Adrian Kavanagh's Blog

Adrian Kavanagh, 21st May 2015

Song, performance and staging matter in terms of ultimate Eurovision success. “Diaspora” and “friends and neighbours” voting can also help a country’s prospects of doing well in the contest, though of course not in themselves proving sufficient to win the contest for those countries that can especially benefit from these voting trends. But another key factor that can shape a country’s hopes of winning the contest is the position in the contest running order that they get to perform in, with the usual rule of thumb suggesting that a later draw position will significantly help a country’s hopes of doing well in the contest. Positions in the running order had traditionally been decided by a draw up to the 2012 contest. But since the 2012 contest in Malmo, participating countries have just drawn to decide whether they will perform in the first half or second half of a contest, with the host TV producers then deciding the running order based on what combination of entries works the best in terms of producing a better TV show. (The host country is the only one that draws to decide their position in the Final running order). 

Eurovision wins and draw position in the 2000s

Table 1a: Draw position of winning Eurovision acts in both finals during the 2000s

As Table 1 shows, most of the countries that have won Eurovision Finals during the 2000s have tended to enjoy the advantages of a late draw position. The main exception here is the 2003 contest in which Turkey managed to narrowly win the contest (a two point win over Belgium’s Sanomi which was performed in 22nd position on the night) while performing 4th on the night of what was (up to 2012) the largest ever final in Eurovision history with 26 acts performing. The only other exceptions here relates to 2004 and 2014. Ukraine’s Wild Dances won the contest while performing in 10th position on Final night. Between Ukraine’s 2004 win and 2014, none of the winning acts in Eurovision Finals have performed any earlier than 17th on Eurovision Final night, meaning that the winners of these finals had come exclusively from the last third of the draw. This pattern was broken in 2014, when Austria’s Conchita Wurst won the Final, while performing 11th on the night.

Table 1b: Draw position of winning Eurovision acts in semi-finals during the 2000s

In the semi-finals (Table 1b), as there have usually been fewer countries competing, especially in recent years since the introduction of the two semi-finals system in 2008, there has been a tendency for more wins by acts drawn to perform earlier in the show. (Most of these early wins tend to be from entries, such as Austria in 2014 or Denmark in 2013, which go on to win the actual contest.) But there is also still an obvious advantage here towards acts performing later in the show with three of these semi-finals being won by acts drawn to perform from last position in the show (Greece in 2008 and 2011, Turkey in 2010). (There is also an interesting pattern here wherein a number of the acts that went on to win the contest are shown not to have won their preceding semi-final, including Azerbaijan in 2011, Russia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2004.)

In fact despite the stronger showing of the later performing acts, none of the Eurovision finals during the period have been won by an act that performed last on the night in these contests (and you have to go back to 1989 for the last act to win a Eurovision final from the last performance position – Yugoslavia’s Riva with Rock Me). But there have been two instances in the 2000s where Eurovision finals have been won by acts that performed in the second-last draw position, namely Latvia’s I Wanna in 2002 and Russia’s Believe in 2008.

Draw position and the Eurovision semi finals

Figure 1: Average points by draw position in Eurovision semi-finals, 2004-2014

As Figure 1 shows, when looking at the average number of points won by acts in these contests, there is a general tendency here for acts drawn to perform in the latter part of the semi-finals to do better than those drawn to perform earlier on the night. The best draw position to get statistically in a semi-final is to be drawn to perform in last position on the night. It is worth noting that the last position draw does not necessarily guarantee qualification. Indeed it has been a graveyard position for a number of up-tempo acts in the past (Ireland in the 26-country 2013 final, Serbia in the first 2013 semi-final, Spain in the 2009 final, Slovenia in the 26-country 2003 final, The Netherlands in the second 2009 semi-final) – although this was not the case with the up-tempo acts drawn to perform from last place in the 2010 semis, as Turkey won their semi-final and Iceland finished third the other one, while Greece went on to win the other 2011 semi-final while performing from last position.

There is a general trend also that ballad or mid-tempo entries tend to do much better from the last draw position than the more up-tempo entries do, but especially in the finals which tend to be longer and in which viewers may be more in the mood for more mellow fare after having already listened to twenty-four or twenty-five other acts prior to this. There is not a straight-forward relationship at play here with certain mid-contest draw positions proving to be more advantageous draw positions than some of the later draw positions. In a similar vein, performing first on the night is not statistically the worst position to be drawn to perform in (and this is actually a draw position that can work well for certain types of entries, especially the more up-tempo numbers). Instead the worst draw position to be in statistically in a semi-final is 3rd position. Being drawn in 2nd position at a Final is traditionally the real Eurovision “draw of death” – and no entry performed from 2nd place has ever won a Eurovision final or semi-final to date. In 2009 Ireland’s Sinéad Mulvey and Black Daisy unluckily missed out on the final after having attained the cursed 2nd draw position, but their result was much better than that of the Czech Republic’s entrants, who attained the dreaded nil points after being drawn to perform second in the other semi-final of that year. The 2010 Oslo final saw the poison chalice of performing second in the final fall to Spain, but luckily for them their act was intruded on by an “over-enthusiastic” fan and Spain were invited to perform again at the end of the show, thus attaining a more desired draw position by default (and no doubt gaining some extra Eurovision points as a result).

