Things looked very different prior to 2003, as only countries competing in the Grand Final could cast their votes. Since then, the Eurovision Song Contest has been building bridges to the semi-finalists. This year’s contest saw televoters and juries from the 27 countries in the Grand Final, including guest country Australia, voting alongside juries and televoters from the 13 eliminated semi-finalist nations.
In the three tables that follow, you can see what would have had happened if the pre-2003 system (where only finalists voted) had been applied in Vienna. Differences between the actual and alternative voting results are indicated in brackets.
Alternative Results
In this first table, the results are based on the actual points awarded by the 27 Grand Finalists in 2015, which consisted of 50% televoting and 50% jury votes (except Montenegro, who had to use 100% televoting). This does not exclude the jury vote. The current tie-breaker rule is applied to all the countries that need separating as a result. As you can see there are no changes in the Top 7 or the Bottom 2. It seems extremes are consistent even without all those eliminated countries voting.
1. Sweden – 239 points (No change)
2. Russia – 208 points (No change)
3. Italy – 204 points (No change)
4. Belgium – 152 points (No change)
5. Australia – 130 points (No change)
6. Latvia – 121 points (No change)
7. Estonia – 72 points (No change)
8. Israel – 65 points (Up 1 place)
9. Norway – 54 points (Down 1 place)
10. Montenegro – 40 points (Up 3 places)
11. Georgia – 39 points (No change)
12. Serbia – 34 points (Down 2 places)
13. Slovenia – 28 points (Up 1 place)
14. Azerbaijan – 26 points (Down 2 places)
15. Armenia – 25 points (Up 1 place)
16. Greece – 23 points (Up 3 places)
17. Lithuania – 22 points (Up 1 place)
18. Albania – 22 points (Down 1 place)
19. Romania – 17 points (Down 4 places)
20. Hungary – 14 points (No change)
21. Cyprus – 11 points (Up 1 place)
22. Spain – 10 points (Down 1 place)
23. Poland – 7 points (No change)
24. France – 3 points (Up 1 place)
25. United Kingdom – 0 points (Down 1 place)
26. Austria – 0 points (No change)
27. Germany – 0 points (No change)
Alternative Televoting Results
This second table goes further. Back in 2003 there was just televoting at Eurovision. So we’ve taken the televoting result from 2015, using only the 27 countries who were in the final. Differences between the actual and alternative televoting only results are indicated in brackets and, as usual, the current tie-breaker rule is applied to all the countries that need separating as a result. Italy still wins the televote. In fact, the top five remains the same.
1. Italy – 251 points (No change)
2. Russia – 199 points (No change)
3. Sweden – 180 points (No change)
4. Belgium – 132 points (No change)
5. Estonia – 98 points (No change)
6. Israel – 76 points (Up 1 place)
7. Australia – 76 points (Down 1 place)
8. Albania – 68 points (Up 1 place)
9. Latvia – 62 points (Down 1 place)
10. Serbia – 60 points (No change)
11. Armenia – 52 points (No change)
12. Romania – 46 points (No change)
13. Georgia – 42 points (No change)
14. Poland – 32 points (Up 1 place)
15. Lithuania – 32 points (Up 1 place)
16. Montenegro – 28 points (Up 2 places)
17. Azerbaijan – 26 points (Down 3 places)
18. Greece – 24 points (Up 3 places)
19. Slovenia – 19 points (No change)
20. Hungary – 17 points (Up 2 places)
21. Norway – 15 points (Down 4 places)
22. Spain – 13 points (Down 2 places)
23. Cyprus – 8 points (No change)
24. Germany – 5 points (Up 1 place)
25. France – 3 points (Up 1 place)
26. United Kingdom – 2 points (Down 2 places)
27. Austria – 0 points (No change)
Overall Results: 2003 rules vs. 2015 placing
Finally, here are the results (once again) of the televoting in 2015 if we were using the rules from 2003 (so only the 27 finalists). This time you can see the change in placement compared to the actual 2015 system (jury + televote). As you can see, Italy would have come out on top, moving up two places. Sweden would have dropped two places, and Estonia would have climbed two places.
1. Italy – 251 points (Up 2 places)
2. Russia – 199 points (No change)
3. Sweden – 180 points (Down 2 places)
4. Belgium – 132 points (No change)
5. Estonia – 98 points (Up 2 places)
6. Israel – 76 points (Up 2 places)
7. Australia – 76 points (Down 2 places)
8. Albania – 68 points (Up 10 places)
9. Latvia – 62 points (Down 3 places)
10. Serbia – 60 points (Up 2 places)
11. Armenia – 52 points (Up 4 places)
12. Romania – 46 points (Up 7 places)
13. Georgia – 42 points (Down 2 places)
14. Poland – 32 points (Up 9 places)
15. Lithuania – 32 points (Up 2 places)
16. Montenegro – 28 points (Down 6 places)
17. Azerbaijan – 26 points (Down 3 places)
18. Greece – 24 points (Down 2 places)
19. Slovenia – 19 points (Down 6 places)
20. Hungary – 17 points (No change)
21. Norway – 15 points (Down 12 places)
22. Spain – 13 points (No change)
23. Cyprus – 8 points (Down 2 places)
24. Germany – 5 points (Up 3 places)
25. France – 3 points (Down 1 places)
26. United Kingdom – 2 points (Down 1 place)
27. Austria – 0 points (Down 1 place)
@Nabors. It’s not an urban myth, in fact the video can now be seen on Youtube. It was reported by many different reporters in their live blogs , who also mentioned Spain’s poor camera angles and predicted her to come 21-25 (which was correct). Also, you are right non-English songs don’t normally chart in the UK, but also the UK don’t normally vote for non-English songs in Eurovision either. If they do vote for a song, this nearly always translates into ITunes sales, regardless of language. In the last few years, several non-English songs have made the ITunes chart ,… Read more »
@ Steven
About a bad performance of Il Volo on the jury final: it’s an urban myth.
