Eurovision’s Executive Producer in 2021 made an emergency call during the voting of that year’s contest after worrying about the allocation of points. 

Sietse Bakker was overseeing the contest in the role of Executive Producer in 2021 and was the man to call the scrutineering desk with his concerns after four countries in a row received no points from televoters in the Grand Final. 

The results were correct and saw James Newman from the United Kingdom, Jendrick from Germany, Blas Cantó from Spain and Jeangu Macrooy from host nation the Netherlands all receive nul points. 

Speaking exclusively to The Euro Trip, Sietse Bakker recalled the series of events. 

“On the screen I saw Chantal [Janzen], one of the hosts, and she made a face,” he said. 

“I thought that she was thinking the same thing I was thinking: there is something wrong with the voting. Any moment we’re going to have Martin Österdahl interfere and say ‘it’s not right and we’re starting over again’. 

“That was the moment when I thought if I should call Martin and ask him if there was a problem. I think I called him or the televoting supervisor from Digame and was comforted that points would be coming.” 

Countries had received nul points from the televote on various occasions prior to 2021, but not on the scale that viewers witnessed when the contest was held in Rotterdam. 

In 2019, Germany scored nothing with televoters with host Bar Refaeli uttering the now infamous line “I’m sorry, zero points” when she delivered the news. Austria in 2017 and Czech Republic in 2016 also scored nothing in the televote.