The EBU has revealed the Eurovision 2015 semi final split results, and they suggest that the professional juries focused on the music rather than the moving backstories.
In semi final 1, Finland’s Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät (PKN) — whose members have Down syndrome and autism — showed the world that people with special needs can rock out. The jury ranked them dead last anyway, awarding them just one point. That put them 41 points behind next-to-last Macedonia. Had the semi been determined strictly by the televote, PKN would have advanced. The public gave them 51 points, which was good enough for tenth place.
In semi final 2, Poland’s Monika Kuszynska told a story of perseverance — and flashed images of herself from before the tragic car accident that left her paraplegic in 2006. It didn’t help. The jury ranked her next-to-last with just 10 points. That’s a staggering 104 points less than the public, who ranked her fourth.
Interestingly, the jury also hurt pre-contest favourites Elina & Stig from Estonia. While the public ranked them second in semi final 1 with 129 points, the jury thought they were only good enough for tenth. They handed them just 60 points.
You can see the full jury-televote split for each semi final below, along with a table that shows the difference between jury votes and televotes. What surprises you? And who has better taste: The public or the professionals?
Semi final 1 split results
Semi final 1: Who the jury hurt
The jury helped Trijntje from the Netherlands more than anyone else in this heat, giving her 47 more points than the public. They also threw major love at Uzari & Maimuna from Belarus (+33) and Greece’s Maria Elena Kyriakou (+30). Besides Finland’s PKN and Estonia’s Elina & Stig, they also hurt Serbia’s Bojana Stamenov (-35) and Romania’s Voltaj (-29).
A positive difference shows the jury helped an act, while a negative difference shows they hurt them.
| Country | Jury | Televote | Difference |
| Netherlands | 70 | 23 | 47 |
| Belarus | 65 | 32 | 33 |
| Greece | 89 | 59 | 30 |
| Denmark | 51 | 23 | 28 |
| Belgium | 139 | 112 | 27 |
| Hungary | 68 | 45 | 23 |
| Macedonia | 42 | 22 | 20 |
| Russia | 159 | 145 | 14 |
| Moldova | 46 | 48 | -2 |
| Albania | 61 | 66 | -5 |
| Georgia | 90 | 96 | -6 |
| Armenia | 54 | 80 | -26 |
| Romania | 64 | 93 | -29 |
| Serbia | 43 | 78 | -35 |
| Finland | 1 | 51 | -50 |
| Estonia | 60 | 129 | -69 |
Reacting to the semi final 1 split
Semi final 2 split results
Semi final 2: Who the jury hurt
Ireland’s Molly Sterling was the biggest benefactor of jury love. She got an extra 70 points from the professionals. Malta’s Amber (+52), Norway’s Morland & Debrah Scarlett (+40), and Latvia’s Aminata (+39) also got some major love.
Beside’s Poland’s Monika, the jury also lowered the overall score of Lithuania’s Monika & Vaidas (-46) and Israel’s Nadav Guedj (-43), among others.
A positive difference shows the jury helped an act, while a negative difference shows they hurt them.
| Country | Jury | Televote | Difference |
| Ireland | 84 | 14 | 70 |
| Malta | 84 | 32 | 52 |
| Norway | 144 | 104 | 40 |
| Latvia | 155 | 116 | 39 |
| Azerbaijan | 67 | 37 | 30 |
| Sweden | 208 | 195 | 13 |
| Switzerland | 15 | 6 | 9 |
| Portugal | 23 | 24 | -1 |
| Cyprus | 76 | 80 | -4 |
| Iceland | 15 | 21 | -6 |
| San Marino | 6 | 16 | -10 |
| Montenegro | 47 | 58 | -11 |
| Slovenia | 84 | 95 | -11 |
| Czech Republic | 34 | 51 | -17 |
| Israel | 114 | 157 | -43 |
| Lithuania | 52 | 98 | -46 |
| Poland | 10 | 114 | -104 |
Reacting to the semi final 2 split
Read more about Eurovision 2015 voting here
Photo: Eurovision.tv (EBU)
@Racal: I could hear the booing when Moldova gave 12 points to Romania… @lacrymea: Elhaida sang quite well at the jury semi-final, actually, and certainly much better than the televised semi-final. Here’s a link to the jury semi-final performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8oaAtHIITs This performance was also better than the jury final performance, where she earned only 4 points in the jury-only vote. I wish we could have a link to the jury semifinal performance as it would look if it were televised. The one thing I can’t really understand is how the jury ranked Italy so low compared to Sweden. The jury… Read more »
is this a 50 50 split?
