The drama doesn’t stop when Eurovision ends. From potential collusion among jury members to accusations of nepotism, the end really is a new beginning — and one filled with major drama!
And part of the theatrics involves delving into the Eurovision split results to see where the jury and televote diverged. We took a look at the grand final split yesterday and today we turn to Semi-Final 1.
Russia’s Sergey Lazarev was the most consistent performer across both halves of the equation. He came first in the televote, finishing 61 points clear of televote runner-up Austria. Despite a clear win with the public, Sergey came second in the jury vote, losing out to Malta’s Ira Losco (and her lovely baby bump) by seven points.
Other consistent performers were Armenia’s Iveta Mukuchyan, who came fourth with televoters and third with the jury, and The Netherlands’ Douwe Bob, who managed to finish fifth with both.
Malta’s Ira Losco, who won the jury vote, only came ninth with the public.
The Czech Republic’s Gabriela, who came fourth with the jury, would not have made the final in a televote-only scenario. She finished 12th with the people. But at least she killed it at the #WiwiJam.
Following Greta Salome’s shock non-qualification, we wondered aloud whether the public or the jury was to blame. As it turns out, they both were. Both panels ranked the Icelandic singer 13th, assuring her early exit.
Had the public had its way, them Bosnia & Herzegovina would have advanced to the final, as they placed eighth in the televote. Sadly the juries didn’t seem to connect with the elaborate staging and mish-mash of musical genres, ranking it 14th and pushing it out of the final.
The jury, which ranked Zoe 11th, would have replaced her with Montenegro’s Highway. We’re still saying WTF.
Below we have attempted to see who the jury helped and hurt the most based on ordinal rankings. A negative score shows that the jury hurt a country, while a positive score shows they helped it.
As you can see, Austria’s Zoë was the act most negatively impacted by the jury. Bosnia & Herzegovina, San Marino and Hungary were among the others most hurt.
Malta and The Czech Republic were the biggest beneficiaries of the jury, along with Montenegro, Moldova, Finland and Croatia.
Why do you think the juries marked Austria and Bosnia & Herzegovina down so much? Do you think that Montenegro should have made the final as the jury wanted? Let us know in the comments box below!
Mr D – I agree with you
Juries should have descided! The GREAT rock song from Montenegro is 10 times better than this annoying, oversugary song from Austria! There’s a reason why the experts wanted it that way….
@David Who: Seems like the juries are not too fond of Stig Rasta-penned entries, Estonia only managed to place 9th in the jury ranking of their semi and 11th in the jury ranking of the final last year, and that’s “Goodbye to Yesterday” we are talking about… There is absolutely nothing to be understood, how could any so-called “juror” honestly think “Play” should be ranked below the likes of Moldova or San Marino is ludicrous and beyond comprehension…
Thankfully, the system mixed points in such way that both wonderful songs from Czech Republic and Austria are in and both hideous songs from Montenegro and Bosnia are out? I will never be able to grasp so called professional jury which ranks rubbish such as Montenegro higher than lovely songs from Estonia and Iceland.
In most comments I read about televoting, it’s about people voting for their own country, just because they can (Russians in all countries they used to colonise, the very mixed ethnic composition of all Balkan states, diaspora of Poland). I will never be in favour of that system. Only once in this century, a country was able to win the contest while not being in a ‘block’ and that was Austria thanks to the support of the gay communities all over Europe. You need to tick a lot of boxes to win, and unfortunately, the support of gays, your neighbours… Read more »
1) I overestimated Austria’s performance with the jury–I thought we were looking at a guaranteed top 10 finisher in the Final since I knew it’d do well with the televote, but they were overshadowed the entire way. 2) I can see Montenegro’s appeal; I thought the staging looked expensive (bar the random dancer), and I liked the song itself. In the context of Eurovision, however, I didn’t think it was the right fit, which is why it probably performed poorly with the public. 3) I think if Iceland pulled the SF2, Greta might have made it into the Final. I… Read more »
Lol Montenegro was one of my favorites this year (Alt Rock is my fav genre). I get that people are hating on it mostly for the lyrics. They were written by non-English speakers so I would say not to take them too seriously.
Montenegro’s song had content from three genres: Rock, Trance/House and Dubstep. It was musically interesting enough to be marked higher for song content; that is my theory behind why juries marked it higher than the televote. Personally I strongly disliked Montenegro’s song lyrics and the staging wasn’t great, so I ranked it 16th.
The only jury mark I don’t understand is why Estonia did so badly – any theories on that?
… are any of these results a bad thing?
why so many articles on the juries just let it be
Any group of people that appreciates Malta’s pitiful performance but is immune to Zoe’s charms deserves our sympathy. Their existences must be so sad and charmless if they can’t appreciate true beauty in this world.
-The love between Malta and juries will be always a mystery.. such a bad taste, -Austria deserved that 2nd place and with any friends and diaspora, amazing for itself. -Hungary 6th year in a row in final and they got points from the televoting in all 20 countries with any friends and diaspora, that says a lot about some countries. -Netherlands was the best by far and the deserve even better, I guess it’s a song that needs to be performed latter to be more votable or I don’t know. Juries should feel ashamed for not putting this at number… Read more »
Maya Malta always get many points from juries, remember 2014 6 place with juries and 24 with televote with boring and no good song that year. Malta have good tacktics from 1991 , to have good comunicatio with many head of delegations from other countries. They invite in ther jury in Malta many head of delegation. We had that this year in juries was Head of delegation from Montenegro and suprise 12 points from Montenegro juries go to Malta in final and 10 in semi, in semi they gave to Armenia, suprise Armenia in 2014 gave 12 points to Montenegro… Read more »
San Marion 11 place with televote, that is big surprise for me and I don t believe that Greece was only 14 wiht televote , I thouhgt that they wili be in TOP 8 with televote.
