The Wiwi Jury: Reviewing the First 21 Eurovision Reviews

The Wiwi Jury—our international panel of music un-professionals—has now completed half of our reviews for ESC 2012. As such, it’s time to review the standings, and to reflect on all the music—and short skirts—we have encountered thus far.

In recent days Deban—one-fourth of the Wiwi team—has come under attack from some of you on our comments page over his review of Romania’s entry “Zaleilah.” Wiwi, Vebooboo, and Meows Kitty all gave the song a 6 or higher—but Deban dismissed it with a 2.5. First of all, can I please ask that you NOT make death threats on our comments page? Second, I may not agree with Deban’s rating, but I 100% support him for sharing his opinion in such a public space—even if it differs from my own.

With that in mind, I now realize that ranking the songs by an average score out of ten isn’t the wisest move. Instead, we should use an ordinal system just like the Eurovision Broadcasting Union does. Jury members at the real Eurovision do not rate songs out of 10. They judge them relative to one another based on a ranking system. Wiwi opened up an Excel spread sheet, and has started playing around. You can see how the first 21 countries rank based on scores and based on rankings below. This helps reduce the effect of any “outlier” scores from our jury members (like the big fat zero Meows Kitty gave to Georgia).

How the jury scored

How the countries rank based on scores

1. Sweden: Loreen with “Euphoria” (9.25)
2. Albania: Rona Nishliu with “Suus” (Personal) (7.75)
3. Switzerland: Sinplus with “Unbreakable” (7.4)
4. Cyprus: Ivi with “La La Love” (7.13)
4. Ireland: Jedward with “Waterline” (7.13)
6. United Kingdom: Engelbert Humperdink with “Love Will Set You Free”
7. Norway: Tooji with “Stay” (6.9)
8. The Netherlands: Joan Franka with “You and Me” (6.5)
9. Denmark: Soluna Samay with “Should’ve Known Better” (6.25)
9. Romania: Mandinga with “Zaleilah” (6.25)
11. France: Anggun with “Echo (You and I)” (5.63)
11. Russia: Buranovskiye Babushki with “Party for Everybody” (5.63)
13. Slovenia: Eva Boto with “Verjamen” (4.75)
13. Ukraine: Gaitana with “Be My Guest” (4.75)
15. Hungary: Compact Disco with “Sound of Our Hearts” (4.63)
16. Austria: Trackshittaz with “Woki mit deim Popo” (4.13)
17. Turkey: Can Bonomo with “Love Me Back” (4.1)
18. Iceland: Greta Salóme & Jónsi with “Remember Me” (4)
19. Malta: Kurt Calleja with “This Is the Night (3.75)
20. Latvia: Anmary with “Beautiful Song” (2)
21. Georgia: Anri Jokhadze with “I’m a Jocker” (1.75)

ordinal rankings

At Eurovision, points are awarded to country based on where they are ranked relative to other countries. Jury members, for instance, do not rate a song out of 10. Instead, they merely rank them in the order of their preference. As such, Wiwi has gone through and determined how each individual member ranked the countries based on their raw score. For each Wiwi jury member, several countries received an 8 or a 6, etc., so that is why many countries share a ranking.

Scores and Rankings for individual jury members

wiwibloggs

vebooboo nadella

Meows Kitty

Deban aderemi