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Dispute over televoting results
Cyprus: Last year’s problems lead to internal selection
On 12th January 2007, Dr. Eliana Nikolaou, Commissioner for Administration (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Cyprus, came out with the verdict that there is a solid base for these complaints.The complainants accuse the CyBC that: a) they had not been notified of the exact way the votes would be calculated and b) the details of the final results were never revealed to them.
CyBC insists that all participants as well as the public had been notified of the exact way the televotes would be calculated through TV commercials and by the hosts of the evening as well. According to Dr Nikolaou’s report the published regulations state only that televoting would be used, without clarifying the exact process. Anyone reading it would assume that the song that gathered most votes would win the final. On the contrary, the song "After you", performed by Valanto Trifonos that actually got most votes in total came fourth in the announced results.
The Cypriot broadcaster calculated the votes the same way EBU does, meaning that each county had an equal vote regardless of their population or votes submitted. Dr Nikolaou points out in her report that this could not be possible in the first place, as ATHK, the Cypriot telephone company, could not possibly provide results by county but only by geographical area covered by their network. For example, from the Paphos and Paralimnio counties only votes from land lines were calculated in each county’s result, as the calls from cell phones were calculated in the Limassol and Larnaca counties respectively due to the telephone company coverage.
The Commissioner concludes that it is too late now to amend the situation but that this should serve as a good example for years to come.
These were the announced results of the Cypriot final last year:
Why angels cry Annet Artani 1st
Congratulations Marios Tofi 2nd
Land of yesterday Evagoras Evagorou & Chrisi Andreou 3rd
After you Valanto Trifonos 4th
Love on the weekend Andreas Konstantinidis 5th
Funky Nick Nikolaou & Viky Anastasiou 6th
Play that melody for me Eleftheria ft. Maria Zorli 7th
Every time I close my eyes Constantinos Andronikou 8th
I’m a fighter Marina Solonos 9th
Just your smile Eleni Andreou 10th
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not cyprus .. south cyprus !!!
All the luck for Cyprus this year!Even last years song was totally crap a voice like Anettes must have been in the final!!!!
THERE WERE SOME REACTIONS ABOUT HOW PEOPLE VOTED FOR THAT SONG TO REPRESEND CYPRUS,SOME DIDNT LIKE THE RESAULT.SOME HATE THE SONG.AND THE CONTEST RESAULT WAS WORSE,SO CYBC-CYPRUS HAD TO CHOSE SOMETHING DIFFERENT WITH DIF WAY THIS YEAR
AND I AGREE 10000% WITH EVRIDIKI AND KORGIALAS
COMME CI COMME CA ITS A POWERFUL SONG,ELECTRO POP,SOMETHING NEW FOR CYPRUS ENTRIES
HOPE FOR THE BEST
The problem with Annette was that the song was not right for her at all. Even people this year say that Annette would have done exceptionally well if she had composed her own song, and done her own style. But Annette admitted that she had no clue how to join the selection process for Cyprus, and that the composer of th song (peter yianakis) asked her to sing the song.
What problems?! Annette was great in Athens!! She should've gone to the final!!
Greetings,
DJ
Well at least it explains to the rest of us how a 'pants' song and performance could have been chosen.... always seemed a bit fishy, and this explains it. It also proves that Cypriots don't have as bad a taste as I started to think, it was just a silly voting procedure.
Uk does a similar stupid 'area' EBU style vote, but the cell calls and texts were done as a seperate entity for obvious reasons.
Surely taking the votes of the country as a whole is a much more accurate relection of the popularity of the song??
And worse off, I think there was a report in the news about a week ago about further development of this situation. 
Some people can't drop it. What are they going to do? Go back in time and perform?
And I thought that Malta took the ESC very seriously! Does the cypriot Ombudsman get involved as well? Oh my!
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