Last week Romania’s Eurovision 2017 act Ilinca and Alex Florea climbed the Spotify charts in seven countries and landed in the Top 5 of the Spotify Global Viral chart, ahead of A-listers like Calvin Harris. And while Europe has obviously embraced them, the split results of Semi-Final 2 show that the jury was decidedly less keen.
The “Yodel it!” singers had the most split result of any act in either semi-final, with the jury awarding them just 26 points compared to the public’s 148. That’s a whopping 122 point difference.
In terms of rank ordinals, the jury put the song 15th — yes, they would have kept it in the semi-final — while the public put it third. The disparity of 12 places was the largest in this semi-final. This is the second highest gap in the semi-finals as a whole, behind only Australia from Semi-Final 1 (where the jury ranked Isaiah second and the public put him 15th).
Semi-Final 2: Jury-Televote split results (reaction)
The juries disagreed significantly with the public on Hungary as well, awarding Joci Papai just 66 points compared to the public’s 165. That’s a difference of 99 points.
Other countries negatively impacted by the juries in terms of points include Croatia (-67), Israel (-57) and Estonia (-53).
In terms of rank ordinals, the juries ranked Estonia 11 places lower than the public, Croatia eight places lower, and Hungary five places lower.
Their verdict — ranking Estonia next-to-last above only San Marino — was enough to keep Koit & Laura out of the final. The public ranked them sixth.
If the juries had their way, Croatia (fifth with the public) and Romania (third with the public) would not have made the final, and would have been replaced with Malta and Serbia.
In terms of overall points, however, Serbia and Malta were not the countries that the juries helped the most.
That honour goes to The Netherlands and Denmark, with the juries giving O’G3NE a 97-point boost (149 vs. the televoters’ 52) and Anja Nissen a 91-point push (96 vs. the televoters’ 5).
Other countries that benefitted from the jury include Norway (+85), Austria (+83) and Malta (+55).
Eurovision 2017: Semi-Final 2 split results (points difference)
Jury | Televote | Difference | |
Romania | 26 | 148 | -122 |
Hungary | 66 | 165 | -99 |
Croatia | 37 | 104 | -67 |
Israel | 75 | 132 | -57 |
Estonia | 16 | 69 | -53 |
FYR Macedonia | 29 | 40 | -11 |
Lithuania | 17 | 25 | -8 |
Bulgaria | 199 | 204 | -5 |
Switzerland | 48 | 49 | -1 |
San Marino | 0 | 1 | -1 |
Belarus | 55 | 55 | 0 |
Ireland | 45 | 41 | 4 |
Serbia | 53 | 45 | 8 |
Malta | 55 | 0 | 55 |
Austria | 115 | 32 | 83 |
Norway | 137 | 52 | 85 |
Denmark | 96 | 5 | 91 |
Netherlands | 149 | 52 | 97 |
Eurovision 2017: Semi-Final 2 split results (rank difference)
Televote | Jury | Difference | |
Romania | 3 | 15 | -12 |
Estonia | 6 | 17 | -11 |
Croatia | 5 | 13 | -8 |
Hungary | 2 | 7 | -5 |
Israel | 4 | 6 | -2 |
Belarus | 7 | 8 | -1 |
Switzerland | 10 | 11 | -1 |
FYR Macedonia | 13 | 14 | -1 |
Lithuania | 15 | 16 | -1 |
San Marino | 17 | 18 | -1 |
Bulgaria | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Ireland | 12 | 12 | 0 |
Serbia | 11 | 10 | 1 |
Norway | 8 | 3 | 5 |
Netherlands | 9 | 2 | 7 |
Malta | 18 | 9 | 9 |
Austria | 14 | 4 | 10 |
Denmark | 16 | 5 | 11 |
In terms of rank ordinals, Denmark’s Anja Nissen and Austria’s Nathan Trent benefitted the most from the jury.
Neither of these acts would have made it to the final based on the public televote alone, with Anja coming 16th and Nathan finishing 14th,
Thankfully for them the jury ranked “Where I Am” fifth (+11 places) and “Running on Air” fourth (+10 places).
What do you make of the jury-televote split for semi-final 2? Are your rankings more in line with the televote or the music professionals? And how do you explain some of the big disparities here? Let us know in the comments box below.
