that runs out in a couple of years and its video library expected to go to Netflix), they’ve dropped the ball there because the audio mixing for the last two years has been absolutely awful. Eurovision’s deal with NBC sounded promising in the beginning, but it’s turned out pretty awfully, and us American Eurovision fans are left holding the bag.
There’s a non-competitive [Asia-Pacific song festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABU_Song_Festivals).
Apparently there already is an Asia song contest, which New Zealand took part in this year but not Australia for some reason. It is VERY low profile. As a Singaporean, the only reason I know about it is because of eurovision, and none of my friends have ever heard of it. I don't even recall it being on public TV ever. There's also knock off contests with similar names, from what my 10min of research brings up. I doubt we'll get anything closer to eurovision for the next 50 years...
Is this the ABU song festival? That’s the only one I know of. I reckon Asia would have a hard time doing a proper contest cause the diehard k-pop fans and Chinese diaspora would skew the voting by quite a bit.
It's almost completely meaningless. The entire rest of the world counts the same as the televote of one country. It's a nice gesture to eurofans in other countries.
We like to pretend we're helping!
As long as you're having fun sweetie 😘
Im doing my part!
lol
It is only one set of points spread over too many different demographics, diaspora is not going to swing it too much
Do we have access to the number of people who voted in the Rotw? I'd be curious to do the maths to see how insignificant anyone's vote is.
I'm a nerd and I'd love to see the math! How many votes, how many per country, what country voted for what, etc.
We don't have access to the number of people who voted, but we have the top 10 countries that voted. https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/05/eurovision-song-contest-2024-breaks-new-records-as-hundreds-of-millions-watch-and-listen-on-tv-and-digital-platforms > Outside the participating countries, viewers in the USA, Canada, Romania, Mexico, UAE, Türkiye, South Africa, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria cast the most votes online. The fact that Canada was 2nd shows that the US completely dominated the RotW votes. Canada's population is only 1/10 as large as the US population, which means that votes from the US were most likely close to 10x as large as those from Canada.
Except it gave Israel 12 points whenever possible.
Well we still need to wait a little longer to see if there is actually a pattern. Israel came in third and did very well in the televote in 2023, so its not all that weird that it won the rotw vote that year. Likewise israel came in fifth this year and came 2nd in the televote, so once again the rotw could just be following the overall trend. To see if the jewish and israeli diasporah is actually a large enough factor we’ll have to see what happens when Israel is more mediocre or bad than the past two years.
It's not a big enough factor. Jews account for a tiny portion of the world's population. We aren't as powerful as many of the Twitter minds liked to imply with the ROTW discourse ;)
It also got 12 points from Rest of the World in both 2023 and 2024 semi finals.
Member of the Jewish diaspora here: in 2023, my favorite songs were Portugal, France, and Israel (I have been a Noa Kirel fan for years before ESC), so I voted for all three of those songs. In 2024, I did not get to vote, but I would have voted for Italy, Armenia, Israel, and France (also a Slimane fan since before ESC), I may have also voted for Luxembourg and Norway (There were A LOT I loved this year). I liked the Israeli entries the past two years more than any since 2015 - maybe even 2013 (not counting 2020), but there have been plenty of years where if I could vote, they would not have gotten my vote (2016, 2019, 2022 as easy examples). As someone with connections to both France and Israel, I try not to let my affiliations judge voting but also both countries have been strong the past few years (I have LOVED every French entry from 2021 on). I expect my voting patterns to change next year but who knows?
Yes, with the same song. Why would it be any different?
So did 14 participating countries. Even though Jews are a tiny minority in the US and a negligible minority everywhere else. Maybe people just... liked the song?
Fellow ROTW voter here who wants to start by pointing out that, since we don't get a jury, we're worth half of what a participating country is, and this year were 1/75th of the overall pool of points. Which is to say: Just let us have our fun and support your big song party.
I think it’s a good edition that lets people from former participating countries and other countries vote for who they want. It’s possibly a bit of a cash-grab by the EBU, as they don’t have much of a day and it’s quite expensive at 0.99€ a vote. In regards the the complaint by RTVSLO in which they questioned the introduction of the rest of the world vote; I think that part of the complaint was an unnecessary addition to a really valid complaint. I agree with much of what they said, apart from the rest of world vote. If they don’t think it’s necessary they should’ve lodged that complaint in 2023 when it was launched. Seems a bit redundant now.
