esctoday.com announced the winners of the 1st annual esctoday.com awards on Christmas Eve. The award categories included “Eurovision song contest song of the year”, “Performance of the year”, and “Composer of the year”. We now release full details and a brief analysis of the results in these three categories. How do the results of the esctoday.com awards compare to the actual results of the Song Contest broadcast in May? And, do the results reveal anything about larger voting patterns in the song contest? Full details and an analysis of the esctoday.com readers' choices in the remaining categories will follow over the next few days.

The results of the Eurovision Song Contest are always based on personal feelings or perception rather than measurable fact, now more than ever with the introduction of televoting. This seems to inevitably lead to disagreement among viewers and fans on whether the results of any given year are "correct" or agreeable.In 2006 Kate Ryan (Belgium), Carola (Sweden), and Anna Vissi (Greece) were all hotly tipped to win the contest. Germany was also expecting a good finish from their entry Texas Lightning. But Kate Ryan failed to even qualify for the final placing twelfth in the semi-final. Anna Vissi received solid support in the voting but only reached ninth place in the final. Carola finished inan admirable fourth place, but only just ahead of LT United's "comic" act from Lithuania which was derided by many "serious" contest fans. Texas Lightning finished in 15th place.

This was a cause for alarm among many fans especially when Finland's Lordi stormed to the top of the scoreboard and stayed there as the night's voting progressed. In the final total Lordi had racked up a record breaking 292 points as compared to 170 points for Carola, 128 points for Anna Vissi, and a disappointing 36 points for Texas Lightning (see esctoday.com's analysis of the 2006 results here).

The first esctoday.com award categories gave the esctoday.com readers a chance to revisit the results of the contest and perhaps right perceived wrongs.

Song of the year award
As previously announced, Tornero sung by Mihai Traistariu of Romania was awarded the esctoday.com "Song of the year" award.

The full results of the member polling are:
Winner – Tornero / Mihai Triasariu (Romania)
1st runner-up – Invincible / Carola (Sweden)
2nd runner-up – Je t'adore / Kate Ryan (Belgium)
3rd runner-up – Lejla / Hari Mata Hari (Bosnia & Herzogovina)
4th runner-up – Hard rock hallelujah / Lordi (Finland)
5th runner-up – Never let you go / Dima Bilan (Russia)
6th runner-up – Show me your love / Tina Karol (Ukraine)
7th runner-up – No no never / Texas Lightning (Germany)

How does this compare to the actual televoting results from the contest? Fan favorite songs Tornero and Invincible topped our poll each receiving 16% of our readers' votes. (Romania actually received more vote than Sweden to be declared the winner).

This very closely reflects the results for these songs in May. Then Tornero placed4th and received 38.7% of the total points awarded compared to Invincible which placed 5th and received 38.2% of the total points awarded. However in the actual contest both these songs were bested by Hard rock hallelujah (which received an overwhelming 66% of the total points awarded), Never let you go and Lejla.

Hard rockhallelujahfinished 5th in the esctoday.com Song of the yearcategory with 12% of the votes, behind Lejla which received 13%. Never let you go finished 6th in our award's poll with 11% of the vote.

The biggest difference between our awards poll for best song and the Eurovision Song Contest result is that fan favorite Je t'adore came 3rd just behind Invincible.Although Kate Ryan failed to take Belgium to the Eurovision Song Contest final, shemissed out on the esctoday.com Song of the year award by less than 10 votes in our poll.

Texas Lighting still finished far behind in the awards poll, but in this instance there was only one-tenth of a point difference between the German No no never and Tina Karol's Show me your love which placed 7th in the actual contest.

These award results may lead some to exclaim, "These are the song contest results without political, neighbourly or diaspora voting." That may well be the case for Never let you go which demonstrably benefited from the high scores the former Soviet republics awarded Russia. It is also arguable that neighbourly and/or diaspora voting kept Kate Ryan out of the final where she may possibly have achieved a good finish.The Song of the year award resultdownplays the strong support that Finland received from throughout Europe (only three countries gave null points to Finland in the televoting), however many would argue that it was not the song but the whole act that saw Lordi crowned Eurovision Song Contest champions. The result in this awards category could support that view.

Our analysis of the awards data does not allow us to draw any conclusions based on regional voting patterns; it also does not allow us to control for other factors. We do suppose that our members who voted are more likely to be true fans who also follow the latest Song Contest news rather than casual television viewers.

Of course our poll also offered a limited number of nominations to choose from rather than the whole slate of entries which makes direct comparisons to the contest results impossible. Our awards were also split into several categories as opposed to the contest which has only one winner. It's no news to our members that the stated goal of a song contest is to find the best song, but in actual practice the winner of the Song Contest is the entry that can make the best overall impression on a television audience in three short minutes.

Performance of the year
Our awards poll separated the performance from the song which should tend to skew our results away from the televoting results in May.

The results of our awards poll for Performance of the year are:
Winner – Tina Karol/Show me your love (Ukraine)
1st runner-up – Silvia Night/Congratulations (Iceland)
2nd runner-up – Carola/Invincible (Sweden)
3rd runner-up – Daz Sampson/Teenage live (United Kingdom)
4th runner-up – Brian Kennedy/Every song is a cry for love (Ireland)

While the results for "Song of the year" were all rather close, there is a wide range in the results for "Performance of the year". Tina Karol received 32% of the votes in our poll while Silvia Night's performance netted 29%. Carola's performance only received 23% of the votes in our poll. Daz Sampson and Brian Kennedy trailed far behind with 9% and 8% of the vote respectively.

Composer of the year
Arguably esctoday.com readers split their "love" for an entry between three categories. The "Composer of the year" award also reflects our readers choice of outstanding songs.

The results for "Composer of the year" were:
Winner: Zeljko Joksimovic/Lejla (Bosina & Herzegovina)
1st runner-up – Thomas G: son, Bobby Ljunggren, Henrik Wikstrom/Invincible (Sweden)
2nd runner-up – Jane Comerford/No no never (Germany)
3rd runner-up – Mr. Lordi/Hard rock hallelujah (Finland)
4th runner-up – Peter Yianakis/Why angels cry (Cyprus)

Zeljko Joksimovic was a clear favorite for this award; he received 42% of the votes in the award poll. While our readers clearly liked Sweden's entry – honouring it with a high position for every award that it was nominated, Thomas G:son, Bobby Ljunggren and Henrik Wilstromwon 21% of the vote. Jane Comerford received 16% of our members' votes followed closely by Mr. Lordi who received 14% of the votes. Peter Yiannakis of Cyprus trails with 9% of the vote.

The esctoday.com awards were determined by the readers of esctoday.com which is the largest and most visited independent source for news about the Eurovision Song Contest on the web. Registered members of the site were allowed to cast one vote in each category between 11th December and 23rd December 2006. Nominations in each category were determined by the esctoday.com team of editors based on several criteria.

Results in the remaining esctoday.com award categories will be announced over the next days.