Thea dances away her sorrows

The entire "dream team" behind Malta's Eurovision entry this year believes that Thea Garrett's song deserved to qualify to the final round and that everyone gave their utmost to achieving that aim.

"Our consciences are clear because we did everything we could," head of delegation, Joe Dimech said yesterday, adding that Thea's performance was the best she could have given.

As she left the Telenor Arena in Oslo on Tuesday night, Thea said she had tried her best and could not understand why her song did not get through.

She said later that "the Eurovision is not what it used to be" and pointed out that having no neighbours was a disadvantage for Malta.

Many people back home seem to agree with her, judging by the online outburst to "boycott" this year's festival and withdraw Malta from the Eurovision for good.

But is it fair for Malta, which placed second only five years ago, to take such a harsh stand and to claim that neighbour voting plays such an important role?

As Toni Sant, a keen Eurovision observer, noted, Iceland and Belgium got through to the final without neighbourly votes, so it was clearly not impossible to do.

But composer Jason Cassar said he knew even before My Dream won the local contest that this year was a particularly difficult one for Malta because the first semi-final was disproportionately filled with Eastern and Balkan countries. Moreover, most of the countries traditionally associated with the Eurovision were in the second semi-final to be held today and so could not give their traditional support to Malta on Tuesday.

Mr Cassar said that to qualify in this semi-final Malta would have had to have one of the top three songs, not just one of the best 10, because many of the countries, like Russia, passed automatically as a result of the heavy East-European presence, limiting the available places for a country like Malta.

He said the presence of the juries, which carried 50 per cent of the votes, did not have the impact he had hoped for.

Then again, almost all betting sites and predictions have said that the second semi-final would be much more challenging because it contained many of the favourites to actually win the competition, including Azerbaijan, Israel, Denmark and Armenia. Dr Sant believes Malta's problem is not that it does not have neighbours but that it needs to change the system it uses to choose songs and present them on the international stage.

"The long-standing way of doing things clearly doesn't work and is indeed a waste of money. Worse still, it's a wasted opportunity to promote some of the excellent musical talent coming from the Maltese islands."

He said that to really get its value for money from the Eurovision Song Contest, Malta must spend more than €400,000 a year, not less.

"The real problem right now is that there is no return-on-investment-analysis on the process... No strategic plan, no accountability and no continuity or development on long-term experience gained from entering acts in the contest year after year."

Mr Dimech said it was not yet clear why Malta had not qualified, adding that the full results, which would be announced on Sunday, would give a clearer indication of how the song fared.

Despite the disappointing result, Thea did not spend the rest of the evening sulking in her room but danced away her sorrows at the Euroclub, together with Polish singer Marcin Mrozinski, who invited her to go out after consoling her backstage.

Marcin, who became very close to Thea ever since they sang a duet together in Oslo, did not qualify to the final either but said he accepted the result.

"Thea and I both wanted to go back to the good times but it didn't work here," he said, pointing out that big, dramatic songs that used to do well in the 1990s were not popular anymore.