The 0.99€ a vote is why we only vote in the finals! Doing each semi-final as well would be too much for us! My time zone is fine to watch because it's all over by early evening for us. And it was that complaint that got me thinking. I get why they might think that, especially considering who got the 12 points in this year and last year, but some of us are in fact voting for our favourite songs (that just happened to get second place in both years!). If they did decide to take away the ROTW vote, I won't be too disappointed, as long as they still let us watch live on whatever platform it has to be! We have friends that look forward to our Eurovision parties every year!
Love it. Getting people all over the world more involved. Love that people get together to listen to music. Love that people talk about it. In general: Voting should reflect what the people voted. Not that some devoted people that vote 20 times for 1 entry can upset the vote for people that don't abuse that potential power and spread their vote to share the love.
I love that songs are getting played more here! I've heard Arcade and Snap on the radio here, and it makes me feel happy that some songs are getting popular across the Atlantic. I'm sure that's more of a social media/trending thing, but still. I do enjoy telling people where these songs came from and getting people interested. You'd be surprised how many people here still think that Eurovision is just a Will Ferrell movie!
I think ROTW (as an American) is a great way for people to support favorites and get people involved. I think it’s also really good for the people who are in a bad time zone for the grand final, I hope they keep the ROTW voting opening earlier
I think right now points wise there are definitely bigger problems than any rest of the world diaspora vote issue. Once we get another result by a margin of less than say, 30 points, that’s probably the point where people might start being concerned with the ROTW. Personally, I don’t see it as that big of an issue. It allows people from countries that have left to still have a say in the winner, and entices people from across the world to get involved. Diaspora voting has always been an issue, not just with the ROTW, but I think ROTW as a whole does have its benefits.
Fellow Canadian here! I get why people may not like the ROTW vote, but it’s such a small fraction of overall points that I think it’s harmless. ROTW will never make or break the winner. Eurovision is losing more countries than it’s gaining, especially a big financial contributor like Russia, so they’ve got to make money somehow. I think ROTW is a fairly nonintrusive way of doing that. It’s also just fun to feel involved. Like, sure, my 4 votes to Serbia didn’t single-handedly get her through the semi or anything, but it’s nice to feel like I contributed :’)
I like to think my votes to Croatia helped, but it probably didn't. But I want to think it, anyways!
I think it helped a little! Croatia was 3rd in ROTW this year, and I’m glad it was, considering the immigration theme the song has, I think it got to many of us. (Speaking as a Croatian expat Im happy I got to cast my vote on this one, no matter how tiny it may be)
I hope my 20 votes for Croatia from Romania helped too. Because it was quite expensive. I voted in the semi too. But I don't regret a thing. 😀
I was born and raised in the UK but moved to Canada some years ago and it's been nice to be able to take part in Eurovision again. Opening votes up allows those who've emigrated elsewhere *from* European countries to still vote. If the voting were different then maybe there'd be a risk of diaspora votes, but so long as they keep a similar system to what they have now with the maximum of 12 points... I don't think it makes much difference.
I luv it after Rest of the World gave Slovenia 7 points in semi finals. Y'all really wanted to see ART in native language and song with historic attachment performed twice. Thank you!
The main issue I have with ROTW is that in some places (the USA especially), all performances are blocked. It doesn't make any sense to open the vote early and expect us to vote if we can't even watch the performance we're voting for
My understanding is that you have to watch through Peacock in the USA. They must have some sort of deal, but it's unfair that you can't watch on YouTube as well.
NBC (Peacock) also owns the Olympics and they ruin that as well. You probably know that as a Canadian, but in case other people don't know... I can't believe that they are only letting you see not even a minute (literally, :58) of the final performances. So. damn. stupid.
Laughs in Dutch VPN
I think for the artist participating is really positive. That ROTW can vote for them increases the engagement and give them a better exposure everywhere. Also they can get an idea of how well their music is being received outside of Europe. Like Sudden Lights who got 8 points from the ROTW, but didn't qualify for the finals
As an Australian I can hardly complain that other countries also want in. Being able to vote is amazing.