JURIES DO IT AGAIN FOR POLAND
I HATE JURIES!!!
“Bojana ranked so low? Wanna know wgy?”
I know exactly why. They didn’t think her song and performance were as good as some of the others. (Neither did I, FWIW.)
Why does everyone feel such an obsessive need to overthink this?
One of my dreams was someday trying Eurovision after seeing Diana Gurtskaya reaching the final. Those days are over. After reading this crappy jury’s judgement I won’t even bother trying A Dal. Dream is over. Some people are tolerant. Music industry and “expert” juries are not. Bojana ranked so low? Wanna know wgy? She’s fat, the “experts” are looking for yummy performers, Russia… Belgium, Sweden… mhm…
I see the juries ranked Serbia 14 th in the semi final… I thought that juries would like our song but it turns out they didn’t. It was same in the final, they ranked us 24th. Luckily, televoting saved us so we finished 10th. What do you think, was our song good or not?
I am so dissapointed in the televoting, cause i wanted The Netherlands in the final! Okeeee, they placed 15 in the televoting and 5 in the jury’s, but then they came in place 14!!! This is a very bad system!
nothing will change in the voting because the EBU has no motivation to change this idiotic system whereby each one of us can actually guess accurately who will give the high points to whom. I communicated with the EBU and they basically said – predictable voting? What predictable voting?
@mawnck
If it was true she was booed at, I think all people who booed at Polina should be ashamed of themselves. That’s just despicable.
“Did Polina cry because she was booed at? I got the impression that it was from the excitement, but I read on Wikipedia that it was because she was booed at. If that’s true, then that’s awful.”
I’ve been hearing from several people who were there that it was the booing, and it was epic. They installed “anti-booing technology” (basically an applause track + sound isolation to prevent the boos from leaking into onstage microphones) and made extensive use of it on the broadcast.
“For me, the most surprising about the split results is that some people at home actually picked up their phone and voted for San Marino…Why?” I was sitting at home watching San Marino and saying to myself “this is WAY better than everyone’s been saying”. Seriously – the camera work and staging of the first two minutes were a master class in how to make a weak entry look absolutely wonderful, and they were singing great as well. For me, nothing could save it from the cheese-pocalypse starting with the spoken section, but I can understand how some casuals might’ve… Read more »
Watching these videos, it’s surprising how wiwibloggs really favours some songs over others, and keeps favouring them even after horrible performances on the Eurovision stage. In my opinion, Angus is right. The Azerbaijan song is, was, and remains forever dull, and the staging was quite simply atrocious. Also, can we just confirm that Alhaida never brought it and certainly never ‘slayed’. She chose to sing a song at Eurovision that was clearly out of her league. The performance during the final was slightly better (only slightly) but it still sounded absolutely horrific. If you choose to perform at Eurovision with… Read more »
Let’s not forget that the juries were judging a different performance, ones which those of us not in Vienna never saw. In my view that’s unsatisfactory because what if someone suffers a mishap in the jury final and then sings brilliantly on the night. The average contest fan won’t understand what caused their favourite to be marked down. If we all voted on the same set of performances, there wouldn’t be the need for inquests such as this.
I have no idea why the juri ranked Estonia so low… It’s all beyond me. To put this song lower than The Netherlands, Hungary or Albania (she was always off key) is a joke. I don’t know what they had in mind, but for me this was the injustice of ESC.
