Cascada has won the German final “Unser Song für Malmö” and will thus represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö with the dance pop song “Glorious“. Cascada is an internationally successful act, consisting of singer Natalie Horler and two further band members who mainly stay away from the spotlight.

Their victory was the result of a very exciting night, that featured the introduction of the new voting system: A third of the votes came from a previously held internet voting, the next third came from the professional jury, and the last third finally from the televoting (more than 837000 votes were counted).

Read more about the new show format and its complex voting system in our in-depth article for “Unser Song für Malmö“.

LaBrassBanda, the winners of the internet (“Radio”) voting, finished 2nd in the total results, whereas Blitzkids mvt (the jury favourites) came 6th. The overall winner, Cascada, also won the televoting. Söhne Mannheims finished on 3rd place in the final results.

Cascada also won our own voting in the #esc chatroom.

Popular former Eurovision presenter, Anke Engelke, hosted the show in her unique way, in the nearly sold out TUI Arena in Hannover.

Heated reactions in Germany

With 3,24 million viewers and a market share of 10,4 %, the show was more successful with the TV viewers than last year’s idol-style casting format “Unser Star für Baku”, but could not reach former heights either. It needs to be said, that there was hardly any promotion for the German final in advance of the show. The bigger is the surprise, that in the aftermath, there emerged heavy discussions in the internet, including “shitstorms” against the jury, which partly became the target of outraged TV viewers who preferred LaBrassBanda for Malmö. Among others, the complaints embrace an alleged similarity between “Glorious” and last year’s winner “Euphoria”, conspiracy theories about jury members being with the same record company as Cascada (forgetting the fact that Cascada won the televoting, not the jury voting), and finally protests that the winner of the (probably manipulated) internet voting, LaBrassBanda, only got 1 point from the jury.

It’s needless to say, that if you know the background and facts, that all these accusations are completely pointless.

If nothing else, something very positive can be found in all the (typical German) bitching in the aftermath of the show: USFM produced interest, a lot more interest than it had in advance. It produced gossip, attention, discussions. Eurovision does matter, and NDR managed to establish a great, entertaining, exciting new format for the German final.

In a personal remark, I can say: Some things can be improved, but the vast majority of things have been done very right, and so – whoever wins in Malmö – I am looking forward to “Unser Song für [insert random city name]” next year.

The foundation of a new era of German national finals has been laid, and this spirit of a new beginning was also very alive at the fans after party in Hannover.

Full results