Adrian Kavanagh's Blog

Adrian Kavanagh, 9th May 2013

A version of this article can be read in The Eurovision Handbook 2013 by Adrian Kavanagh and Johnny Fallon

One trend that seems to be fairly consistent across Eurovision Song Contests relates to the often poor performances by countries that have won the contest two years beforehand and thus hosted it the year before, in what many people refer to as the curse of last year’s hosts. (Update: No curse of last year’s hosts in 2013 as Azerbaijan finished 2nd – can Sweden evade this in 2014?)

The reason for this trend is unknown, but it may be down to a simple averaging out process in that countries that achieve significant success in the contest are, on the law of averages, due a poor result soon after this. It may also reflect a (subconscious) desire amongst the Eurovision voters not to award another victory to a country so soon after they have won the contest – a desire that may have become especially pronounced following Ireland’s run of four victories between 1992 and 1996! It may also be down to the level of effort put in by the country themselves – in what we might term the My Lovely Horse scenario, they country consciously makes an effort to avoid picking a song that will involve them hosting the contest (and taking on the costs associated with this) so soon after having just hosted it the year before and trends over the past decade would suggest that some countries are very successful in this regard. Furthermore, while a country may put a big effort into selecting a strong entrant in the year that country is hosting the contest, they may be (consciously or unconsciously) a sense of relaxing these efforts in the following year and a poor result in the contest would ensue as a result!

The incidence of the curse of last year’s host has increased in recent years, mainly due to the increased numbers of competitors in the contest allowing for the increased prospect of a very poor result for these former hosts. For instance, three of the previous years’ hosts failed to make it out of a Eurovision semi-final in the year after hosting the contest (Latvia, Serbia, Norway).

It is also worth noting that determining whether a country’s result amounts to these being “cursed” depends on what that country’s results in the contests would normally, as well as the period in which these contests are taking place. Given Russia’s strong results in the 2000s, their 11th  place in the 2010 Final amounts to a poor result for that country, although a similar result would be deemed as a very good result by most other Eurovision countries, including a number of recent winners such as Finland and Latvia. The United Kingdom’s 11th place in the 1979 Final and 12th place in the 1999 Final would be deemed as a poor result for that country at those periods of time, given the country’s run of strong results in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, but a similar result for the United Kingdom in the 2000s would be viewed as a more than acceptable one given that country’s poor run of form during the previous decade. The same thing could be said about The Duskeys 11th place result for Ireland in the 1982 Final – a result that was disappointing given Ireland’s usual results during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, but a 11th place result in a Eurovision final would have been viewed as a good one for Ireland during the 2000s. But a 11th place in the 2013 Final for Azerbaijan would be a bad result for that country, given that all of its five previous entries have finished in the Top 10 (indeed the last four entries have all finished in the Top 5) of the Eurovision Final.

The table below shows that the curse of last year’s hosts has applied on a number of occasions in the past three and a half decades, but some countries have managed to evade this, most notable the Irish entries of the 1990s (with the exception of Eddie Friel in 1995). 

Finally, it must be noted that one country seems to have especially suffered from the curse of last year’s hosts more than any other country during this period and that country is Norway, in keeping with that country’s oscillating fortunes at the contest, with a series of very poor results for Norwegian acts in the years after Norway has hosted the contest. If Norway’s Margaret Berger, currently second favourite to win this year’s contest, goes on to win this year’s Final, this may well mean that a very poor result is guaranteed for Norway at the 2015 contest!

Tags: Eurovision

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