On the same night the press that was present voted for Il Volo to win the press award. A lot of people present in the arena described a flawless performance and an ovation at the end.
@ Jacob (and the others)
Grande Amore has come out in February winning Sanremo and has been in the charts since. It’s achieved a double platinum and before the final it had 27 millions views on YouTube. Can’t compare it with songs that were only known to the public only through the ESC.
Also it’s very rare to go up the UK charts with a song not in English.
I am in favour for the Jury. I honestly believe that quality songs have a better chance and songs that are just bad, but have great following troughout Europe (because of migrates) have less chance to end up high on the scoreboard. I see that year in and year out. So I am really in favour for a jury and I would love it if they would bring the orchestra back. True music.
I’m just glad Italy didn’t win.
Where is elitism in pop music? What are juries educate us about? Juries are an excellent instrument for bookies to know and control the results as early as possible. Probably a lot of money involved here.
@ Oostenrijk wiwi buddy..
Well Denmark would still had won the televoting in 2013…
Azerbaijan might got more 12 points{10} compared with the winner Denmark {8} but was not voted at all by whole 8 countries when Denmark was not voted only by 1 single country instead..
The average televoting rank for Denmark was 4,97 when for Azerbaijan was 5,86..
The average juries rank for Denmark was 6,23 when for Azerbaijan was 7,77..
So Denmark was indeed the clear winner in both televoting-juries in 2013..
Can you do this with the 2012 rules?
@mawnck I believe Conchita would have won, as she won the televote and the jury last year so it would have made no difference what rules were used. I think the juries are fine as they are. I would possibly go back to the standard 50/50 over the ranking as it can allow juries to completely remove points for a song even if the televote ranked it first, which can be a little extreme. The jury ranked Italy sixth, and I think that was fair. People are complaining that Italy should have won because they won the televote, but the… Read more »
@dark days
The thing is, you guys really do need schoolin’!
All you’re proving by these comments about how wonderful (insert country here) was, is that the music juries, for all their faults, are IMMINENTLY more qualified to judge these things than the fans are.
I do find it amusing that they had to go all the way back to 2003 to find a set of rules that would hand the victory to Italy. So tell me guys … would Conchita have won under the 2003 rules? Seriously … I’m curious.
Here comes Charles with his elitist attitude and his educated man’s taste to school us all once again…
@mii11 – both years, Azerbaijan had good, underrated songs. Surely the role of the jury is to resolve such problems?
Yeah ok, things were starting to cool a little bit down, let’s just heat them up again. And according to today’s rules France would’ve won in 1991. Guess what? I’m over it!
Thank God this is 2015 and not 2003 … 🙂
But nice trying to proove Il Divo .. ops sorry … Il Volo deserved winning against Guetta .. ops sorry .. Måns Zelmerlöw…
Move on people … let 2016 come …
I also have an alternative table to share, though no historical basis for it, just out of interest. This table is for if points were awarded for the lowest combined score from each country. For example 12 points to their least favourite song and so on. Therefore, a low score is good. This is good to determine the least favourite song overall. 1.armenia-217 2.uk-209 3.Albania -203 4.France -200 5.Azerbaijan -171 6.Hungary -152 7.Austria -150 8.Greece -137 9.Germany -131 10.Poland -122 11.Montenegro -113 12.Lithuania -109 13.Cyprus -81 14.Slovenia -72 15.Romania-66 16.Serbia-65 17.Georgia -42 18.Norway-37 19,Spain -65 20.Estonia -14 21.Australia -7 22.Israel… Read more »
Yeah yeah bla bla…
Denmark had an average televoting rank of 4,97 (which is pretty meh for a winner). That doesnt mean the would have won the televoting by points, when Azerbaijan has more 12 points and Denmark more 11th and 12th places in the televoting. EBU has always kept the split results a secret
Azerbaijan strangely is always given help by jury… in 2013 they came 3rd in the tele voting but 2nd in overall result. In 2014 and 2015 they would not have qualified without juries’ help. Isn’t this odd? And some people say that juries ‘balance’ the results – how?
Oostenrijk Denmark won the televote in 2013
Jakob, are you seeing Italians where there actually aren’t any?
Juries also did their magic when they kicked out Czech Republic from the finals and let Azerbaijan pass. And Azerbaijan gets through with vote buying in small TV markets year after year. Czech Republich always gives 12 points to Azerbaijan for some obscure reason, same with Malta, yet again AZE in Top 3, and tiny Montenegro also had 8 points. Why would people vote for incomprehensibly sung English that not even the singer understands and feels himself??? So fraudulent -_-
Here come the Italians whining. Hey Italy, if people loved your song so much more, why is Heroes topping charts across Europe and Grande Amore is nowhere to be found?
The juries are out of control since 2013 with their new rules. Instead of balancing the vote, they are catering to the Scandinavian block. Iceland’s televote went for Italy, but jury turned it for Sweden. 2013 and 2015 the televoting winner did not win Eurovision, and both times it were Scandinavian countries who were helped. Now that televoters only have 20 votes anyway, I think it’s time for the juries to go. Eurovision is more political than ever, jurors can bet their money on the obvious winner and kill every other song by placing it as low as 27th. ESC… Read more »