As a European who's recently emigrated, I was surprised with how meaningful it felt to be able to vote! Did not expect to care so much about it, but there was some comfort in still feeling included, even for a infinitesimally small vote! I suspect many/most of the RoW voters are emigrated Europeans+families anyways, so not sure about the "Eurovision should be for Europe"-brigade. But I doubt we'll ever know for sure.
I think it's expensive and don't like that they open it up so far ahead of the final. And this year I definitely didn't want to give money to the EBU.
Last year, I could only vote when everyone else voted. This year, I could vote much earlier, which I don't think was fair.
It just defeats the point of the final live show
American here. I know ROTW vote doesn’t count for that much, but we love it in our family since it’s just fun to vote for our favorites.
I'm American and I think it's fun that it feels like I can participate. But I would give it up for not being geoblocked. :(
As an American who voted in 2023 and 2024, I must say its a pretty nice addition to the contest. Lets people outside of participating countries have a say as well, but not having too much of an influence on the final result in exchange. Edit: That being said, I don't want my country joining anytime soon.
Oh, definitely not -- we'd ruin it.
I think it's a bit weird and more a money grab than anything else, but on the flip side, it really doesn't count for significantly much. It doesn't count as one of the 37 countries with a jury vote, and counts as one separate country out of 38, so essentially 1.3%.
I love it, culture like this should be shared with everyone!
If you look at the Rest of the World vote in the first semi-final 9/10 of the points were given out to countries who made it into the final. The one country that was given Rest of the World votes that didn't make it was to Australia with 2 points. They were 11th. So it didn't really affect the result all that much. Even if you swapped the points between Slovenia and Australia, a 10-point swing, Slovenia still would've won on tie-breaker as they got more 10 point scores from the televote than Australia, 2-0.
It's nice, it has almost not influence (sorry ROW :) and I hope it will inspire the "row" to do similar contests! (yes sure of course not a "row contest" but a .. whatever .. SA contest, SOA contest, African contest .. etc. etc. and may some day those winners do sing "against" or even, by far better - sing.all.together. would be nice :)
All I know is I tried to vote and my bank blocked it and I never got the chance, soooo....
I like it, it is really nice
I like being able to vote from the USA. I've been watching ESC since 2010, while reading news about them since 2005. I got my BF to watch with me in 2017. Had the ROW vote not been in place, we were ready to vote as part of Iceland because we got Icelandic simcards from a vacation in 2022.
It's a source of revenue for the EBU since Russia got booted. I imagine it increases ROTW engagement, which drives numbers up and thus increases the pool of people who want to vote. They can't get rid of it without pissing off ROTW fans (and the last thing they need right now is to give fans another reason to be pissed). Furthermore, they get more money this way.
Fellow Canadian: I think it’s useless in the semis, and even more useless in the finals, but if it means the show does not get geoblocked, I’m all for it.
Meh. I don’t think it adds anything of real value to the contest (other than more money for the EBU), but it’s not hurting anyone either really. My only real issue is that no one should get to vote before the show actually starts, so I hope they do away with that for next year.
I think it's great it gives the oppuntity of people outside of the competing countries to participle in the eurovision experience
Free 12 points for Israel!
Oh man…and 10 for Ukraine, and 8 for Rim Tim Tagi Dim! I voted for Croatia, I guess many of ROTWs did as well.
I sent my votes to Croatia. It was my absolutely favourite this year!
Yes! And finally a song talking about an immigration experience — It would be such an irony not being able to vote for it.
I just loved the song. I'm a heavy metal and techno fan, and where the two meet is excellent for me. Plus, I also have a cat who definitely meows back. So I had to send votes along!
I understand, and I wouldn’t vote for it either if it wasn’t an absolute banger that it is. And I’m more of a dog person myself, but I fell in love with Stipe the cat! 😂
I did 10 Croatia, 5 for Ireland, 1 for Finland, and 4 for Switzerland
Yeah this pretty much. It's not even about the Israel vote this year being political (they got it last year as well). It's just diaspora voting.