Charles
you’re not even good in numbers, sorry. not 18 countries voted, but 21 in both semi finals
Okay, I’m fed up with the way juries are being trashed. And this is a direct talking point to everyone at Wiwibloggs. Have we forgotten WHY juries were introduced in the first place in 2009? Simply put: A) Because there was TOO much demographical diaspora (Have we forgotten the Turkish and Armenian diaspora? Not to mention some Polish immigrants?) and B) Televoters never judge all 26 entries in great detail, but they do forget songs earlier in the running order easily. Hence why this got corrected back in 2009. And as of today….I’m fully supporting the 50%(100%)-jury / 50%(100%)-televoting system.… Read more »
Only gay can say that Montenegro didnt deserve qualify. I hope esc will be in the future straight again. Your taste destroys eurovision.
Thanks to the juries we have Bosnia & Herzegovina deservedly out of the final …….. I would have even preferred to see Montenegro qualifying that B&H, the song was cheap, the tricks they tried to pull for votes were cheap as well, Deen’s lips looked cheap, the dress looked cheap and the wire was a cheap move.
So, I would say ……. Thank you JURIES !!!!!!!!!!!
I thought Ira gave a dreadful performance during the final, but perhaps she was better at the jury final, still she was way overrated.
I’m so proud of Zoe for coming second in the televote, she earned it. Those jurors clearly lack any sort of musical criteria if they can rank Montenegro before Austria and place Estonia last with 10 points less than frigging San Marino.
Having said all that, I’m glad they appreciated Czech Republic, Gabriela deserved the final.
Score another one for the juries.
Czech Republic deserved to be in the final.
It’s a pity that Armenia came 2nd in semi final and only 7th in the grand final. She deserved to be in top 5 at least ((((((
It’s a pity that Armenia came 2nd in semi final and only 7th in the grand final. The deserved to be in top 5 at least ((((((
very strange that Russia jury are well appreciated in the semifinals, but underestimated in the final. Maybe they just wanted to get rid of the eventual winner
@power b: Let’s see, first once you calm down your genitals for Sergey and connect your brain back on you will probably do the math and see that there were 18 countries voting at that SEMI and 42 in that final (see the difference in numbers? I mean from 18 to 42 with just a 18 point difference, where is the drama anyway?) … and not everyone felt the same as you for your lovely Sergey and his meaningless LED show which can be seen on MUTE (some ears would be thankful).
Juries placed Malta first and Estonia last? hahahaha
How was Malta the best of Semi 1? I don’t get it
@Steve Gray did you watch the performance of Finland of the semi-final… she was completely off tune and deserved not making it to the finals… the public is not deaf…
Hungary did well on the televote thank god… I already could see the judges didn’t like him ps watch Norway’s jury vote for the grand finals…
Thank you juries, saving Czech and giving Malta what they deserve.
I think most of the right acts made the final in this Semi Final in the end but i gotta say i adore Finlands song so catchy taught it was a great performance too so i would of replaced probaly Hungary or Malta with Finland.
I’m shocked that Austria did so well with the televote! I’m also surprised that Estonia finished dead last with the juries, while Montenegro was 10th.
To be honest I’m now glad there was a 50/50 jury and televote because if it was solely jury, Austria’s feel-good song would have missed out. And I don’t know what they saw in Montenegro, probably though ooh rock, let’s be alternative! 😉
But at the same time if it was 100% televote then Czech Republic would have missed out on their first final with a slightly shallow but still nice ballad and replaced by the hot mess of Bosnia.
Thank God there are both juries and televoting! 🙂
GEF, the non-neighbour Sweden gave B&H 12 pts in televoiting
Further keep in mind that CR was the only country who qualified that was not in the top10 in the televotes. It was 12th an not far away from the 10th spot. And different from Bosnia, the song did not benefit from diaspora and te running order. All in all the jury results do not really impact the final result very much. There are in fact only two surprises: Iceland and Estonia ending up so low on the ranking. But in both cases, neither the jury nor the televoters are to blame since these countries could not impress both of… Read more »
With regard to Bosnia you should keep in mind that they received many 10 and 12 points by televoters from Craotia, Montenegro and Austria due to diaspora but also very often ended up 16th, 17th or 18th in many countries. You should take this into account when you say that people wanted them in the finals. This is simply not the case. The fact is that Bosnia received some top results from very few countries whereas they went horribly bad with many other countries. However in the actual system it does not make any difference whether you are 18th ore… Read more »
Buena voz…pero su cancion, puesta en escena, bestuario y peinado era como de los primeros años 80 ,es curioso pero los criterios artisticos en ESC se modulan segun les interese a las aliazas milenarias…pobre Islandia Greta no se lo merece.
OMG what is shocking about non-qualification of Iceland? 50% of all were pop female singers, maximaly half of them can go through. And what is WTF about Montenegro on 10th position and Austria on 11th? Maybe girl can say WTF but normal man can’t. Montenegro was highlight of the boring pop semi final. It’s pity, they didn’t qualify. They have with Georgia and Cyprus the most shining entries. This year was one long pop song. Boooring!
13 is an unlucky number for Iceland and Estonia (performing in 13th).
They hurt us Austria, because the Eurodance beat was tacky and killed a reasonably perfect song.
Lazarev scored 148 pts at semi against 130 at final? How come?
I think there should be only the televoting public,that would make Eurovision more intense 🙂