*BUY A YODEL-IT T-SHIRT, HOODIE OR PHONE CASE
*BUY A YODEL-IT PHONE COVER
Juries voting out Estonia, so clearly explains WHY we needs juries! Banal, dated, genric and cliched schlager. Don’t make lame excuses about the pfroermance….the song was NEVER good!
@IGC – ”We have juries to get input from music industry people and to water down ‘block voting’. You cant have it both ways. Move on.”
Do you know what bloc voting means? Exactly what jury does – this is bloc voting.
Jury is bloc voting in pure shape and form.
People can bitch all they like about the juries. Personally, I respect them above the general public. We don’t want Eurovision to become like one of those ghastly t.v. talent shows.
do you love jury, good for you, hug them, kiss them, feed them, do whatever you want with them, but do so knowing they are biased as hell.
I for one think this system is the best we have had.
The juries are the reason why Austria faced the embarrassment of being announced with 0 points in the final. Denmark would’ve ended with 0 too, hadn’t Anja been Australian. How can you possibly get through with 5 televote points?! That means the public is NOT here for you at all! And the fact that they gave more to Lithuania than to Estonia… when will EBU understand that the juries vote politically and strategically, if not randomly? We don’t need them.
The juries? I thought it was the TELEVOTERS who gave Nathan 0 points for Austria. If it wasn’t for the juries, Austria would have had their SECOND nul-point outcome, because the public in 2015 left the Makemakes’ televote scorecard blank as well. And I must say, “Running On Air” was a good song that deserved to go through.
He said so, because Austria made it to final thanks to juries, like Denmark and Australia.
It must be really embarrasing to hear 0 or 2 points from televote. That’s the point.
Of course, I’m talking about the Grand Final, where all of Nathan’s 93 points came from the jury.
@Kirby – ”The masses’ taste does not necessarily match quality: It rather favors ephemeral entertainment, hype and other factors such as appearance, gimmicks”
What is Eurovision looking for if not bringing people together, like its 1956 purpose. Eurovision was not created to bring jury together, but people that wanted to forget about World War 2. It is such a big crime to want entertainment?
Switzerland was perfect in Amsterdam, Eurovision In Concert. Perfect staging. Why that yellow explosion in the actual competition? I want 100% televote, but I’m fine with the idea that will never happen. I can see very clear that jury doesn’t work, it’s not possible to be professional about song/presentation/staging they just guess what might work, and more, they are politically biased. I’ve saw a top with the most correct countries, here on wiwibloggs (last year), and the top was Hungary, Finland, Germany. This is absurd, for Hungarian jury, Romania is always rank 26 in the final, because of whatever politics… Read more »
Aww poor Ireland. Brendan came 12th in both televote and jury. Maybe there was something about the staging backdrop and his expression that didn’t really help him connect with the audience? I thought the song entry was well polished like Denmark whom I also loved and juries rewarded handsomely.
The masses’ taste does not necessarily match quality: It rather favors ephemeral entertainment, hype and other factors such as appearance, gimmicks, etc. The juries’ vote (yeah, I know they’re just 5) may provide sense, so that at the end of the day we get a more balanced outcome.
Agree. Its a waste of time trying to provoke pointless arguments over it all Wiwblogs – its over – get over it! If both juries and televote were similar or the same – then what would be the point of having it. We have juries to get input from music industry people and to water down ‘block voting’. You cant have it both ways. Move on.
Juries are increasing bloc voting though. Greece-Cyprus, Sweden/Denmark/Finland, Australia-UK… same patterns as always.
We didn’t get much sense from the juries this year. Their votes seemed to be very random.
“Apollo’ was one? of the songs I never imagined would go earlier. I think every act has two choices: enlighten? and bring an A game for their song or doing anything possibly wrong to ruin it, and that’s exactly what happened with Switzerland three times in a row already. It was maybe Maruna’s best singing ever + it’s a wonderful and memorable song. But there wasn’t anything right about the staging. If they just had copied and pasted from their national final it would have been the safest option, like Sweden and Denmark did. Trying something new is risky unless… Read more »
This year was so weird for me!I had a lot of favourite songs but my top ones mostly made it because of the juries!I just happened to disagree a lot with the public vote which ruined it a bit for me and left me bittersweet!I never understood the love for romania,croatia or estonia….i am trying but i dont get it.But overall i am happy with the top ten and the winner(and in some cases juries all the way)
Because Croatia and Romania were really different. And both make people enjoy and were entertaining.