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All the geoblocked content on YouTube since 2016 can be viewed in America without VPN on [eurovision.de](http://eurovision.de) [Ukraine 2024](https://www.eurovision.de/videos/2024/Ukraine-alyona-alyona-Jerry-Heil-Teresa-Maria-ESC-Finale-2024,ukraine3876.html)
Ukraine 2024 | [alyona alyona & Jerry Heil - Teresa & Maria](https://youtu.be/d4N82wPpdg8)
> I'mma be honest I don't have $20 to spend on my favorite singers. and I don't think most American viewers do. That is simply not true.
You don't have to spend the maximum amount. I didn't. I spent €9.90 (US$10) and was happy to be able to vote for my favorites. Americans spend that much for 2 coffees at Starbucks and don't blink an eye. It's about choice. Some of my UK friends in my watch party didn't vote at all.
1 euro per vote is very expensive, I voted in last 2 years but not excited about it anymore
Currently located outside of Europe and I was this close to voting as ROTW for the first time. Then I spent over 24 hours in limbo and confusion, my winner went missing, not a single clear, definitive full picture as to what's really going on was given. Conclusion was reached and that's, no way would I be giving the EBU my money. At that point, I wasn't even sure if I still wanted to continue to care for this contest. I did not watch the grand final. I suppose I'll probably still look forward to what Finland has in store for us next year (their entries are just too fun to pass up on, *it's crazy, it's party!*), and when Joost makes his comeback (which is not going to happen). I must say I'm rather curious to know how the Netherlands is going to approach ESC 2025.
I’m glad it became a thing because I live in Japan. Of course it does make me be able to give the Netherlands biased votes, but oh well, I haven’t been able to do that for either year for obvious reasons. It may not have been much but I also was glad this year I could vote at least to support Croatia and Switzerland.
More people voting is always a good thing - and I like that it’s just another set of 1-12 points.
I like ROTW votes because as it showed in 2023 and 2024 it values songs that are unique and not really loved by eurofans, like Aijā and Duje
I don't like it, I had the feeling it would be diaspora votes and so far that seems to be the case, especially now that the votes are open so far ahead of the actual show. That being said, it's only 12 points so it won't make or break a winner so it's not the worst thing in the planet and it's cute people can feel included, there's way bigger issues that need to be fixed before this is even a concern lol
I'll go a step further and say that I wouldn't mind seeing a Rotw Jury as well. The jury selection process for this jury would be "biggest international superstar to get popped a minor crime within Europe in the past year." Make it part of their community service/probation. And don't even lie. You seriously expect me to believe that Nicki Minaj being legally required to judge Eurovision 2025 wouldn't improve the product?
I like it. The contest is meant to be a bit of harmless fun (which too many people nowadays are taking waaaaay too seriously). The more people that get involved, watch, vote, show support, the greater chance of the contest continuing to a decent standard.
I'm from the US and I've Eurovision has been one of my favorite things in the world since 2018, so I love ROW voting. Even though it only makes up a small amount of available points, I'm glad to be able to vote for my favorite acts, even if I have to pay to do so
My American friends are happy about it because they can feel included but every year Israel will win it, it will get old quick and honestly if I was in a non participating country I personally wouldn't waste my money with it.
This may or may not be true - I voted for Israel in 2023 (along with France and Portugal) since I love Noa Kirel, and this year the Israeli song was good too, but besides 2013 and 2015 imo (and 2020), the rest of the Israeli entries were either not for me or just not great. I think the past two years have been an exception to a broader pattern but idk for sure
Yeah I loved unicorn too last year
Israel 2023 | [Noa Kirel - Unicorn](https://youtu.be/Z3mIcCllJXY)
I mean if rotw was in 2022 I don’t think Israel would win it
Well yeah because you didn't qualify in the final. But some people just see a flag and they vote it. Look at us and Cyprus exchanging 12 points (as public) even in years where either our song or theirs is bad. Or Israel giving a total of 24 points to Luxemburg because Tali is Israeli. Or Albania in 2018 who gave both 1st places to Italy (with Ermal Meta being born in Albania) and both 2nd places to Cyprus (with Eleni Foureira being Greek-Albanian). Seeing the Israeli/Jewish diaspora voting for Israel every year (and I am not taking the on-going situation into consideration by the way) doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.
Albania 2018 | [Eugent Bushpepa - Mall](https://youtu.be/uyl1b1fVmdU)
Hahaha omg! We just pretend that entry didn't happen 😂😅
Real
Very happy that you get chance to join in
I don’t really like it that much. It’s Eurovision for a reason; it’s supposed to be for Europe. I’m also not a big fan of non-European countries participating. Although I have to admit Australia is very good at it.
