It’s the Eurovision down season, and don’t you for a second think we’re going to stop speculating, arguing, and pushing our heated opinions. Our latest series will look at the national finals of Eurovision, and discussing how we would reform the national finals of Eurovision. Today we’re having a look at Eesti Laul.
In part three of this series Daniel, Euan, and Georgia discuss what changes they’d make to Estonia’s national final.
What is Eesti Laul?
For over a decade now Eesti Laul has showcased Estonian talent in a multi-stage format to select Estonia’s Eurovision entrant. Traditionally featuring two semi finals and a final, in recent years the show has been adapted year on year to feature (then subsequently remove) quarter finals, and wild card rounds. The winner is typically decided by a hybrid voting of juries and televotes, with superfinal of usually three acts vying for the chance to represent Estonia.
Do we like what the NF does so far, and do we think there’s a chance of it producing a winner?
Daniel
They definitely have the talent pool for it. This is about 80% vibes based, but I think Eesti Laul will produce a Eurovision winner calibre song within the next 10 years. If you ignore Uku Suviste, like all sane people should, then Estonia are on a pretty good streak as far as their track record goes, reaching five of the last six semi finals, and often leaving some pretty good songs back in Estonia whilst doing so! I do sadly think whilst the general quality of a lot of the songs in recent Eesti Laul editions, especially 2023, have been very good, they’re being let down a lot by the format of the show.
Georgia
I think it’s possible. Again, ignoring Uku Suviste, Estonia has sent a fairly consistent streak of strong songs that lead to strong results at Eurovision. The quality in Eesti Laul is again typically strong across the board. I think it has the potential to produce a winning entry in the next few years, though everything needs to go right for it to be a true contender.
Euan
I honestly think in its current capacity Eesti Laul could just randomly sprout a winner. It’s such a great national final, but also it’s so utterly frustrating because it has been one of the premier national finals in the past, and still has the possibility of being so, but it’s just fundamentally broken due to some utterly ludicrous decisions.
What changes would we make to the National Final?
Daniel
First and foremost, take the automatic qualifiers system and place it directly in the bin where such a system belongs. It’s not only unfair but also lowers the quality of the selection as there are good songs (Wunderbar by Traffic comes to mind) that miss out on the final because of an absolutely terrible rock band having an AQ position, over much better songs that are probably only in the semi-final to get it view time!
Voting is something else that definitely needs addressed, €1.40 per vote is quite frankly ridiculous, and probably scares away a lot of people from engaging with the show. Once the votes are actually in things don’t get much better either. Having both a 12-1 points conversion system AND a super-final is the worst of both worlds, scrap both and have a lovely proportional televote.
Finally, the recent change to one semi final might make the budget people at ETV happy, but I don’t think it serves much of a purpose – either do two semi finals or get rid of them entirely and focus on one big Estonian music extravaganza with a standalone final.
Georgia
Agreeing with Daniel, ERR needs to get rid of the automatic qualifiers ASAP. Or at the very least, give them to songs that actually deserve to be AQs. This past year for example, there is objectively no justifiable reason (in my opinion) for Brother Apollo getting an automatic spot in the final and 5MIINUST/Puuluup and Ollie had to go through the semi finals. This also means that the quality of the final suffers when stronger songs (like “Vetevaim” or “FOMO”) get left in the semis for weaker AQs. A return to either two semi-finals or one standalone final would make the most sense to me.
Euan
How I’d reform it comes really in two parts; the structure, and the voting. Starting with the latter. There simply isn’t enough votes being made by the public for a national final of this size, especially when there’s such a large amount of songs competing in the semi final. ERR needs to find a way to increase it; either via dramatically decreasing the exorbitant voting cost, or implement some kind of app or website voting system. On the topic of voting, and this really isn’t a problem localised to Estonia, but the conversion to Eurovision style 1-12 points for the jury and televote is terrible and I hate it. It wasn’t so bad last year, but there should always be proportional voting in national finals. They are national finals, not Eurovision. The entire structure is completely different and the voting cannot and should not be replicated there. Non-proportional televotes is the bane of Eurovision life.
Moving onto the structure of the contest. One semi final isn’t enough. There is the consistent quality in this selection that should allow it to increase the number of songs competing and have more, and more importantly, smaller semi finals. If they did increase it, then I feel like having automatic qualifiers could be justified, but in such a small show it just seems quite iffy. I have no problem with the number of qualifiers and the second chance round, but for the latter it just feels too big. It should really be reserved for the ones that were close to qualifying because they’ve already shown they have support. I know ‘Korra Veel’ managed to galvanise support it didn’t have in the live show, but it then flopped again in the final. The second chance should really be focused on songs that could still have the potential to win.
Do we think any reforms are likely to happen to this NF?
Daniel
Eesti Laul seems to struggle to hold a consistent format for more than about five minutes, so I would expect changes, but I’m not holding out hope for any of my proposals to ring true.
Georgia
It feels like Eesti Laul has a change in format almost every year. So, are reforms likely to happen to this national final? Probably. However, will they be the right ones? Probably not. But, we’ll see.
Euan
Do I think any reforms will take place? Yes. ERR can’t make up its mind. Do I think that they will align with what I have outlined above in any way whatsoever? Absolutely not.
Estonia’s Eurovision Journey
Estonia has appeared at almost every Eurovision since their debut in 1994. They have won the contest once with Tanel Padar, Dave Benton and 2XL in 2001, singing Everybody. Other notable Estonian entrants include 3rd placer Sahlene with Runaway in 2002 and Ines with Once In A Lifetime in 2000, who placed 4th. More recently, their highest-placing entries have been Urban Symphony with Rändajad in 2009 and Ott Lepland with Kuula in 2012, both of which finished in 6th place.
In 2024, Estonia elected to send 5MIINUST and Puuluup through Eesti Laul to the Contest with “(Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi”. They successfully qualified for the final and finshed in 20th place with 37 points. They finished with 4 points from the juries, and an additional 33 points from the televote.
What do you think about our reforms? As always, let us know what you think by commenting down below. Also, be sure to follow ‘That Eurovision Site’ on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Bluesky for all the latest Eurovision news!
News Source: That Eurovision Site
Photo Credit: Siim Lõvi/ERR
Tim J