Eurovision may be a battle of songs, but it is also a game of numbers. Sadly for Australia’s Dami Im, changes to the rules this year mean she lost out on the title she would have won if producers had utilised last year’s voting system.
Beginning in 2009, Eurovision implemented a split 50-50 voting system, with equal weight between juries and televoters. But that 50-50 relationship hasn’t always been that equal.
From 2009 to 2012, the voting system went as follows. The jury would award 1 to 12 points to its top songs. The televoters would then generate their 1 to 12 points. Officials would combine the points and the top 10 countries would then be awarded the final 1 to 12 points presented to you during the voting segment.
From 2013 to 2015, rankings replaced scores. The jury would give its ranking of all the finalists. And the televoting would generate a second ranking. The rankings would then be combined. The highest 10 rankings would then be awarded the final 1 to 12 points presented to you. This concept is still controversial, because rankings may be prone to significant skewing. For example, if a country was ranked third by the jury and 20th by televoters, that country would likely get no points.
The new system adopted by SVT and Eurovision eliminates the jury cancelling out the televoting and vice versa. Eurovision hosts Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede repeatedly said that the voting system has not changed, just the presentation. This statement really isn’t true, as you can see below when we analyze the 2016 results, and then recalculate them under the 2015 system.
Australia wins with 320 points, with Ukraine 41 points behind at 279 points and Russia at 240 points. Poland drops from 8th to 19th, Israel drops from 14th to 21st, and Malta would plummet from 12th to 24th.
Why is this the case? Juries ranked Poland low across the board, and televoters ranked Poland high across the board. This was the complete opposite with Malta and Israel, both of whom benefitted from the juries.
Again, when juries and televoters are in complete disagreement over a song, that song likely gets no points under the 2013-2015 system.
This new system would not have impacted the results for 2013 or 2014, as both Denmark (2013) and Austria (2014) won with the juries and televoters. In 2015, Sweden would still have won with 642 points, with Italy placing second with 550 points.
Prior to Saturday many pundits and fans accused Swedish producers of positioning Australia for an unprecedented win to make the 2016 contest more historic. Ironically, it is this voting system change that pipped Australia at the post, resulting in Ukraine’s marginal win. Nonetheless, Eurovision’s new voting system is a step in making the system more fair, and the presentation of the voting results much more tense and exciting. All in all, this made for better television. Now onwards to Kyiv!
The semi final results under the normal system: Semi-Final 1 1. Russia 196 2. Armenia 133 3. Netherlands 116 4. Hungary 109 5. Malta 98 6. Azerbaijan 90 7. Austria 85 8. Czech Republic 80 9. Cyprus 76 10. Croatia 62 11. Bosnia and Herzegovina 45 12. Greece 27 13. Iceland 23 14. Finland 21 15. San Marino 18 16. Moldova 12 17. Estonia 10 18. Montenegro 8 Semi-Final 2 1. Australia 171 2. Ukraine 148 3. Belgium 142 4. Bulgaria 120 5. Lithuania 112 6. Latvia 57 7. Israel 57 8. Poland 56 9. Serbia 51 10. Georgia 49… Read more »
Crap. This Web site does crazy things with the “less-than” and “greater-than” mathematical signs.
Let me rewrite the last part: The MF system had to be applied here. Looking at what happened to Poland (jury – bad, televotes – excellent), Malta and Israel (jury – good, televotes – bad), just about says it all.
I know I’m late here, but this just about sums it up:
“Again, when juries and televoters are in complete disagreement over a song, that song likely gets no points under the 2013-2015 system.”
That’s why the MF system had to be applied here. Looking at what would have happened to Poland (jury televotes), just about says it all.
In all fairness I did not like the old system (used in the past two years), so I was waiting for the change. It favoured ‘safe’ and punished risky or novelty songs, because if the judges put someone near the bottom then even if the public loved the song it often got zero. And I don’t think it’s fair and I don’t believe the judges are very good at differentiating between let’s say the 13th best song and 20th… It’s normal that you have your favourites and that is easier to rank but with songs you dont like it’s hard.… Read more »
@Krinos: I stand by comment by comment about latent racism and anti-Australian sentiment costing Dami Im in the tele-vote. I’ve seen just such opinions/sentiments expressed throughout many ESC forums and fan sites. There’s a large minority who consider Australia to be an unwelcome guest, unfortunately.
PS: I’m not Australian, nor was Australia my personal favourite.
Yeah, but in previous years it still would be Jamala..
Since I love ESC, televote often ruins my favorite.
European should vote song based on the Quality of song and its singer, not based on diaspora or neighboorhoodness.
This year winner is good, but I won’t play more often than others, I don’t keen on the lyrics.