And people only vote for their favourites.
i understand that people have different preferences and i accept it,i just happend to be in the minority.I was entertained by sweden,moldova..romania and croatia for me were fun in a bad way.My friends and i were laughing because of the cheesiness,i am sorry to say that,i wish all the bests for all the artists
People enjoyed Moldova a lot as well 🙂 Also Sweden being 8th in televote is not that bad.
The thing is some people will hate Romania, Croatia or Moldova but others will love it and vote for them.
For instance, nobody will care enough and have as a favourite Denmark, Uk, Armenia, Australia or Azerbaijan.
My favorite was UK B-)
Yes my bad. Uk was in many televotes around 15th so some people liked it. In my country was 10th.
Who did you vote for in the final Colin? 🙂
Italy, UK, Austria, Belgium and Norway. I always knew I would vote Italy and UK in the finals, Austria was my semi favorite, and just couldn’t miss the opportunity to vote Belgium after that vastly improved performance. In the last moment, I also added Norway. I mean, 5 is a lot, but it’s only once a year. 🙂 You, Marc?
5 is a lot but all 5 were deserving! I voted for 3, but I was close to vote for Norway as well, also Hungary which blew me away in the semifinal. I voted for my early favourites in the end 🙂 : Italy and Portugal (Also I wanted them to beat Bulgaria, specially knowing how strong always Bulgaria is in our televote). And then lovely Belgium, I was in love with her performance in both shows and I loved the song since the beginning. First time I vote for 3 countries but it was worthy as it’s only once… Read more »
Great 3 choices! Congrats Portugal! I like Bulgaria, but I like Portugal more, so when the final 2 came, I was like “Portugal! Portugal!” I also really liked Hungary. It was never among the songs that caught my focus before, but his SF and GF performances were great! ?
Yes, Portugal was more memorable as a winner than Bulgaria.
Hungary was just cool and authentic 🙂
EBU must change rules for 2018
It s not fair to 5 people in juries have same power as millions of viewers in same country.
if we have 5 juries members only decrease their power to 33 % instead 50 % of vote.
Increase members juries from 5 to 16 like in 80 ties ( 4 group of ages in all gropu 2 woman and 2 man) and stay with rules 50 % juries 50 % televote.
Great 3 choices! Congrats Portugal! I like Bulgaria, but I like Portugal more, so when the final 2 came, I was like “Portugal! Portugal!” I also really liked Hungary. It was never among the songs that caught my focus before, but his SF and GF performances were great! 🙂
Sorry, but this was meant for the poster above. I clicked wrong.
I’d want at least 12 members of a jury- like with trials. Increasing their size (and making sure they’re actually of importance in the local music industry) would make them far more credible.
The Netherlands with old dated song got 149 in second semi with juries Denmark 96 points, and Slovenia with other juries in first semi, with same old dated song only 17 points
How many points woudl got Australia, Denmark, orThe Nehterlands with song On my way . I predict similar result like they did with their own song.
The girls from Og3ne were exceptionally good in live. They gave genuine emotion, harmony and power to their song. If someone else was singing it, it might have just been ‘okay’, but this was like listening to three angels. Slovenia did fine too. I really don’t understand why is that song *that much* hated. It’s a fine ballad. The video is cheesy af, but the SF performance was good. Not as outstandingly good as Og3ne, but still good. I agree on Australia, though. No objections there. He did fine, but not much better than Georgia, Slovenia or Malta. If any… Read more »
I have to say I completely agree with you this time.
Slovenia had a solid performer. That entry representing Australia, Malta or Denmark would made Jury’s Top 10.
Also Malta again with a dated song would qualify by juries.
Another example is last year Poland being killed by juries.
Juries are just biased.
O’G3NE were awesome live and their backdrop matched the mood and theme of the song. Plus the girls’ stage presence and added choreo overall turned into great presentation for the song. Also they have a good rep in ESC family because of their past participation at JESC 2007(like Tolmachevy Twins in 2014).
I think the biggest travesty is Denmark. It was just shouting, and it beats me how a music professional can possibly think that song is radio friendly.
