After failing to qualify from Thursday's Eurovision Song Contest semifinal, Malta is absent from the final for the first time since 1991, when Malta returned to the Eurovision after a sixteen year absence.
Olivia Lewis' failure to qualify from the semifinal round on Thursday has been received with mixed reactions by Maltese Eurovision fans and pundits. Throughout Friday, her official blog was flooded with words of encouragement, mostly from Maltese Eurovision fans. Numerous other mixed public comments appeared on Toni Sant's Blog.
Malta placed 25th out of the 28 semifinalists on Thursday, receiving a total of 19 points from Albania (6), Turkey (7), and UK (2). This is the lowest placing ever for Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest.
On Friday evening, the singer was shown great devotion by her fans during a special edition of Xarabank. The television programme made history in its own right by being the first live television broadcast produced in Malta to feature a live satellite hook-up with Helsinki. After a minor audio issue on the first link, the broadcast proceeded without a hitch for about two hours.
Meanwhile, MaltaSong board chairman Robert Abela insisted that he is trying to coordinate with other countries disappointed by Thursday's voting system to forward a formal request to the EBU to reconsider things for next year. He added that Malta would not withdraw from next year's contest unless this was a collective decision by other countries who suffered the same fate as Malta in the semifinal, but he did not exclude this is a coordinated protest motion. Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Israel, Cyprus, Andorra and Iceland were among the countries eliminated in the semifinal.
By Saturday morning, anonymous emails were calling for the Maltese public to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 final televote. This came in the wake of a declaration from the national Greek broadcasting company ERT regarding the problems that some televoters faced during the semifinal on Thursday. According to a report by esctoday.com, "some of the votes went to the wrong recipient and did not count in the country's result."
EBU's chosen partner Upstream S.A. rather than local broadcasters like ERT in Greece, BBC in Britain, or PBS in Malta, are not responsible for the handling of the televotes. Upstream S.A claim that every year 10% of the televoters key in the wrong code.
The 52nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest started at 2000 CEST from the Hartwell Arenda in Helsinki, Finland. After televoting from all 42 participating countries, Serbia's Marija Šerifović singing
Molitva won with 268 points.
Points were awarded from Maltese votes as
follows in Eurovision Song Contest 2007:
12: UK
10: Belarus
8: Serbia
7: Bulgaria
6: Russia
5: Slovenia
4: Latvia
3: Ukraine
2: Spain
1: Hungary |
For more detailed information about Malta's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest see EurovisionMalta.com.
See also:
First thoughts after Malta fails to qualify for Eurovision 2007 final
from Toni Sant's Blog - 11 May 2007
Olivia's first public words after Eurovision 2007 semifinal
from Olivia Lewis' Blog - 11 May 2007
Mużika Mod Ieħor - 66
(Eurovision 2007 special edition)
a podcast by Toni Sant
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