Eurovison - irregularities in televising 2nd semi-final in Spain

I was much disappointed when it became clear on Thursday evening that I wasn't going to be able to vote in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 from Moscow, as it seemed that Spanish broadcaster TVE wasn't transmitting the show 'live' here, but instead broadcast it about an hour later, meaning that all the other countries' votes had been collated and announced before we had seen it here in Spain. I had various Twitter exchanges with Jae about this on Thursday evening, but with no clear view emerging about what had happened. Earlier today Jae left a comment on my blog post about the final last night, linking to a news item in a Eurovision fan website indicating that there was an ongoing discussion about this and how it seemed as if TVE might be fined, or even that the Spanish entry might face disqualification for their breach of the rules in not broadcasting the show as they had requested specifically and committed themselves to do as a result of 'technical difficulties'. As you will discover if you try and click on that last link, it probably won't work - the whole website seems to be unavailable. Dirty work at the cross-roads? Who knows?

In any case, a little more searching on the internet unearthed this news report in WikiNews which discusses a lot of what seems to have gone on. It is pretty awful if true that various deceitful machinations were at the root of the scheduling 'snafu', but at least it shows that I wasn't going completely bonkers on Thursday when I couldn't find the show - it simply wasn't being broadcast 'live here'. I did of course see the programme 'live' on BBC3, but I still couldn't vote!