I also thought they should consider the quality of lyrics. Repeating phrases like ‘I am lying down my armour, I will show you where I am’ is not really high quality song writing.
What about repeating the same simple phrase 1000 times (Spain, San Marino) or “I’m almost a sinner, nearly a saint” (Germany) or the whole Montenegrin innuendo?
If the lyrics were taken into account, Italy, UK, Finland, France and Portugal would all be in top 10. Personally, I always do when I rate a song. Of course, not *only* lyrics are important, but they are quite important.
Finland definitely got robbed in the other Semi. And Estonia got robbed in this one. (Switzerland let themselves down, and if the juries were to save anyone, I wish they’d saved Switzerland over Austria/Denmark, but Swtizerland wasn’t outright robbed the way Finland and Estonia were.)
But Spain, San Marino, Germany or Montenegro were hated by juries.
Denmark score is very smelling. (A song that can’t make any Top 10 in any countries..)
Like Malta making that Top 10. Or Australia.
I listened to the Estonia jury semifinal performance. The singing is good so there is absolutely no reason to have low score. In all the other duets apart from SM, the female is carrying the entry, the Belarus male cannot sing and doesnt even try to, yet they are getting much more jury votes. What are the stupid juries looking at, all the bright pretty colors on the screen. They already have decided their score before they listen to the entry. After this i have lost a lot of respect and interest for ESC especially the jury system. They only… Read more »
Well, everybody was crying for the juries to return ten years ago – so now you we have to deal with them…
Almost every year, there is an unpredicted jury darling:
– Australia 2017
– Malta 2016
– Malta 2014
– Sweden 2013
– Ukraine 2012
– Italy, Denmark and Slovenia 2011 (what a strange year)
– Denmark 2009
Unlike in semi-final 1, I am quite glad we had both the juries and televoters in semi final 2. That is how I got to see both Croatia and Austria in the finals. My only bigger regret is Ireland, but they wouldn’t have qualified either way.
Ireland was so jury-friendly. Very weird its flop there.
That Swedish song representing Malta, Denmark or Australia would have been Top 5 in the jury vote.
I really wish if Ireland qualified this year. Ireland and Finland remain my biggest regrets for non-qualifications. I liked Sweden too. Robin did one heck of a performance. He ended-up even higher than Italy.
I would make qualify both 😀
“That Swedish song” was about Ireland hehe. I meant juries tend to like Swedish producing songs.. but not Ireland this year.. it’s just weird how they didn’t support Ireland.
(“Dying to try” representing Malta, Denmark or Australia would made it I believe)
nathan trent is so f*cking annoying and the fact that he qualified in stead of switzerland makes me wanna puke
Estonia… Deserved a spot.
Lol at San Marino though the juries and public finally agreeing on who sucks
So many comments are about punishing Croatia, Romania and even Hungary. May I ask, what is there to be punished? Why would such songs be punished, while old fashon slow ballads should be rewarded? All three songs had great staging and singing (except that Romanian guy lol), they were good and original, so… stop hating on these songs, please. In case of Croatia, almost every jury put him in bottom five. Now, the jury should not only rate song by their personal opinion, but also on staging, singing and originality. These three criteria goes in benefit of Croatia, ranking him… Read more »
You ask us to stop hate Romania and Croatia but cannot stop hating songs like the Portuguese. How inconsistent is that?! These songs were just plain awful and people only voted for them for the joke. Sorry to recall but this old fashioned and dull ballad WON the Eurovision with both the public and jury. So you are in a minority but I guess you too dumb to understand
Mention has to be made of San Marino’s 0 from the Jury. I think this was uncalled for. Both Jimmy’s and Valentina’s vocals were strong, (they are probably two of the best and most qualified of all the singers in Eurovision this year), and the song was strong enough. The staging was somewhat budget, but that should be what jurors care about least. Possibly they were also reacting negatively to yet another Valentina appearance, (Fud LeClerc also got 0 points on his fourth appearance), but the only alternatives are getting a foreign singer in or a native San Martinese singer… Read more »
No, this has nothing to do with Valentina nor Jimmie – her vocals are quite OK, and so are his. The voters reacted to the fact that the song was utter crap which no one could possibly take seriously. If San Marino does not want to be humiliated like this, then they should consider not sending outdated Siegel stuff any more (this one was by far the worst one so far). I loved Miodio back in 2008, and they made San Marino a welcome breath of fresh air, but if *this* is what San Marino intends to keep sending, no-one… Read more »
The vendetta against Ralph Siegel on Wiwibloggs is really getting out of hand imho. There seems to be a small clique of people who use every opportunity they get to throw poison at him. All San Marino’s entries written by him have been strong, and he is also a Eurovision winning composer. I don’t know what prejudice is driving these people but I would like to see Wiwibloggs do a bit of clean up and start policing them better.
