The BBC has released the results of the U.K. jury for the first semi-final and grand final. Guess what: Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest didn’t win the British jury vote in either part of the contest. Instead, that honor went to Russia’s Dina Garipova. Apparently Britain’s music professionals love their dairy products: “What If?” was pure cheese, y’all!
As part of the Big Five, Britain only voted in one semi-final (the first) and the grand final. As such, we’ve listed the results for each of these below. There are two columns. The first shows how the U.K. jury ranked the songs. The second shows where that contestant came overall with the U.K. (We only know places 1 through 10, based on who received 12, 10, 8…1 points). If the overall U.K. rank is significantly lower than the U.K. jury rank, then you can be safe that the jury really helped that contestant out (and that the public wasn’t feeling it). Such is the case with Austria’s Natalia Kelly who came second with the U.K. jury in the first semi-final, but only 10th with the U.K. overall. The public just wasn’t into “Shine”.
In instances where the overall rank is significantly higher than the jury rank, you can safely assume that the jury hurt that contestant. Such is the case with Romania’s Cezar Ouatu. The British jury ranked him a disappointing 16th, but he still managed to finish 7th overall with the U.K. That means the public must have rated him pretty highly. The same can be said of Ireland’s Ryan Dolan. The U.K. jury put him way down in 22nd, but he still came 10th overall with the U.K. Looks like the Irish diaspora in Britain threw some love his way.
What do you think of the results below? Are you surprised the U.K. jury ranked Russia and Belgium higher than Denmark?
First Semi-Final
The five-member jury in the UK ranked the songs in the first semi final in the following order:
| U.K. jury rank | Final U.K. rank | |
| Russia | 1 | 2 |
| Austria | 2 | 10 |
| Denmark | 3 | 1 |
| Estonia | 4 | 7 |
| Belgium | 5 | 6 |
| Netherlands | 6 | 3 |
| Moldova | 7 | |
| Belarus | 8 | |
| Ukraine | 9 | 9 |
| Ireland | 10 | 5 |
| Lithuania | 11 | 4 |
| Slovenia | 12 | |
| Cyprus | 13 | 8 |
| Serbia | 14 | |
| Croatia | 15 | |
| Montenegro | 16 |
Grand Final
And this is how the jury ranked the songs in the final:
| U.K. jury rank | Final U.K. rank | |
| Russia | 1 | 2 |
| Belgium | 2 | 8 |
| Denmark | 3 | 1 |
| Estonia | 4 | |
| Ukraine | 5 | 6 |
| Netherlands | 6 | 5 |
| Georgia | 7 | |
| Belarus | 8 | |
| Azerbaijan | 9 | |
| Iceland | 10 | 9 |
| Moldova | 11 | |
| Malta | 12 | 4 |
| Greece | 13 | 3 |
| France | 14 | |
| Armenia | 15 | |
| Romania | 16 | 7 |
| Italy | 17 | |
| Germany | 18 | |
| Sweden | 19 | |
| Hungary | 20 | |
| Norway | 21 | |
| Ireland | 22 | 10 |
| Finland | 23 | |
| Lithuania | 24 | |
| Spain | 25 |
Photo: Eurovision.tv
Interesting and, for some countries, painful difference between jury vote and public vote.
David Thielen, you are right. In my opinion, public taste is underestimated by the jury. Or, to be more precisely, the public taste is more elevated than jury was able to understand in 2013. Don’t you think that EBU should impose that jury to be strictly formed by specialists? Anyway, EBU proved this year that jury and public are two different entities.
I can’t remember who the jury members for the UK were, but I can tell you, they’re quite an old bunch this year. So that explains why they prefer the proper belt-out loud type of ballads from over the mass appeal songs. Although Denmark did very well, but just not well enough to get their top spot.
David, I knew that Cezar would flop on the jury votes. Even though he can sing (What do you expect from a counter-tenor?), the juries have simply found “It’s My Life” far too cheesy for their liking. Simple as that.
Televise -> televotes
Damn autocorrect
Why do the juries all hate Cezar? The worry is that the televise rewards bubblegum pop, but it appears that it’s more the juries that do.
The BBC produces world class music programmes all the time and yet they insist on doing their best to make a mess of Eurovision. Bad enough sending singers 30 to 40 years past their sell by date but then to choose a jury who think that Dina Garipova is 19 places better than Margaret Berger! The mind boggles!!! :/
Geeze. The British jury hammered Ireland. Booooooooo.