In my opinion, a song should benefit from a good ranking in the national jury vote or in the national televote, even if it does not rank well in the other. The problem with the current voting system is that a bad ranking in one can completely cancel a good ranking in the other. Especially since the juries determine the complete ranking of all participants, they in principle have the power to cancel any televote by putting a song in the last position. This happened to Italy to some extent. Austria, on the other hand, was killed by the televote,… Read more »
With this system, some funny combinations can happen. For example, Switzerland got more points in the jury voting and in the televoting than in the overall voting. Also, although they placed last overall, they effectively came last only in one country (Malta).
@skl: thank you very much dor clarifying that, I finally got it ;))
I am a fan of Malta, that’s why I paid attention… I guess better consistancy between televote / juries really pays off! Oh, wait, that’s why Sweden won! :).
Is somehow seems strange, or maybe it’s just me being biased…
Anyhow, something definitely needs to change with this voting system… Several proposals were made on this blog, hopefully someone with deciding powees pays attention!
@Daniel_2015
PS: For example a song can be ranked 1st in all the national juries and last in all the national televotings, resulting in 0 points overall. Still it would be 1st in the jury ranking and the combination you suggested would give it a better result.
@Daniel_2015 For the actual ranking, the jury and televotes are combined into a single ranking WITHIN each country. The split rankings shown here are just hypothetical rankings that would result if only the national jury/televotes would count. They are not used during the calculation of the actual points. To find out why a certain country is ranked above another one, you would have to consult the individual rankings within each country. Since the ranking procedure is non-linear, it is totally possible that country A is ranked above country B in a combination of these split rankings, but in the actual… Read more »
@Vladimir: I know that they implemented an “anti-booing” thing this year, so that you cannot hear the people booing on television. So I do think that Polina was booed every time she was getting high marks, even though we couldn’t hear it. Anybody who was in the audience can confirm? That would explain why she was crying so much, and why Conchita repeated 4 times “Don’t worry, you deserve to be in the lead”. That would also explain why there was no booing when Moldova gave their 12 points to Romania (what a surprise, right?). Btw, I ran into this… Read more »
Since there are two winners this year maybe Sweden and Italy could co-host 🙂
I don’t think the juries should be removed, EVER! I was a big supporter of Italy this year and they would have won without the juries, but let’s just face it: the contest has seen a huge improvement in quality since the re-introduction of juries. They are the only barrier against diaspora voting; without them you give an unfair advantage to countries with a huge diaspora across Europe like Turkey, Romania or Albania. Don’t forget that the juries ranked Italy 1st in 2011, so we had a opposite situation then: Italy would have won without the televotes (not Azerbaijan). You… Read more »
It is ridiculous that the jury judges different performances. Why is that? So if country X sing well on Friday and bad on Saturday the EBU combines the votes? ????? And we cannot check the other performances!
I’m shocked that Estonia was so low!
I would like to ask something non-related to voting. Did Polina cry because she was booed at? I got the impression that it was from the excitement, but I read on Wikipedia that it was because she was booed at. If that’s true, then that’s awful.
Daniel is right… how could Azerbaijan qualify instead of Malta? Weird…
Malta , Azerbaijan and sometimes Lithuania juries love in semifinal , in final they like Sweden and sometimes Italy
Never Remove Jury Vote, NEVER! I think overall they’re right… Ireland did was really good and music PROFESSIONALS loved it, so did i. Finland would have advanced if there was no jury… if that happends eurovision would have been a joke. Indeed the Netherlands desurved to advanced aswell! Trijntje already said its not only about music however the jury cares about the quality of the song and voices. Poland should’ve done better… or her voice was terrible at the night she had to peform before them. Hold the jury but i think next year they should give us the jury… Read more »
Finland got 1 point from juries, and that 1 points gave Serbia to Finland. Finland was on 10 place with Serbia juries and 6 in televote combined rank 7 and 4 points for Finland. In Estonia , Finland was 1 in televote , 12 with juries , combined rank 7 and 4 points from Estonia to Finland.
The jury system is perfectly fair. They don’t see the televotes in advance and decide what needs to be adjusted. They just vote for what they think is best. It provides balance because, like many people visiting this blog, jurors typically will have listened to the songs many more times than the average viewer.