There’s no vendetta against Mr. Siegel, but his best hits were years ago (except Vola of course). 1999 was the last year he achieved a Top 10 placing (3rd). No doubt, he’s done a lot for my country but his songs for San Marino really were out of time and I feel like he had this song in reserve from the 80s or somewhere. It’s really time for him to retire and San Marino should consider engaging another composer.
Utter crap song is Romania, Austria, Nederlands
Good to know that the jury rated Romania do low. It is an awful silly empty song and the staging distasteful. If for kids, it’s inappropriate as all that mess damages their heads.
The pattern I see in those results is that the televote tended to favour ‘fun’ songs, those with a bit of novelty in them, or which were a bit zany. Otoh, the jury helped songs which were a bit more ‘classical’, e.g. Denmark and Netherlands.
I don’t find this remotely surprising. Indeed, it’s why we have both juries and a televote. If we got rid of juries altogether, it gives an idea of how the contest would change, and I don’t think that would be in a good way. We need a balance of styles.
1998-2008 had no juries and everything was fine.
Not really, the winners from 1998-2003 were all novelty with many flaws and definitely wouldn’t win with a jury in those days. Juries aren’t perfect but majority of their choices (overall jury not individual countries) are acceptable in the grander schemes. There needs to be a balance as everyone may not be “campy” or “classic”.
Not entirely: 1997 (25): 20 juries, 5 televote (first use of televoting) 1998 (25): 4 juries 1999 (23): 4 juries 2000 (24): 5 juries 2001 (23): 3 juries and 3 split 2002 (24): 5 juries and 8 split 2003 (26): 3 juries 2004-2008: All televoting 2009: Split system begins The only way I can think of to solve the unbelievable disparity between the jury vote and the televote is to eliminate the separate jury and public performances, and have everyone watch the same performance. Again, the same artist could have an oustanding jury performance but a lousy televised performance. Likewise,… Read more »
Of course the juries would vote down Romania. What musical professional would vote for a cheesy novelty song like Yodel It? It was embarrassing to watch.
That’s why we have the juries to punish acts like Romania and Croatia.
Also, I noticed that the juries have been “hurting” Estonia a lot lately. Goodbye for Yesterday was 9th in the semi-final and 11th in the final (!!!!). Last year, Play was dead last in the semi-final.
Now Verona second to last???
I know Verona isn’t any masterpiece, even though I thought it should have qualified. But that low is ridiculous.
What was there to punish about Croatia? Originality? Best vocals of the year? Enlighten us.
The vocals and the song were ok. The staging made it look like a joke act. That’s why the juries punished Croatia.
I just realized that Bulgaria was top 3 with all of the juries except for Switzerland (gave him 5 points). That’s even better than Portugal in the first semi (not to mention that he also scored higher)! Kristian slayed his semi and he should be proud of himself.
Yes, but Bulgaria was the clear winner in the semi-final 2, even before the rehearsals. All the other songs from the final Top 5 came from semi-final 1.
I didn’t expect him to be top 3 in almost all of the juries. I expected Hungary to be higher with the jury because of the artistry. It’s still impressive that he managed to score that high in televotes, especially for a ballad.
It was more about the singer’s image than the song anyway… it was a bland ballad with no soul sung by someone who made cute faces when the lines were open. No wonder the song was among the worst performing in the charts among the final televote top 10.
Alex’s vocals were mediocre at best, the song was ridiculous with awful lyrics and their chemistry was non existent. I’m surprised that the juries ranked Romania above Estonia to be honest.
The fact that Switzerland nearly qualified (as opposed to finishing dead last overall in 2015 or 41st of 42 last year) shows that they could’ve qualified with better staging. A smooth, mid tempo ballad with Swedish finesse and Swiss elegance does not work well with staging borrowed from Sesame Street!
their.chemistry.was.the.best.we.ever.saw.in.eurovision!
