Adrian Kavanagh's Blog

Who are countries likely to give the big points to in tonight’s Final? The table below presents the most likely suspects for each of the countries voting tonight in the order that they have been scheduled to present their votes tonight, based on these countries’ patterns of Eurovision Song Contest voting since the introduction of televoting in 1998. This analysis just looks at voting patterns for the 26 countries taking part in tonight’s final and it must be noted that some of the countries listed below would traditionally give higher points levels to other countries that may have been eliminated this year at the semi-final stage (such as the three Baltic states or countries such as Moldova, Georgia or Ireland) or to countries that are not taking part in this year’s contest (such as Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia). Diaspora votes that may usually have gone to Turkey may go instead to Azerbaijan (as seems to have happened at the 2011 Final and the 2013 contest), while Montenegro and Slovenia may well be the beneficiaries of support from the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian diasporas. A full outline of the usual voting patterns of all these countries (including losing semi-finalists in this year’s contest and countries that did not take part in 2014) may be viewed in The 2014 Eurovision Handbook, which is still available in e-book format at the price of €4.99 with all profits (if any!) from this going to the Irish Cancer Society.

So the following table identifies the four countries from this year’s group of 26 finalists that have won the highest average points from each of the 37 voting countries in previous contests since the introduction of televoting in 1998:

The order in which countries present has, in recent years, been selected in such a way as to make for the most exciting voting process possible. In this vein, it is perhaps indicative that a large number of Nordic Bloc countries figure in the latter half of the voting running order, maybe suggesting that the Jury Final results are pointing towards a win by one of the countries from the Nordic Bloc (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, United Kingdom or (eeek!) Iceland). The predominance of countries from Eastern Europe in the first quarter of the running order, with a higher number of Western countries emerging in the second half of the voting running order, may indicate an expectation that the contest will be one by an act from the western part of the continent, though against that it must be noted that Armenia would traditionally score well with a number of the last group of countries to vote. In a similar vein, it is interesting to note that Switzerland and Slovenia – the two countries most likely to support Austria at Eurovision – fall within the last three countries that will be voting tonight.

In the early stages of the voting, watch out especially for countries that are consistently getting high votes from countries that they would not traditionally win high points from. This would suggest that these countries are well on course to achieve a very good result in this year’s Final and possibly go on to win it! Compare the actual points given tonight with the trends suggested by this table as the early round of voting proceeds and this may give some early indications as to who the likely winner will be. When one looks at the countries who will be presenting their votes first (say the first nine countries to vote – up until Russia), it should not be that surprising if countries such as Azerbaijan, Greece, Armenia and Ukraine figure among the early leaders, with countries such as Italy, Norway, Russia and Malta also well up the scoreboard at the point in time. Countries such as Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Armenia or Greece would probably need to have established somewhat of a lead at this stage (after the Russia vote) if they were to be in a position to go on to win this year’s contest. If Sweden is already in the Top 3, or even in the lead, at this point in time, then this would indicate that they have a good chance of being top of the leader-board by the time the voting sequence has concluded. If they are already ahead at this stage, then a landslide victory may well be in store. If Sweden is close to the lead, or in the lead, by the time the first half of the voting sequence has finished, then they would be expected to move into the lead as the next set of countries give their votes, given that so many Nordic Bloc countries fall into this section of the voting running order. In a similar vein, if countries such as Austria, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom or Denmark are already in the Top 5 of the table (or close to it) at this stage then this would suggest that these are in a position to mount a challenge as the voting progresses further.

This entry was posted on May 10, 2014 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Eurovision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.