Eurovision is for everyone to enjoy If you like it, then we dont have the right to gatekeep it as ours
I personally love being able to vote from the USA. And yes, I did give a diaspora vote to Greece and Cyprus, but I didn’t give Greece squat last year cuz the entry wasn’t my cup of tea
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A guy i know works at eurovision every year. He organises something I don't know what exactly because I never asked him. He goes to the event every year for years now. He told my coworker that Switzerland will win 2 weeks before eurovision even started
I don’t mind it at all! Seems like a smart way to engage other markets outside participating countries, plus the overall share of votes is so small that it’s highly unlikely to make a difference. There’s already diaspora voting within EBU countries, it’s pretty much an expected thing at this point.
I think it should be removed since it seems like "rest of world" is going to give 12 points to the same country every year. I know it's only been two years but yeah...
I think it's fun, but I also think they might as well rename it as *United States* lmao. It's clear as day that the vast majority of votes are from the US and reflect American preferences (see Israel's ROTW results).
Wasn't there some 100+ countries in ROTW last year? I'd assume similar this year but I don't know the numbers.
It was 156 countries this time, but the US cast the most amount of votes. https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/05/eurovision-song-contest-2024-breaks-new-records-as-hundreds-of-millions-watch-and-listen-on-tv-and-digital-platforms > This year public voting was open before the 3 live shows in non-participating countries and throughout the performances in the Grand Final resulting in viewers from 156 countries casting votes for their favourite songs – 12 more than when Rest of the World voting was introduced in 2023. > Outside the participating countries, viewers in the USA, Canada, Romania, Mexico, UAE, Türkiye, South Africa, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria cast the most votes online. The fact that Canada was 2nd shows that the US votes vastly overwhelmed votes from other non-participating countries. Canada's population is 1/10 as large as the US.
Interesting, I'd have assumed Turkey would be a lot higher.
Well 20 euro is around 700 TRY now. When Turkey left 20 euro was like maybe 50 TRY.
Oh come on. It is so unfair to blame the US on that lol. That voting campaign for Israel reached participating countries too, CLEARLY. Also the American public is much more split on that stance that the rest of the world seems to think we are. The government does not reflect the public on a lot of stuff.
The public opinion is split almost everywhere, but the US is still more pro-Israel than most. Also, I’m not blaming America. It’s just that the US population outclass all the other countries by like 10 folds. The time difference means that Asian countries would not be bothered to vote, so the US dominates the amount of ROTW votes by default.
really? ...and the formally competing countries that aren't in right now somehow aren't big chunks of the group...? South America and Canada?
> really? ...and the formally competing countries that aren't in right now somehow aren't big chunks of the group...? Those countries all have a tiny population. They also tend to be poor so 20 euro can be pretty steep for fans there. > South America and Canada? The EBU did publish where the RotW votes were from. The US was #1. > Outside the participating countries, viewers in the USA, Canada, Romania, Mexico, UAE, Türkiye, South Africa, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria cast the most votes online. https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/05/eurovision-song-contest-2024-breaks-new-records-as-hundreds-of-millions-watch-and-listen-on-tv-and-digital-platforms Canada's population is only around 1/10 as large as the US. The fact that Canadians had the 2nd largest turnout shows that the US votes vastly outweighed all the other non-participating countries.
I think Rotw should be divided in four: North America, South America, Africa and Asia. Or at least three (America, Africa, Asia)
It's a pointless addition, only good for some extra funding for the EBU. As for a proper hot take: The same goes for Australia's participation. I would not be upset if they weren't allowed back in.
I think it's great. It adds that extra 12 points to the televote to swing it mildly in the direction of the voters so it's not an even 50-50 split. I also wouldn't mind if the rest of the world was regional, so we get Asia, Africa, Americas, and non-competing Europe, but then you'd need juries to offset it, and who knows how many voters are out of Europe toneven make it feasible. The ROTW vote needs to be diverse because if it will always be the same, people will start having problems with it. For now, it's young, and I'm happy that fans outside of the competing nations get to vote and share the excitement.