Figure 2: Qualification levels by position in the Eurovision semi-final running order between 2008 and 2014. (Note: a yellow square denotes qualification.)

As Figure 2 shows, there have been notable differences between the different semi-final draw positions in terms of the number of acts that have successfully qualified for the contest final after having performed in these draw positions. (Successful draw positions are highlighted in yellow, with the last draw position in each semi-final being made evident by a heavier border.) Looking at the period from 2008 onwards, given that the two semi-finals system was introduced in that year, a number of trends become readily apparent.

First of all, certain draw positions (14^th, 18^th, 19^th, 17^th) have higher than average number numbers of qualifiers associated with these, but acts performing from other draw positions (11^th, 5^th, 3^rd, 4^th, 8^th) across these contests have tended to be more likely not to qualify than to qualify based on the trends noted above. The advantage of having a very late draw position – and especially those of performing either in the last or second-last draw positions – also becomes evident here.

Most of the acts that have performed either in the second-last or last draw positions in these semi-finals have gone on to qualify for the Eurovision final: the only exceptions being (for acts performing in second-last position) Switzerland in the second 2013 semi-final and FYR Macedonia in the second 2008 semi-final and (for acts performing last on the night) Serbia in the first 2013 semi-final and The Netherlands in the first semi-final of 2010.

Somewhat confusing these trends is the unusual qualification system associated with the 2008 and 2009 contests, in which the country finishing in tenth place in the televote was not guaranteed qualification for the final but could miss out at the expense of a lower placed entry if that entry scored higher amongst the back-up juries. Thus, Sweden (performing 2^nd on the night) qualified for the 2008 final due to a strong ranking from the Eurovision back-up juries, even though the Swedish act finished in 12^th place in the semi-final televote behind tenth-placed FYR Macedonia (performing 18^th on the night, as highlighted in grey) and Bulgaria. Had the qualifications in this case been based solely on the televote and the Macedonian act had qualified, this would have meant that every one of the acts that performed second from the end in these last fourteen semi-finals, apart from Switzerland in 2013, would have been successful in terms of qualifying for the final!

Songs are not disadvantaged from being placed next in the draw besides (other) strong entries. The fear has been that songs might find it difficult to stand out if they are in the same part of the draw as a strong entry or a number of strong entries, but the chart above suggests the opposite – that songs are probably more likely to be overlooked by the voters if they find themselves next in the draw to a number of (other) weaker Eurovision entries. Figure 2 suggests that, over these recent semi-finals, songs have probably had a better chance of making it to the Eurovision final when they were scheduled to perform before or after other qualifying entries. The chart shows a tendency for non-qualifier draw positions to cluster together in a similar vein to the manner that qualifier draw positions likewise cluster together.

Draw position and the Eurovision final

When it comes to the Eurovision final, a late draw position again offers countries a better chance of success with generally higher average points over the past decade of Eurovision finals being associated with those countries that have received the later draw positions. However, it is interesting to note from the chart below (Figure 3) that being drawn to perform in last place is not the best draw position statistically to get in a Eurovision final, as opposed to the trend noted earlier for the Eurovision semi-finals. The 26th position in the running order – across the four finals that have included 26 countries (2003, 2012-2014) – has been an especially poor one in terms of the relative success levels of the countries performing from that slot.

Figure 3: Average points by draw position in Eurovision finals, 2003-2014

The best draw positions to get statistically based on this analysis (Figure 3) would be the 17^th and 18^th positions in the Eurovision final running order, although a number of the later positions in the running order – 21^st, 22^nd, 24^th and 25^th – are also associated with higher than average points levels. In the earlier part of the show, the 10^th and 11^th positions in the Eurovision final running order are seen to be best to get in the first half of the show based on voting patterns in previous contests. The worst draw position to get, according to the past voting statistics, in a Eurovision final is the 2^nd draw position, with the next worst being the 4^th and 9^th positions in the running order. The 3^rd place draw position proves not to be the worst to get in statistical terms in a final, as opposed to the case for semi-finals, but along with the first, 15^th and 26^th positions in the running order it can be shown to still compare unfavourably with other potential draw positions.

Indeed, the impact of getting to perform in first position in the Eurovision Final running order can vary depending on the type of song being performed. More up-tempo songs can do well from this draw position, as with the entries from Cyprus (2002), Iceland (2003) and the contest winners from The Netherlands (1975) and 1976), but ballad type entries can struggle from this position in the running order, as happened over the past five contests with low scores for the ballad acts from Romania (2008), Lithuania (2009), Finland (2011) and the United Kingdom (2012).

Tags: Eurovision

This entry was posted on May 21, 2015 at 11:20 am and is filed under Eurovision, Voting analysis. 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.