I’m from Australia and have been a EuroVision tragic for a number of years. I like the new system of voting. It was so much quicker and as things turned out, very tense as it headed towards the finale. I was disappointed Dami didn’t get up but also appreciate that a lot of televotes were required for her to even make 4th place. So, many thanks to all who voted for her. I thought the final was excellent this year. There was a good mixture of music styles from straight out pop songs to rock to a smattering of big… Read more »
@Avis, @Osterikke I agree, I think someone should calculated previous years results under this new system, including semi-finals. Unfortunately, I believe it would be too hard and a long process to calculate 2013-2015 years under the 2009-2012 system as it would mean going through every jury members top 10 as well as the televoting results from each country before working out the points (which I don’t think are available), but that would be very interesting if possible. and @Osterrike, the 2013-15 system hasn’t really gone. The points for the juries are still calculated by ranking which is still very open… Read more »
“Australia will do an Azerbaijan”?
You mean steal and cheat and bribe their way to victory?
–> this post made my day, hehehe. Nice of Samra being punished by Juries & televotes, and the commentary from other non-Eurovision sites (and twitter) focused on her non-existent vocals
Israel has no neighbours in ESC and in 1998 won with Dana International
and it was 100% televote. Why is Australia so afraid? Just participate with
someone who does not scream and does not break windows in people’s
homes.
Luckily they’ve changed it
Every year there will be people unhappy with the voting results. There isn’t a way to do the voting that will make everyone 100% happy. I didn’t like how the votes were presented, since it meant that as soon as your country got points, they were done. And I can’t believe the televote gave Czech Republic no points and Poland the fourth most points. Really? Anyway, I feel that this year, there was less political voting, and the music won. I would’ve loved Australia to win, but am glad that Ukraine did.
I’m happy that they changed it because it would be unfair to win even when people placed Austrelia 4th(plus i wanted a European country to win plus the song wasn’t that big of a deal it just sell that glam!).I would say that we should not have juries because they really bury very good songs but then again almost every year Russia would win bc so many countries vote them no matter what and that’s pretty unfair aswell.
Sorry for Australia, although I’m glad they didn’t win.
But seriously, the viewers still prefered Poland, Ukraine and Russia over Australia. Being the winner coming 4th in the televote wouldn’t seem right to me, so I think Ukraine (coming 2nd with both juries/telev.) deserves this.
I like this new system way more then the previous ones that have been used. Going with the way things were done in the most resent of the older systems the winner is known before the last votes are tallied up and it ends up also giving too much control to the average person which means that average songs would get better scores so it doesnt really encourage any innovation musically. Going 100% televote would. Give you a similar issue and on top of that the same countries would wind up winning constantly. Going 100% jury would make people loose… Read more »
“Wiwibloggs accuses SVT of lying to viewers.” What does SVT have to say about this article I wonder? Unfortunately I agree with many of the fans at this point. The juries have not been as “professional” as they could have been, and they currently have too much say in the result. Okay so the new voting system is more exciting, but it is still far from being accurate and fair, in my opinion. Maybe if the juries were 100% reliable and professional there wouldn’t be any problems with the current system, but that did not appear to happen this year.… Read more »
Sorry, but the 2013-2015 voting scheme had to go anyway. Now we have a similar voting like from 2009-2012 and I think it is the best one. The only thing I hate is that San Marino gets a fake televoting score. That is not necessary because they just can leave out those fake points from the voting, double the jury score or ask 1.000 or more Sammarinese people to vote in a caucus, which should make a valid result. We should refigure the years 2009 and 2015 according to the new voting to have a better comparison. My guess is… Read more »
It definitely sucks for Dami, but the previous system was indefensible. There were very clear and obvious attempts by some national juries to downvote the favorites (like the Georgian jury in 2014). This system takes some power away from the juries and is ultimately fairer.
The thing is that Australia would win even if it was FOURTH in the televoting just because the JURY’S placed her first. Which is basically a repeat of what happened last year with Il Volo. I think the viewers who actually pay to vote should be given more credit. The jury’s should be eliminate or at least affect the result by a smaller percentage because otherwise we will lose every interest in the contest.
would there be any changes in the semi finals under the old system?
SOLUTION: Let’s go back to the 2009-2012 method of voting and the pre-2016 method of presentation. Oh, and then let’s get rid of Australia also and then we have Ukraine as the fair EUROPEAN winner, beating Russia fairly and squarely into 2nd place, and the amazing Bulgaria in a well-deserved 3rd place!
Can someone start a petition, please?!
Australia in Europe ? Come on…
Jury ? rather clique….
Next year only televoting !
I prefer the new system because, as already said, the televote can’t cancel out the juries and vice versa.
@oooops
Thank you for the link!
I wrote about how the new voting system affected the result yesterday. I also wrote about the diaspora effect.
http://juulsus.tumblr.com/post/144397021462/new-eurovision-voting-system-who-benefits
Under the new system, Poland will end up in the top 10 automatically every year, simply because of the large diaspora vote. This seems totally unfair. All Western European countries gave top marks to Poland (10 or 12 points), while the song wasn’t on anyone’s radar beforehand (at least not in the western media). Clearly, a case of Polish immigrants voting for themselves. This made a huge difference in the overall ranking this year, and will remain to do so in years to come.
