The Finnish media has been very favourable to the Eurovision organisation and TV production. A very few negative comments have been seen anywhere and Finns seem to have genuinely enjoyed the show and all it brought along to Helsinki. In short the overall press reactions can be summed up in one phrase: Music won and Hanna deserved better.
Serbia’s victory was a welcome one, judging the articles as they feel real music won. Like everywhere else also in Finland the focus has been on the Eastern votes and even headlines like "Welcome back Intervision or Eastvision" have been written but generally speaking everyone seems to think Serbia’s victory was a well deserved one.
The other most discussed fact besides the voting patterns has been the fact Finland was the highest scoring Nordic country again, and most importantly that they beat Sweden and the UK again. Call that a Finnish sense of humour and putting things into order of importance!
Hanna herself wasn’t very disappointed afterwards. “I did my best. We had worked for this all spring and all went fine. I am very satisfied. You can’t predict how people vote so it is something I can’t and won’t worry about. But it felt unbelievable to get 12 points! And twice! I was thrilled! Of course our hopes were in Top-10 so Finland could secure its place in the final of 2008 but…. we were still the best Nordic country so I am very happy!” She also tells she is suffering of some kind of Eurovision hangover. “I guess it will take a week or two to get over this experience!” She is is working on that right now in the Cannes Film Festival though, before getting back to her touring in Finland and planning eventual gigs and promos abroad, especially in Sweden and Germany.
Hanna climbs back to number 12 in the Finnish album charts with her third album Lovers that went gold during the Eurovision Song Contest. Her single Leave me alone is at number 8 in Swedish single charts and at number 122 in the UK charts. The Finnish album Top-40 features also Laura Voutilainen’s new album Kosketa mua at number 6, Johanna Kurkela’s latest at number 16 and Sleepy Sleepers at number 17 with their humorous covers of Eurovision classics. Nat Newborn Big Time is at number 25, the album features mambo covers of Hard rock hallelujah and Sata salamaa. Kirka is present with two different compilation albums, at number 2 and number 37 as well as Riki Sorsa’s new compilation at 35.
Eurovision compilation album stays at number one in the compilation charts and the compilation of all the winning songs 1956-2005 re-enters at number 3. The compilation of all Finnish entries from 1961 to 2006 is at number 5.