Wow the jury and televote didn’t agree much on 9/18 entries!! (Position difference greater than 4 places)
That’s quite a divisive and close semi!! Except for Bulgaria and San Marino!!
Estonia was not liked by their own Jurors!!
Claudia won MESC just because of her name and not the song. (Same way as Salvador won ESC)
Salvador won cuz of his name? What?
DUH! The jury cannot vote for their own country! Same as the televoters, bub!
Something which is rarely mentioned is how the archaic voting system itself can create seemingly random outcomes, especially in the lower half of the scoreboard. The juries in fact ranked Estonia better than Lithuania on average, but because points are only given for the top ten, one single 10th place becomes more important than a million 11th places. Lithuania’s rankings were in this case a bit more volatile than Estonia’s. This feature of the system can have potentially devastating effects for a borderline qualifier. I’m not implying the juries treated Estonia fairly or that the system should be changed, but… Read more »
Estonia didn’t qualify because it was dated, cheesy, the guy was creepy and it felt empty on the stage. It didn’t feel like they were lost in Verona, but more so trying to keep track of the camera.
And yet, the public placed it 6th. Try again.
I feel so sorry for Estonia since it was one of my favorites…Unfortunately the live performance was a bit underwhelming even though 17th was definitely undeserved.Romania being blanked by the juries is not surprising to me since it is very divisive and some might have deemed it as too silly. It is baffling instead that entries such as Hungary and Croatia were saved by the televote when juries are supposed to get behind these kinds of acts. At least they were consistent saving Denmark (not my favorite but that voice had to be rewarded ) about The other acts it… Read more »
Seriously, what is problem with songs from Croatia and Hungary? Croatian song was bit cheesy but it was sang perfectly (and was probably hardest to sing), it had nice music and nice overall performance, staging and camera work. Why should jury punish Croatia, it was not as joke-entry as some of you here try to present. And even if it was bit campy, why the hell is that such problem? This years Moldova, and many more in last years were similar! What is with this years Sweden? Arent they also much more staging than song? Hungary was even better than… Read more »
What is the point in these comparisons when the Jury and Televoters are not hearing and voting on the same performance? An off note here and there can make a world of difference.
Case in point compare Belgium’s Semi Final performance to her Live performance, there was a huge difference as noted here previously.
I’m not surprised juries didn’t like Romania. But comparing this ranking with Moldova’s it’s strange. They appreciated more “Hey mamma” than “Yodel it”. Maybe it’s what Chris said in the video: juries don’t like rap for some reason. Moldova didn’t have rap. People pushed Romania through here. Estonia is another country crucified by the juries. 2nd to last?? I mean… ok, I can see why they didn’t like it that much. Laura wasn’t strong vocally, maybe the mic problem affected her, Koit maybe looked too cheesy and arrogant and his expressions were rather strange. But there wasn’t a mic problem… Read more »
such a big comment and so little is said. and I cannot believe people still use this Estonian mic problem as explanation for jury low votes. how can you still not know that jury performance is one day earlier is beyond me.
I know the jury show is a day before the actual show!
I didn’t say Estonia was great, but it wasn’t crap either. It was a good song ranked really low in my personal opinion!
Most disturbing and discrepant is the fact that Israel fared better with the televote in the SF, while ranked better with juries in the Final.
That’s because of the running order.
What a surprise seeing Malta as a jury qualifier right? hahah
(But Slovenia’s ballad, with a better staging and performance was killed by juries anyway). Very smelling hahah
Juries were on point about Romania`s song. Otherwise, why a professional person would vote for an atrocious song?!
It seems that juries firstly assess vocal abilities before songs while audience have heard the Dutch and Danish entries million times in the 90s.
Estonia’s elimination is dream come true. <3<3<3<3<3<3
Verona is lost in oblivion.
0 televote points go to Austria <3
I think it is great that the juries are involved. It makes for a exciting show…,
But I feel bad for Claudia… She had longed for ESC for so many years..
Nothing exciting about a bunch of so-called professionals voting randomly. I need to know their criteria for giving Denmark’s bland screamfest and Austria’s out of tune mess so much.