Great technical deployment for a mediocre performance by ORF at Eurovision

Austrian public television used a total of 26 cameras, including two spidercams and two robotic tracking cameras, in a performance that was not the most successful.

The representative of Sweden, Måns Zelmerlöw, won this Saturday with victory in the 60th Eurovision Song Contest 2015 held at the Wiener Stadhalle in Vienna (Austria).

Sweden wins the festival for the sixth time. This time with the help of Zelmerlöw, one of the great favorites throughout the week, with the song Heroes. Zelmerlöw won with a staging in which he interacted with cartoons projected on the screen at the back of the stage, a game of images and perspectives that resulted in an original scenography that has captivated the audience and jury throughout Europe.

In a close head-to-head vote between Sweden and Russia, finally the Russian Polina Gagarina finished second, while the Italians of Il Volo finished third.

Australia, which participated in the festival for the first time as a guest country, managed to climb to fifth place.

The Spanish representative, Edurne, did not manage to surpass 15 points and finished in 21st position.

The “red lantern” went to Austria with 0 points. A red lantern that could also be awarded to the mediocre performance carried out by the ORF as host broadcaster of this year's edition.

The ceremony initially promised a performance by the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna Boys' Choir. A spectacular kinetic sculpture with 650 balls suspended from the ceiling of the venue and motorized using a DMX control system dazzled with its light and movement effects. The montage created by the Danish company Wahlberg, in line with the one that was already used in the edition of the festival that was held in Oslo in 2010, was only used incomprehensibly for just a few minutes at the beginning of the ceremony.

From that moment on, an impressive 30x9 LED screen (7.5 mm) served as a backdrop for a stage that simulated a large eye or bridge, depending on how you looked at it, built with a tubular structure with 1,288 LEDs.

The floor of the stage was covered by a screen with 450 LED modules (10 mm.) that allowed the capture of images from the cameras even at very low shooting angles. Throughout the venue, the organization also deployed a dozen screens with DLP projectors from which the more than 10,500 who witnessed the festival live followed all the details.

For the realization, the ORF used a total of 26 cameras, including two spidercams and two robotics, on traveling shots.

However, despite the great technical gap, the realization of the ORF left a lot to be desired both due to the choice of plans and some technical problems. Perhaps the most obvious occurred at the time of voting where the signal contribution from Georgia, Portugal, Estonia and Azerbaijan failed, with the organization being forced to repeat these connections at the end of the tedious vote.

Almost 6 million viewers on TVE

The Eurovision Song Contest 2015 was the absolute audience leader this Saturday, with almost 6 million viewers and a 39.3% screen share, the highest figure since 2012. The votes, which placed the Spanish candidate, Edurne, in 21st position, achieved more than 7 million viewers and a 48.2% share. La 1 was the leader of the day with a 20.3% audience share.

A total of 5,958,000 viewers watched the contest, which represents a 39.3% screen share. This figure represents 817,000 viewers and 4.1 points more than those who followed the contest last year. In total, 16,761,000 spectators watched the festival at some point.

Once again, the most watched were the votes, which attracted an average of 7,079,000 people, a 48.2% screen share. More than 11 million people (11,370,000) watched them at some point.

The golden minute of the day occurred at 10:48 p.m., coinciding with the end of the performance of the Spanish candidate, Edurne. At that time, an average of 8,275,000 people watched La 1, 47% of the audience.

The Madrid singer's performance was seen at some point by a total of 7,103,000 viewers and 38.7%.