Archive for the ‘Eurovision’ Category

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The “Curse of Last Year’s Hosts” at the Eurovision Song Contest

May 9, 2013

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?)

(more…)

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Eurovision 2013 Semi Finals Running Order: What does this mean for Ireland?

March 28, 2013

Adrian Kavanagh, 28th March 2013

The running order for the two semi-finals for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest was announced today and Ireland will perform in 13th position (out of 16 countries/acts) in the first of these semi-finals. Rather controversially, this was not done this year by means of a draw as in previous contests but was decided on by the show producers, although a draw was held in January to decide whether acts would be performing in the first half or the second half of the contest.

Figure 1: Average points by draw position in Eurovision semi-finals, 2004-2012

Figure 1: Average points by draw position in Eurovision semi-finals, 2004-2012

This is not as good a draw position as Jedward enjoyed in the semi-finals of 2011 and 2012, but as Figure 1 above shows it is still, on average, one of the better draw positions a country can hope to get in a Eurovision semi-final. The 13th draw position would rank as the fourth best draw position to get if based on the average number of points won by acts performing in that draw position across all semi-finals since 2004, as compared with the points averages for acts performing in other draw positions. Ryan Dolan will also be performing after a female ballad (in Romanian) from Moldova and before a female ballad (in Greek) from Cyprus, allowing his up-tempo dance song a better chance of standing out in this competition. But Ewan Spence on the ESC Insight website actually sees this aspect as a weakness, arguing that the jarring contrasts between the Moldovan, Irish and Cypriot entries means that he “wouldn’t rate Ireland at more than a 50/50 shot right now”.  (more…)

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Who’s who in Ireland’s 2013 Eurovision Song Contest semi final?: aka Can Ireland make it to the Final?

January 31, 2013

Adrian Kavanagh.

39 countries will be competing in this  year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The previous post identified the countries that Ireland’s 2013 entry, Ryan Dolan with Only Love Survives, will be facing in the first semi final of Eurovision Song Contest 2013 on May 14th 2013, as well as the other countries (“Big 5″/Hosts group) that will be voting in this semi final.

Figure 1: Average points awarded to Irish acts by country in all Eurovision Song Contest finals and semi finals between 1998 and 2012

Figure 1: Average points awarded to Irish acts by country in all Eurovision Song Contest finals and semi finals between 1998 and 2012

This post will look at these countries in some more detail. The good news is that, unlike previous years, this time around Ireland would seem to be favoured to qualify from this semi-final on the basis of the past voting history of the countries voting in this particular semi-final (see Figure 1 above) and on how Ireland’s semi-final qualification record compares with most of the other countries competing in this semi -final. But the doomsday prognostications of 2011 and 2012 did not pan out and the Irish act did go on to make it to the final, so maybe the reverse will happen in 2013? 😮  (more…)

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Carlsberg don’t do Eurovision draws but if they did…

January 17, 2013

Adrian Kavanagh, 17th January 2013

The draw for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest semi finals took place today in Malmo in Sweden. In fairness, it’s hard to see how it could have gone much better for Ireland and what we got wasn’t too far off the dream draw outlined in yesterday’s post.  (more…)

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Analysis of the draw for 2013 Eurovision semi finals. What countries does Ireland want to be drawn with or avoid?

January 16, 2013

Adrian Kavanagh, 16th January 2013

The draw for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest semi finals takes place tomorrow in Malmo in Sweden. After this draw, Ireland will know what semi final its act will be taking part in, the countries that will be competing against this act for one of the ten qualifier slots from this semi final and (pretty importantly!) the three Big 5/Host countries that will have the right to vote in this semi final. This post will assess the possibilities facing Ireland ahead of this draw and pinpoint what would be an ideal/nightmare draw for the Irish act.  (more…)

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United Kingdom releases Eurovision jury vote details

June 19, 2012

Adrian Kavanagh 19th June 2012

Figure 1: United Kingdom jury votes for 2012 Eurovision Final as compared with actual (combined televote/jury vote) votes awarded by United Kingdom in that final

Following on yesterday’s release by the European Broadcasting Union of the total jury and televote scores for countries in the two semi finals and the final and the release of detailed jury vote details for a number of countries including Ireland (as discussed in an earlier post), the United Kingdom today released its jury vote details for the second semi final and the final. While the United Kingdom jury was not in a position to vote for Ireland in the semi final (as Jedward took part in Semi Final 1), the United Kingdom jury decided not to award Jedward any points in the Final, instead giving their higher marks to Spain, Estonia and Malta. A comparison between the jury vote and the actual (combined televote/jury vote) scores from the United Kingdom wouldhowever suggest that Jedward probably got the douze points mark from the United Kingdom televote (Figure 1) and that countries such as Turkey and Lithuania also scored well in the United Kingdom televote.

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2012 Eurovision Televote and Jury Vote Figures Released: An Analysis

June 18, 2012

Adrian Kavanagh, 18th June 2012

Figure 1: Map showing difference between televotes and jury votes won by Eurovision countries in the 2012 Final. (Or in the semi finals if countries did not qualify for the Final: semi final votes are standardised so that these are equivalent relative the increased number of countries voting in the Final)

The European Broadcasting Union has today released jury vote and televote details for the recent Eurovision Song Contest final and two semi finals – someweeks later than the 2011 figures were released last year (although this year’s contest was of course held some weeks later than the 2011 contest) – and these figures throw up some interesting findings as was the case for the 2010 figures. (more…)

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Eurovision Song Contest 2012 – How did the Irish jury vote in the Final and Semi Final?

June 13, 2012

Adrian Kavanagh, 13th June 2012

The German Eurovision website, eurovision.de, has today revealed how the Irish Eurovision jury voted in this year’s semi final and final and throws up some interesting trends.

Figure 1: Irish jury votes and actual votes for the 2012 Eurovision Final

In the Eurovision Final the Irish jury gave its highest points to Estonia, followed by Germany, Sweden, Ukraine and Italy (Figure 1). (more…)

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The real winner of Eurovision 2012 is…er the actual winner, Sweden

May 30, 2012

Adrian Kavanagh, 30th May 2012

Who would have won the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest if the advantages helping some competing countries arising from traditional patterns of “friends and neighbours” voting and diaspora voting (or bloc voting) had no impact on this year’s result? This post attempts to tease this out by comparing the number of points won by each country in Saturday night’s final against the number of points that each country would have been predicted to receive based on the past patterns of voting of those countries that were voting in this year’s contest, as was outlined in an earlier post. In a similar analysis for last year’s final, it was found that Ireland would have been the country who would have won that year’s contest if friends and neighbours/diaspora voting had not had an impact. So which country would have “won” this year? (more…)

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Money, Money, Money? : Economic weakness, Eurovision success

May 29, 2012

Adrian Kavanagh, 29th May 2012

The 2012 Eurovision Song Contest was won by Sweden, a country with one of the highest GDP per capita levels in Europe, while the 2009 and 2010 contests were also won by countries that rank amongst the most economically developed in Europe, namely Norway and Germany. However, the general trend in Eurovisions since the introduction of televoting in 1998 has been for the contest to be dominated by the more economically underdeveloped countries in the eastern part of the continent, meaning that there is a largely inverse relationship between levels of economic well-being (GDP per capital levels) and Eurovision success (as measured by the average number of points won by countries in all Eurovision contests competed in since 1998).  

Figure 1: Scatterplot showing the relationship between average Eurovision points (1998-2012) GDP per capita (Source: CIA World Factbook 2012) by country

(more…)

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