Eurovision Stats a wrap! Initial results analysis

by Richard West-Soley 7,330 views

The party is barely over, but there is no rest for number-crunching fans. With the release of full results, including semifinal scoring and split jury-televote statistics, there is just as much to talk about after the event as ever. Here are some of our initial observations on a sensational contest that saw a first win for long-timer Portugal.

Great minds think alike – at the top

The new split results system caused some controversy in 2016, when the disparity between the jury and televote top three resulted in the second-placed song from both winning. However, there is no such mismatch in 2017; Salvador topped both the jury and the televote results. Likewise, Bulgaria came second with both experts and home viewers. Reassuring news for EBU officials eager to stress the viability of the new system!

There are a couple of massive differences below the top two places, however. Romania and Hungary seemed banished to the right-hand side of the scoreboard before benefitting from a very generous televote – fifth and seventh finishers respectively.

Hobbled by the televote

It works the other way, too; the UK and Austria did respectably well with the juries. But the UK’s meagre 12 points and Austria’s nil in the televote dragged the countries back down into 15th and 16th place.

Australia was also lucky that its tiny televote of 2 points (25th place) failed to pull its final position out of the top ten, with Norway remaining to hold on to the last top-ten spot after a disappointing viewer tally of 29 points (16th place). “Grab the Moment” had been placed sixth overall by juries. The Netherlands also did well with juries, finishing fifth, but a disappointing 15 points (19th place) from the televote landed them in 11th place.

The second semifinal also illustrates how juries and televoters can disagree sharply. Austria and Denmark were lucky finalists from the Thursday show, but thanks to the juries, which lifted them into the top ten. If only home voters had counted, Estonia and Switzerland would have snatched their places, leaving them towards the bottom of the table.

Clustered points

A look at the split results for the final also reveals much more clustering between the top and bottom with the televote. Viewers’ points were concentrated on the favourite ten songs, as attested to by the large gap in points – 90 to 42 – between the 10th and 11th places. By contrast, the jury points were spread more evenly across the songs.

JURY TELEVOTE
 1  Portugal  382  Portugal  376
 2  Bulgaria  278  Bulgaria  337
 3  Sweden  218  Moldova  264
 4  Australia  171  Belgium  255
 5  Netherlands  135  Romania  224
 6  Norway  129  Italy  208
 7  Italy 126  Hungary  152
 8  Moldova  110  Sweden  126
 9  Belgium  108  Croatia  103
 10  UK  99  France  90
 11  Austria  93  Azerbaijan  42
 12  Azerbaijan  78  Poland  41
 13  Denmark  69  Belarus  33
 14  Armenia  58  Cyprus  32
 15  Romania  58  Greece  29
 16  Belarus  50  Norway  29
 17  Greece  48  Ukraine  24
 18  Hungary  48  Armenia  21
 19  France  45  Netherlands  15
 20  Cyprus  36  UK  12
 21  Israel  34  Denmark  8
 22  Croatia  25  Israel  5
 23  Poland  23  Spain  5
 24  Ukraine  12  Germany  3
 25  Germany  3  Australia  2
 26  Spain  0  Austria  0

Breaking records

Bulgaria and Moldova, snuggled up at the top of the table in silver and bronze, achieved their best final placings to date.

For Bulgaria, this is quite a feat, fresh from achieving the same last year, when Poli Genova finished 4th in Stockholm. Impressive stuff from a country that had, before 2016, struggled even to make it through the semifinals in most contests. As the greatest improver of 2017, there is only one place for Bulgaria to go in the future. Will we see a strong gold attempt from Sofia next year?

Spain, however, managed its worst ever placing in a Eurovision Song Contest final. This concludes a Spanish participation fraught with tension this year, after juries selected Manel ahead of the fan favourite, Mirela. Despite being a popular figure amongst fellow contestants in Kyiv, “Do It For Your Lover” failed to do it for either juries or televoters, with five points from Portuguese viewers saving it from nil points.

Failed favourites didn’t just miss out

In the semifinals, Finland and Estonia were the big fan – and bookies’ – favourites that missed out on final spots. However, neither of them ended up in the agonising 11th place, just missing out. Finland was 12th, and Estonia 14th in their respective shows.

Israel’s tumble and the effect of running order

Israel performed last in semifinal, and finished in the dizzy heights of third place. However, Imri was first on stage in the final, and sank to 23rd place, only four from the bottom. This may be one of the biggest tumbles from top to bottom since the semis began. Was it down to the performance? Or does it illustrate the effect that running order has on a song? Or maybe, is it a combination of both?

With a huge amount of data to pore over, mathematically-inclined fans will have plenty to keep them occupied over the next few days. Have you spotted any interesting nuggets? Share them in the comments!