When 50-50 doesn't mean half and half

After several years when the top end of the Eurovision scoreboard has been distorted by armies of ex-pats voting for the homeland (and by neighbours, to a much less extent), the European Broadcasting Union has brought in a change to voting for the 2009 final. After continually repeating the mantra that 100% public voting was ultimate democracy, the EBU were persuaded to introduce change after several of the highest financial contributing Western European countries threatened revolt unless this skewing of the democratic process was not in some way reined in. Thousands of people aren't just voting for their homeland, they're voting as many times as they can in the voting window, often with SIM cards paid by the homeland TV station.

Thus, over the last few years a snug (and indeed smug) little group of supernations have grown, who are guaranteed a top ten result regardless of their entry, be it a pop masterpiece or three minutes of a cat farting.

Say Hello... Armenia, Greece, Russia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine... and on just one years evidence, Azerbaijan...

For 2009 the EBU have with great fanfare announced the voting in the Eurovision final will be "50-50" with televoting given equal weight to jury voting. So we are being led to believe that the influence of this sextet will be utterly diminished. Don't believe a word of it.

Each national jury will be composed of five alleged "music experts" and there is no rule that would exclude experts born somewhere else.

The composite vote will not be comprised of each countries public vote from 1st to 25th being compared top to bottom with each countries jury vote from 1st to 25th. If it was, the worst excesses of both could be eliminated but that's a step too far for the EBU. So, the top ten on both sides will be converted to 12-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 points and any song 11th on both sides will be screwed. Then those points will be combined to give the final 12-10-8 etc.

Now for the clincher. If there is a tie at this point, and any basic arithmetician could assure you, there are bound to be dozens, the ties will be broken by the televote having more weight.

Think about this. All those countries in the Smug Six who got a string of guaranteed twelves from their expats, they will still get a 12 from each national televote as before, and unless (a) they completely bomb with the same national jury, or (b) several other songs beat it in the same national jury vote AND come close in the same national televote, those Smug Six will surely still get a 12 or 10 from their ex-pat country.

The internet is awash with hope that the change to 50-50 will mean that the likes of Norway, France or (perish the thought) the UK will suddenly be empowered to overcome the Smug Six (or Azerbaijan). What complete folly. The only time this axis have been beaten in the recent past is of course Finland's Lordi in 2006. This is the same Lordi who featured on front pages of newspapers across the world (including the New York Times) in the week before the contest and were winners before the first note was sung. Unless, miraculously, Alex, Pat or Jade manage a similar trick, don't look beyond the usual suspects for victory in Moscow.

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