58 points

a data-driven perspective on the world's favourite song contest

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#Eurovision 2021 Grand Final Surprises

#Eurovision 2021 Grand Final Surprises

A plethora of other (awesome) websites have been crunching much of the data from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Rather than cover the same terrain, we have decided to “make the road by walking”: endeavouring to focus on other aspects of the 2021 Grand Final data. Let’s dig in. Greedy In total there were 4,524 points available in this year’s Grand Final: 2,262 from the public and 2,262…

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The #Eurovision 2021 Grand Final medallists

The #Eurovision 2021 Grand Final medallists

Wasn’t it great to have the Eurovision back? And aren’t we all indebted to the EBU and Dutch host broadcasters for delivering three great shows (six if one includes the jury rehearsals)? We are all winners! But Måneskin, they are the actual winners of the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest. Forza Italia!   This is our annual omnibus analysis of this year’s Grand Final medal winners. Let’s jump right…

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League table 2021 update

League table 2021 update

We have updated the League Table page of this site. Take a look here!

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Checking back on 2021 predictions and prognostications

We ran several predictive articles as of late. It is time to keep ourselves honest. *sadtrombone* The top 5 from each of the juries and televotes are guaranteed finalists Our cheap-and-cheerful method to predict qualifiers from the semi-finals to guess surmise the entries likely to be in the top five of either the jury or the public (both is good too, like obvs.). Here’s the top five from…

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First thoughts on the 2021 #Eurovision Grand Final

First thoughts on the 2021 #Eurovision Grand Final

Let’s start with the awesome stuff! Kudos Congratulations Måneskin for winning the 65th Eurovision Song Contest. This is Italy’s third victory—but their first where televoting was an aspect of the scoring system. Italy’s 524 votes included 206 jury votes and a massive 318 televote points. Italy scored televote points from every other delegation, including five douze points and 12 dix points.…

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Double up: The Journey from Qualifier to #Eurovision Grand Final Victory

Double up: The Journey from Qualifier to #Eurovision Grand Final Victory

Except for 2005 (when Helena Paparizou’s My Number One was prequalified thanks to Greece’s 2004 result) and 2010 (when Big Five member Germany’s Lena won with Satellite) every Eurovison winner since 2004 has qualified from its semi-final. This is true whether there was one or two semi-finals. However, not every Grand Final winner won its semi-final.  How then might a delegation maximally upgrade…

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Cheap and cheerful update: how did we do?

Cheap and cheerful update: how did we do?

Broadly speaking, OK, considering we’ve not seen any of the full rehearsals nor the jury shows before using our schtick system. Semi-Final One Predicted: Malta, Ireland, Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Croatia, plus Sweden and Cyprus. Actual: Malta, Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Sweden, Cyprus, plus Belgium, Israel and Norway. Only made 8 predictions and got 6 correct. So a cowardly 75…

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2021 #Eurovision Running Order Analysis

2021 #Eurovision Running Order Analysis

Mere moments ago the EBU released this year’s running order: 🇨🇾 Cyprus / Elena Tsagrinou – El Diablo🇦🇱 Albania / Anxhela Peristeri – Karma🇮🇱 Israel / Eden Alene – Set Me Free🇧🇪 Belgium / Hooverphonic – The Wrong Place🇷🇺 Russia / Manizha – Russian Woman🇲🇹 Malta / Destiny – Je Me Casse🇵🇹 Portugal / The Black Mamba – Love Is On My Side🇷🇸 Serbia / Hurricane – Loco Loco🇬🇧 United Kingdom / James…

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Momentum: Reading the tea leaves from this year’s first #Eurovision semi-final

Momentum: Reading the tea leaves from this year’s first #Eurovision semi-final

Once again we had a semi-final with more worthwhile entries than spots in the Grand Final. Part of the Eurovision obsessant fan experience is joy when an entry you love does well…and heartbreak when they do not. *glancesthroughtearsatIreland* What is done is done, and top worthwhile entries have progressed to this year’s Grand Final. As is custom, each then drew an allocation for either the…

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2020 #Eurovision Semi-Final Qualifiers: the @58points Cheap-n-Cheerful Method

Back in 2019 we trialled a qualifier prediction method designed for the lazy. As described in an earlier article: What emerges quickly is that entries ranked in the top 5 of either the jury or televote rankings of their semi-final qualifies for that year’s Grand Final.   We then gave it a go for 2019. Turns out it works…if you get your lists of jury and televote top five correct (in terms of…

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Towards the Top: why #Sanremo gives Italy strong #Eurovision results

Towards the Top: why #Sanremo gives Italy strong #Eurovision results

Italy made its return to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2011, and the Contest is better for it. As the Italian Eurovision renaissance enters its second decade, we look at the relationship between the Sanremo Festival and Italy’s Eurovision fortunes. Era Just as we wistfully recall hugs, holidays, and the banality of our pre-COVID19 lives, so too do we recall Italy’s contributions to the…

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Pathways to victory: Recent recipes for #Eurovision success

Pathways to victory: Recent recipes for #Eurovision success

As the voting system for the Eurovision Song Contest has evolved, so have the routes toward the crystal microphone. The douze points framework is now in its fourth decade, but how it has been deployed continues to change. The current iteration separates the jury and public televote components and puts them on an equal footing. In this article I look at some of the recent results at the world’s…

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The 2020 #Eurovision semi-final allocation draw

The 2020 #Eurovision semi-final allocation draw

Today the 2020 Eurovision season kicked up a notch. There was the “insignia exchange ceremony” from the Tel Aviv organizers to those from Rotterdam (which is mildly interesting) and the allocation draws for the semi-finals (which is very interesting). I did not watch the live stream—which started at 04h New Zealand Daylight Savings Time, our sleepy time—so our analysis is based on the official…

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#eurovision 2020 Pots: An Analysis

#eurovision 2020 Pots: An Analysis

This year the EBU has refined the pots system used to allocate semi-final spaces. The pots, which are a thoughtful but coarse method to denude the impact of voting blocs, was instituted in Belgrade 2008. This has increased the qualification record of some ostensibly perennially struggling delegations. But it is but one of many tweaks to how the Eurovision is produced, structured and scored. 

L…

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Learning a language, the self-directed Eurovision way

Learning a language, the self-directed Eurovision way

I learnt French from Céline Dion. No, really.

To be fair, I had previously completed the equivalent of three years of secondary level French as a teenager. However, our teachers weren’t stellar: we learnt one tense (indicative) and another quasi-tense (the equivalent of “I’m gonna”, i.e. the near future). Not much vocabulary. As a result I was unable to talk about anything that happened in…

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#Eurovision 2019: Aussie Aussie Aussie (why why why)

#Eurovision 2019: Aussie Aussie Aussie (why why why)

As has been a trend in recent years, one of the semifinal winners triumphed on Saturday night. As the credits rolled on Tuesday, many pundits rightly assumed that Kate Miller-Heidke’s Zero Gravity had a lot of momentum. And they were right. Australia won the first semi-final, only to finish ninth in the Grand Final.

Nation…

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#Eurovision 2019 Semi-Final One: an Analysis

#Eurovision 2019 Semi-Final One: an Analysis

As is tradition, the EBU released the detailed scores from all three competitions as this year’s Grand Final came to a close. John Egan drills down into the numbers for the first semi-final.

In our analysis of the Grand Final draw we surmised either Greece or Australia won the first semi-final. Indeed it was Kate Miller-Heidke and her soaring Zero Gravitythat topped the table. Australia did…

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