Adrian Kavanagh, 3rd May 2016
Does the language that a song is sung in matter at the Eurovision Song Contest? A review of past success levels at the contest by language, as well as a review of the numbers of times that different languages have been used since the abolition of the national language rule in 1999, would seem to confirm this. (more…)
Adrian Kavanagh, 3rd May 2016 (Updated on 4th May)
In 2016 (as in 2014 and 2015), in a break from the pattern of the previous four contests (in which no details were provided on the split televotes and jury votes of the different participating countries), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is allowing for a greater detail of voting information to be released after the Eurovision final, in part as a reaction to various vote-rigging allegations after the 2013 contest. In a bid to promote further transparency, on May 1st 2015 the European Broadcasting Union also released the names (and gender/age/profession details) of the 210 different jurors who will form the professional juries for this year’s 42 participating countries.
Adrian Kavanagh, 8th April 2016
As you may have heard, changes are being made to the voting process for the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest – changes that the official Eurovision website claim are the “biggest change to Eurovision Song Contest voting since 1975”. In reality, in some ways the changes being made are probably less dramatic than the decision to move from jury voting to televoting/public voting in 1997/1998 and the decision to revert to a 50-50 split between televoting and jury voting in 2009/2010. But there are notable changes, all the same, with these perhaps mainly relating to the manner in which the Eurovision votes are presented at the Final – changes that the EBU claim will make the contest more “exciting”. As seen in relation to the decision to have “producer-driven running orders instead of randomly drawn onces (introduced the last time Sweden hosted the contest in 2013), sometimes the effort made “in creating TV magic” can involve a lack of fairness to certain participants. (more…)
Adrian Kavanagh, 8th April 2016 (Updated: 22nd April 2016)
As I used this model to successfully predict the Azerbaijan win at the 2011 contest, Denmark’s win in 2013 and Sweden’s win in 2015, I am going to use this to tease out who the likely qualifiers will be now that we know the running order for the two 2016 Eurovision semi-finals. Those of you who have read The Eurovision Handbook 2013 (as well as the 2014 edition of this – sadly low purchase levels of this notwithstanding…) will know that I used this same model to (sort of!) successfully predict most of the qualifiers for the 2013 and 2014 finals. This same model also succeeded in predicting most of the semi-final qualifiers in the 2015 contest.
Adrian Kavanagh, 25th January 2016
In terms of working out who may win this year’s two Eurovision semi-finals/predicting which countries might qualify from these, various factors can be looked at, but the four most significant ones are:
As only a crystal ball can predict the quality and impact of the different acts’ Eurovision performances at this stage and as betting odds and draw/running order position details are not yet known, this analysis will just focus on past voting history as a means of determining which countries are likely to qualify for the 2016 Eurovision Final. (more…)
Adrian Kavanagh, 25th January 2016
The semi final allocation draw for the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest took place in Stockholm earlier this morning.
Ireland Nicky Byrne (with Sunlight) will be competing in the first half of the second Eurovision semi-final on 12th May 2016. (more…)
Adrian Kavanagh, 22nd January 2016
The draw for the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest semi finals takes place on Monday 25th January in Stockholm’s City Hall. After this draw, Ireland will know whether Nicky Byrne will be taking part in Semi Final 1 (on 10th May 2016) or Semi Final 2 (on 12th May 2016) and will also know the 17/18 other countries that will be competing against Nicky Byrne for one of the ten qualifier slots from this semi final. The three Big 5/Host countries that will have the right to vote in this semi final will also be known after this. 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…)
Adrian Kavanagh, 21st December 2015
The split voting results for the 2015 Junior Eurovision Song Contest were released today on the official contest website. In terms of Ireland’s vote patterns, some unexpected results emerge here. Aimee Banks’ Realt Na Mara was viewed as a quality, yet more challenging, entry, which was expected to rank higher amongst the jury voters than the amongst the public vote/televote, especially given that Ireland had relatively few “friends” among the other countries that were competing/also voting in this year’s contest. But it transpired that Aimee fared notably better amongst the televoters than amongst the professional jury voters – finishing in 10th place with 43 points in the televote, but finishing in 14th place with 19 points in the jury vote. (more…)
Adrian Kavanagh, 22nd November 2015
Aimee Banks finished in 12th place (with 36 points) with “Réalta Na Mara” last night in the 2015 Junior Eurovision Song Contest Final in Sofia. Aimee won points off 8 of the other 16 voting countries in last night’s contest, with her biggest tally of points coming from Malta (6), Australia (5) and Slovenia (4), with points also being won from The Netherlands (2), Georgia (2), Russia (2), Bulgaria (2) and San Marino (1). This represented the first time that an Irish act has won points off Australia, but also off Georgia, at a Eurovision contest. Aimee’s 12th place finish also represented Ireland’s best result at a Eurovision Final since Jedward’s 8th place finish at the 2011 Eurovision Final in Dusseldorf. Ireland awarded its 12 points last night to the host country, Bulgaria; being the only country to award the host the douze points at last night’s contest.
The contest resulted in a closely-fought battle between Armenia and Malta, with Malta’s Destiny Chukunyere (with Not My Soul) narrowly winning the contest ahead of Armenia’s Mika (with Love) – Malta finishing with 185 points and Armenia finishing in 2nd place with 176 points, 9 points behind. Slovenia finished in 3rd place – that country’s best ever finish in a Eurovision contest by far – with Lina Kuduzović’s Prva Ljubezen finishing with 112 points. Belarus (4th) and Albania (5th) rounded out the Top 5 – Mishela Rao’s 5th place finish was Albania’s best ever result at the Junior Eurovision to date, but also equalled Albania’s best ever result at a Eurovision Song Contest Final (Rona Nishliu’s Suus in 2012) up to this point in time. This contest also saw Montenegro’s Jana Mirković earn her country’s best ever result at a Junior Eurovision Song Contest, while equalling the best placing for Montenegro at a Eurovision Song Contest Final (Knez’s 13th place finish with Adio in the 2015 Final).
This was the third year in a row that the country who won the Kid’s Jury vote (Malta in 2013, Italy in 2014 and Malta again in 2015) has gone on to win the contest. The only time that a country won the Kid’s Jury and did not go on to win the contest was in 2012, when Georgia won the Kid’s Jury and Ukraine finished 2nd in this, but the order was reversed when it came to the final result, with a win for Ukraine and a second place finish for Georgia.
Adrian Kavanagh, 15th November 2015
The running order for Saturday night’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest was made this evening in Sofia, with a draw to determine what half of the running order the different countries/acts would perform in being followed by a running order allocation by the show producers. Hosts, Bulgaria, drew their own position in the running order, while Serbia drew to perform in first position and Montenegro drew to perform last on the night. The running order for each of the 17 countries/acts performing on Saturday night is outlined here, with a brief discussion of how acts previously performing in that position have fare in previous contests. (more…)
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