What went wrong for Greece??

[ESC94]

Hello everyone,

a new thread of me about a question that came to my mind pretty often recently.

As you may know, was up to 2004 only a semi-successful country in Eurovision, but starting with Sakis Rouvas third place in 2004 everything changed, and one year later Elena Paparizou gave Greece its first and so far only victory. In the following years kept its good ESC record and finished always in the top ten. Many fans thought they would always be so successful, no matter how good their song is.

Well, starting in 2012 and since 2014 at the latest their ESC success story has ended very suddenly. In the last eight contests, reached the top ten only once again, and even failed to qualify for the final in 2016 and 2019.

So what happened??

 

[Citelis]

Most of the entries we sent weren't good. Only Maria Elena Kyriakou and Katerina Duska deserved better! Actually in 2015 we deserved a lot better.

 

[Stiven]

Short Answers: Juries and over reliance on the Eurovision laiko formula
Long Answer: From talking to people from outside the bubble both musicians and ordinary watchers. During their Golden age Greece developed a formula which proved very successful at the contest however unlike Ukraine which managed to change along with the contest and still remain successful Greece (at least their Eurovision team) thought the formula would remain successful and made barely any changes to it. The first problem is that during their Golden Era their songs were never really liked by professional musicians (from what I can gather) so when the juries came back it was only a matter of time before they miss a top 10 placing unless they change, secondly over the years even the common eurovision watcher got tired of the formula but because televoters only make a minority of the watchers their televoting results stayed the same but outside the bubble their songs weren't doing too well which meant that Eurovision was starting to get a bad reputation among the industry musicians so when the formula stopped working in 2012 Greece was unable to re brand itself at Eurovision because it kept the formula for far too long.

 

[ESC94]

Short Answers: Juries and over reliance on the Eurovision laiko formula
Long Answer: From talking to people from outside the bubble both musicians and ordinary watchers. During their Golden age Greece developed a formula which proved very successful at the contest however unlike Ukraine which managed to change along with the contest and still remain successful Greece (at least their Eurovision team) thought the formula would remain successful and made barely any changes to it. The first problem is that during their Golden Era their songs were never really liked by professional musicians (from what I can gather) so when the juries came back it was only a matter of time before they miss a top 10 placing unless they change, secondly over the years even the common eurovision watcher got tired of the formula but because televoters only make a minority of the watchers their televoting results stayed the same but outside the bubble their songs weren't doing too well which meant that Eurovision was starting to get a bad reputation among the industry musicians so when the formula stopped working in 2012 Greece was unable to re brand itself at Eurovision because it kept the formula for far too long.

Thanks for your analysis, I also had this feeling that Greece were relying too long on a special kind of songs.

One thing I also noticed is that the once pretty powerful Greek diaspora has basically stopped voting. Do you have an idea why this happened??

 

[Citelis]

Between the years 2014-2019 none of the entries was laiko.

 

[Stiven]

Between the years 2014-2019 none of the entries was laiko.

I was talking about the period before that and used a pretty broad term of laiko.

 

[Nicholas123]

Short Answers: Juries and over reliance on the Eurovision laiko formula
Long Answer: From talking to people from outside the bubble both musicians and ordinary watchers. During their Golden age Greece developed a formula which proved very successful at the contest however unlike Ukraine which managed to change along with the contest and still remain successful Greece (at least their Eurovision team) thought the formula would remain successful and made barely any changes to it. The first problem is that during their Golden Era their songs were never really liked by professional musicians (from what I can gather) so when the juries came back it was only a matter of time before they miss a top 10 placing unless they change, secondly over the years even the common eurovision watcher got tired of the formula but because televoters only make a minority of the watchers their televoting results stayed the same but outside the bubble their songs weren't doing too well which meant that Eurovision was starting to get a bad reputation among the industry musicians so when the formula stopped working in 2012 Greece was unable to re brand itself at Eurovision because it kept the formula for far too long.

This is actually spot on!

I'd also add that the election of SYRIZA did not exactly favor us in ESC.

 

[Citelis]

I was talking about the period before that and used a pretty broad term of laiko.

Yes you are right but since 2014 we sent defferent entries. Actually we don't use that formula anymore so we can't blame it anymore.

 

[Mainshow]

I miss Greece so much!

In the 00s, it was my favourite country by miles but in the 10s, it ended up being bottom 5 for me. The last couple of entries were more than underwhelming.

I just hope that Greece will find some strength to come up with a very bold choice! - 2019 was a step into the right direction (song-wise/production-wise).

 

[tomos2019]

I have actually liked 2014,2017 and 2018 and I don't think 19th was that bad a position in 2017.

 

[ESC94]

I have actually liked 2014,2017 and 2018 and I don't think 19th was that bad a position in 2017.

Well, when you compare that to their placements during the 2000s than this is a really bad result, and I wouldn´t call 19th out of 26 successful either.

 

[Citelis]

19th out of 42!

 

[ESC94]

Sorry, but for me the placing in the final is more important.