Haukur Haukursson, Head of the Icelandic Delegation is the latest senior delegation member to comment on last night's result. In a telephone interview with esctoday.com, he tells us that he thinks the EBU needs to make changes to protect the Eurovision Song Contest.
Asked about last night's result and what consequences it may have on the Eurovision Song Contest, Mr. Haukursson told us:
"You can see this in a number of ways. The Eurovision Song Contest might be more popular in East than West and they have taken the Contest and given it a new flavour, but for many it leaves a bitter after taste. They seem to have a much stronger power for the semi final voting.
I'm all in favour of democracy but you have to remember that this is a television show and it is now putting the television show in danger. The EBU should consider in an open mind, a 2 semi final system to distribute the voting more evenly across Europe. I'm not sure it needs to be one for the East and one for the West, but with two semi finals, 10 countries qualifying from each, and viewers only voting in their semi final, it would distribute the voting power more equally."
Asked if Iceland would consider withdrawing from the Eurovision Song Contest if this is not implemented next year, Mr. Haukursson told us:
"I can't comment on this right now. We knew when we found out that we would have to compete in the semi final a few years ago that it would be very hard to qualify."
Talking about the Icelandic entry this year and whether they felt it should have qualified:
"All things considered, I'm not sure but Eirkur did his best and could not have done any more, so we thought we had a good chance. As soon as we saw the number of Eastern countries that have a lot of cultural references to each other musically, you knew it would be tough. J
Just to beclear,Eastern Europe and the countries that compete have changed the music quality of Eurovision for the better, but to maintain the show's popularity across the whole of Europe, we need to look at least at two semi finals."
Talking about the public reaction to the result in Iceland:
"The people are very happy with Eirkur's performance and believe that he did his best, but there are a lot of grudges and people don't like the way that the Contest is going.
Something positive can come out of this, and I agree with Svante that threatening to withdraw from the contest in the heat of the moment is no good for anyone, but we need to make the format of competing between nations popular, and the 2 semi final system might be the best way".
