The Polish entry, "Solo" by Blanka Stajkow, was widely panned by Eurofans for various reasons, including the Male Gaze-laden music video, the questionable vocals, and the process of national selection which led to allegations of rigging. And yet, come the contest itself not only did "Solo" comfortably qualify from its semi-final, but televoters even placed it in 8th place in the grand final, demonstrating once again how the most dedicated fans aren't really an accurate representation of the public at large.
When Stef "Gustaph" Caers won the Belgian National Final in 2023, his song was not that well received and was expected to not do well no matter if he qualified or not. In fact, he came fourth in the jury vote and second in the televote. The Grand Final told a different story. Gustaph received many points from the juries, landing in 7th place, and even though he didn't get as many from the televote, that did not change his position at all, which gave Belgium their best result since 2017.
Broken Base: The final result of this year's Contest led to immediate heated controversy when Sweden's Loreen won thanks to a massive lead in jury points (340, 163 more than jury runner-up Noa Kirel of Israel) which Finland's Käärijä, the televote winner, couldn't overcome not even with his point lead with the public (376, 133 more than Loreen herself). This could even be noticed during the Grand Final itself, when the audience in the Liverpool Arena was heard loudly chanting "Käärijä" and "cha cha cha" during the voting procedure — with hosts Hannah Waddingham and Graham Norton having to shush them several times — and even during Loreen's winner reprise. Over the following months, some heads of delegations requested giving more power to the televote and it was reported that the EBU Reference Group had been discussing changes to the points system.
Those in Finland's camp complained that the juries trumping the televote — the first time since the introduction of split results that the overall winner is the jury's, but not the televote's, winnernote Salvador Sobral in 2017 won both juries and televote; Netta in 2018, Måneskin in 2021, and Kalush Orchestra in 2022 won the televote only; and Jamala in 2016 and Duncan Laurence in 2019 won neither — means that the public's say was invalidated, and even that the juries strategically pushed Loreen to the win because she already won the Contest once and/or 2024 marks 50 years since ABBA's win in Brighton 1974, calling for a reduction of the juries' power if not their abolition outright.
Those in Sweden's camp counter that there's no clear evidence of former winners being favoured (with Moscow 2009 champion Alexander Rybak of Norway placing only 15th in Lisbon 2018, or Birmingham 1998 diva Dana International not even qualifying from the semifinal in Düsseldorf 2011, or even Loreen entering Melodifestivalen in 2017 and failing to qualify), that the same thing happened the previous year when Kalush Orchestra of Ukraine won thanks to an enormous televote lead that may have been sympathy votes or not, that televoting too can lead to questionable decisions like placing Poland's Blanka eighth and Spain's Blanca Paloma last, and that the public didn't exactly ignore Loreen since she still got second place with them (to whom the former camp replies that rankings don't matter, points do, and that Loreen didn't receive any sets of 12 points from the televote meaning that she wasn't the public's outright favourite in any country).
And, of course, the third camp consists of fans of other entries who are sick of the bickering and the posturing between the two camps.
Not to mention the moderators of various groups and forums who are trying to maintain peace and quietly hoping that everyone else dies a slow, painful death.
Critical Dissonance: As it is has been the case in the "split results" era, with the sole exception of Kyiv 2017, the juries and the televoting each have their favourite and who gets to be the overall winner boils down to a question of maths. As detailed elsewhere, the juries heavily favoured Sweden's Loreen while Finland's Käärijä won the televote hands-down, with the former taking the trophy. While both voting segments placed both of them in their respective top tens (Loreen second with the public; Käärijä fourth with the juries), along with overall third- and fourth-placers Noa Kirel of Israel (second with the juries, fifth with the public) and Marco Mengoni of Italy (third with the juries, sixth with the public), they didn't agree on any of the remaining six acts, leading to a very composite final result.note For the juries: Estonia in 5th; Australia in 6th; Belgium in 7th; Austria in 8th; Spain in 9th; Czechia in 10th. For the public: Norway in 3rd; Ukraine in 4th; Croatia in 7th; Poland in 8th; Moldova in 9th; Albania in 10th.
Memetic Mutation: The parallel, horizontal LED screens that formed an integral part of Sweden's Loreen's performance — both the original used in Melodifestivalen and the reduced-scale version they brought to Liverpool — have been pretty unanimously referred to by fans as a "panini press".
Special Effects Failure: One of the cables connected to the "crate" part of Käärijä's set failed to detach properly during the Grand Final. Luckily Käärijä managed to dodge the cable while circling the set, narrowly avoiding catching his head against it.
Nobody was prepared for Dustin the Turkey to make an appearance after he represented Ireland in 2008. But the unpredictability of him came not from being generally unexpected, but rather because people don't want to remember his song that year.
It is also unlikely anybody expected to see a conga line being led by Peppa Pig.
Benjamin: "You have to edit the "go, girl" out." (staff can be heard laughing, and the scene is left in.)
Quirky Work: Chérine's staging in Eurosong (Belgium's selection) seemed to be trying to evoke fantasy aesthetics, or alternatively the work of Niki de Saint-Phalle. The end result was one of the weirdest staging choices in the NF season. It's hard to say whether it helped or hurt her chances, though - especially since she still came within 10 points of winning.
.Benjamin: "You have to edit the "go, girl" out." (staff can be heard laughing, and the scene is left in.)