I think that Wiwibloggs will address this anyway, but I would be fascinated to hear Angus’s views on the ‘soundbrushing’ we heard on the live broadcasts from Vienna. I was very upset by this, because one of the most enjoyable parts of the contest is to hear spontaneous crowd noise, positive or negative. Plus singing along. Instead we got waves of generic cheering which didn’t seem to be related to anything in particular. No-one I’ve asked in Vienna has been able to give me an insight as yet.
EBU should remove the jury votes, take Sweden for example, how can you commend such a big responsibility to a 16 years old jury like ISA, I mean come on.
Can someone please explain to me how come Azerbaijan qualified from SF2, and Malta didn’t?
Maybe (most likely) my calculation are stupid, but:
1.
– Malta was 12th in televoting and 5th with the juries. If we add, total 17
– Azerbaijan was 11th and 9th respectively, total 20 (bigger than 17, isn’t it?!)
2.
– Malta got 32 points from televoting and 84 from juries. Total 116
– Azerbaijan got 37 points from televoting and 67 from juries. Total 104 (smaller than 116)
What am I missing, people?!
I’m glad that televoters liked Polish song.
Juries should have removed Azerbaijan instead of Czech Republic. EBU is really enjoying Azerbaijan’s continuing streak to the grand finals.
Estonia was my favorite. Perhaps the juries wanted more of a “We Are the World” type of song. “Heroes,” or “A Million Voices.” A song which sends a positive message, instead of just a really great song about a couple on the verge of breaking up.
Come to think of it, it’s NOT sounding like a typical Eurovision song is what made me love it in the first place!
Thank to jury we another year was robbed but better place in rank, the same with Donatan and Cleo… But still a lot of people in Poland watched final – it was 6,1 mln people.
The public is fairer and has better taste. Kick the juries out
In my opinion some of those “proffesionals” seem to know less about music than the usual people watching the contest. It’s ridiculous how low they placed Estonia, the voting system should be changed to either 100% televoting or 30% jury and 70% televote. Also I think it’s sad that Italy didn’t win because of the juries, I mean Måns was great but it isn’t like we’ve never heard a song like “Heroes” before and will never hear it again. In the other hand, “Grande Amore” was different and special, I doubt that we’ll see somithing like that in eurovision anytime… Read more »
they kicked the Czech Republic out omg
that’s horrible
The so-called ”jurors” who placed Estonia in their bottom 5 should be permanently banned from being given such duties… Just ridiculous…
maslo, the loss for Poland was nothing compared to Italy, who wuz robbed!
So where are the jury defenders now?
They lifted Hungary in, kicked Finland out. They lifted Azerbaijan in, kicked Czech Republic out.
What, exactly is the justification that the votes of one of these people should count more than the votes of a hundred thousand of us?
Because the split results show very clearly that they don’t know better than us what constitutes good music and what doesn’t.
Second year in a row that Azerbaijan is 11th in the televote, they wouldn’t have qualified in the last two years based on televote alone, now that’s a SHOCKER! Thought they were untouchable. Juries have saved them in both years!
I loved Estonia. That is a big surprise the juries didn’t like them :/
Can’t believe juries hated Poland so much. I didn’t expect it to be a top performer, but it was hit HARD
juries robbed czech republic!!!!
You seem to be wondering what happened to Elhaida Dani from Albania. I think I may know: her live vocals were horrible. I’m a big fan of the studio version, I had her 5th in my personal ranking, but when I heard the performance… Eurk. She was pitchy and off key, it really was painful to listen to. Was she sick? Or stressed out? I don’t know, but I was really disappointed and I’m not surprised the juries killed her. It’s too bad cause I think her song was a thousand times better than the horrible “Suus” song that placed… Read more »
Shame on the juries for destroying Estonia’s good results.
They were told to eliminate every favorite that isn’t Sweden or Russia. This is disgusting. Shame on them!!!
The televoting points for Greece are actually 61.