The tenth esctoday.com TOP TEN list starts today with the places 10, 9 and 8 being announced. As revealed on Saturday, this week's topic are the TOP TEN least successful countries.

The ranking will feature countries that have taken part more than five times. It will be based on the average relative placing (i.e. the place in the contest compared to the number of participants) a country has achieved since its debut until today. Rules are:

• Semi final results and final results are counted separately.
• The qualifiying rounds of 1993 and 1996 will not be considered.
• In the case of a tie, the country that won more often gets the higher place in the ranking.

An example:

The countries x took part in the contest three times and finished 4th out of 12, 4th out of 16 and 10th out of 20. The average relative placing for x is 36/100, which equals a 9th place among 25 contestants. All average placings will be given compared to 25 countries competing as this is the current number of finalists every year.

So here we start…

No. 10 – Poland

Poland's average relative placing since the country's debut in 1994 equals a 14.9th place among 25 contestants.

Poland had a very strong debut in the Eurovision Song Contest 1994 finishing second thanks to Edyta Gorniak and her song To nie ja! but follow-up results were not even close to that success. It took nine years until the country made the top ten again, this time with Ich Troje. On only one other occassion, Poland reached the first half of the scoreboard in the final, when Anna Maria Jopek came eleventh with Ale jestem in 1997.

Poland was rather close to the bottom in all other years before 2004. Since 2005, the country was elminated five times in the semi finals (but did come close in 2005 and 2006 finishing eleventh). The only act that qualified for the final was Isis Gee in 2008 with her song For life. However, that qualification led to Poland's first (shared) last place ever in the final.

First last place for Poland – Isis Gee with For life in 2008:

No. 9 – Bulgaria

Bulgaria's average relative placing since the country's debut in 2005 equals a 15.3rd place among 25 contestants.

Bulgaria took part in the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 2005 and the country achieved its best result in 2005 finishing sixth in the semi final and fifth in the final with Elitsa & Stoyan and their song Water.

This was the only time ever that Bulgaria qualified for the final. The only other time that the country was close to qualifying was in 2008, when Deep Zone & Balthazar finished eleventh. The lowest relative placing in a semi final was achieved by Krassimir Avramov in 2009, who finished third last with Illusion.

Worst result so far – Krassimir Avramov with Illusion:

No. 8 – Belgium

Belgium's average relative placing since 1957 – the first contest with open voting – equals a 15.9th place among 25 contestants.

Belgium was one of the countries that took part in the very first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 and it was the one among the seven competing that year that had to wait the longest for its first (and still only) victory. Sandra Kim achieved first place in Bergen in 1986 with J'aime la vie. Other Belgian successes in the contest are Jean Vallée's second place in 1978 as well as Urban Trad's second place in 2003. Belgium also reached forth place and fith place twice.

Despite those successes, Belgium remains one of the least successful competing countries in total. Not only did they finish last eight times, the country was also eliminated in the semi finals five times. The Walloon and the Flemish broadcaster are taking turns in selecting the Belgian entries and the Walloon broadcaster has been far more successful. No entry submitted by the Flemish broadcaster has ever reached the top five in a final with the most successful acts being Bob Benny in 1959 and Tom Dice in 2010. However, Tom Dice won the first semi final this year. Six of the eight last places were achieved by entries from Flandern.

Last place in 1993 – Barbara Dex with Iemand als jij:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WShutEpxu5Y

Tomorrow, we will introduce no. 7 and 6 on the list.