I think the voting system must be revolutionized: 1. Get completely rid of the jurys. Five people having the same power as an entire country is just ridiculous and like the Danish example shows, one member fucking up can have drastic consequences. Imagine if you bribe only 5 jury members, it could lead to a country getting 60 undeserved points. 2. In my opinion, it’s quite unfair that the contestens who comes eleventh in the voting gets as much points as the contestant becoming last – zero. Everyone should be awarded points, starting with one point for the last place… Read more »
Follow this link, and we do also have split results for semi finals
So no matter which voting system used, Russia wouldn’t have won? Hahahahaha that’ll show those Russians who are whining all over YouTube. No offense, but they’re such a sore loser and want to remove juries altogether because the juries result didn’t work in their favour. All the latest YouTube video in official ESC channel were all voted down and inundated by cyrillic comments because of this, can you believe it?
I do feel it is very unfair that with a simple system change, Australia doesn’t win. Leave it for eurovisionists to find a way to prevent a non-european country’s victory. If I were Australia, I wouldnt take no for an answer. Now it is TOO clear who did deserve to win!
It seems that western countries want jury because they are afraid of diaspora
and bloc voting, but then I ask:
1. Why Russia did not win every year when the system 100 % televote
was used, because in those times Russia was even more loved by the bloc
than it is today.
2. Why last year, televote winner was Italy, a country that is not usually
favoured by televote.
This new system is the best ever. How crazy it was seeing the scoreboard moving all the time and Poland jumping from last to 8th! It also eliminates the “bloc/diaspora voting” idea. Norway gave nothing to Sweden and 12 to ITALY, Armenia 12 to France… 2016 was for me, the best year ever.
@blondboybc – Australia was top 5 in both aspects. It’s actually very close. Why does everyone blame prejudice for every result they don’t like?
There’s no guarantee the public’s winner will actually win without eliminating the juries, which I don’t want. But now twice in a row televoters who payed to vote for their winner are cheated out by the juries. I honestly don’t think the juries should be on an equal footing with the televoters. The juries should award 1-8 points to their top eight acts and if even that makes the televote’s winner fall to a lower ranking, then the juries should just leave. Or the public could just deal with it, but people payed money to vote for Sergey. Maybe it’s… Read more »
What’s even more appalling and blatantly apparent under this new system is the vote discrepancy between the jury vote and the tele-vote. Sometimes, the juries gave nothing to some countries while the voters gave very high marks, and vice-versa. This is most obvious with Australia, where they had a very large margin of points ahead of Ukraine, whilst they got 4th with tele-voters. Why such a diff? Is there some latent prejudice in Europe against Asian performers like Dami, along with some anti-Australian bias? One has to wonder!
What I don’t understand is if this juror from Denmark really did mess up her vote, does that mean she screwed up in the second semifinal as well? I don’t think it’s a valid excuse if you’ve already done it once before and the documents are signed *and* notarized. People were complaining when the juries sandbagged Italy last year, but I think this system allows for a fair say between the two groups. Instead of an aggregate of two rankings and five people having just as much power as a whole country’s viewing population (which is really what screwed Italy… Read more »
I think the new system is much more straightforward and transparent. The old system was so confusing that I never fully understood it, and it sometimes produced “strange” results. For example, last year Serbia came 10th with televote and 16th with jury, but averaged 10th place.
After pondering the math I understand how the averages worked out, but nevertheless it made the system feel way too convoluted.
I do not care about it but who is the blond guy recording the video? I am more interested in him. ???????????? Hope he is not gay:(
A rest of the world vote… And how exactly are you going to do that?
It will be interesting to see what points the “San Marino” vote gave, and how it can be changed to make it fairer next year. I think they should just process the votes they get so it might not be 50/50, but at least they’re not making votes up
I still don’t understand what would happen if Australia actually did win. Who would host the following year? They say it won’t be in Australia, but then where? Who would pay? How would they decide? Why would any other broadcaster volunteer for such a significant hassle?
They just figure “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”.
I like this new system, for reasons that were already told.
If we used this system in 2015, Lithuania would give some points to Russia and in 2014 UK would give some points to Poland (both because of the televoting).
It’s more fair this way.
Although I don’t like the winner of this year, I think it’s better that Ukraine won over Australia because Ukraine was in 2nd both juries and televoting scores, while Australia was only in 4rd in the televoting.
@Jonas
Completely agree, definitely one of the worst winners ever.
“Running Scared” was a dreary ballad sung by two unconvincing and minimally talented singers with zero star quality and even less chemistry. No way in hell that won.
Sorry. Five years later, you think I’d be over it, but no.
@Paul D
I remember there being a good few favorites that year, it was a very strong year, dont think we’ve had as strong a year since 2011, I think only 2014 comes close.
In 2011, Sweden, France, Denmark and Ireland were doing well in the odds, if I remember correctly.
Sure. Tell that to Eric Saade.
@Jonas
Azerbaijan won in a very weak year, there wasn’t a clear favourite/favourites. They just got lucky
“Australia will do an Azerbaijan”?
You mean steal and cheat and bribe their way to victory?
I don’t think so.
Yeah, the new system stops people from wasting their money – such as when Poland topped the UK televote in 2014 but got no points.
Also, regarding the “rest of the world” vote – I’m not so sure. Though Serbia Montenegro were allowed to vote back in 2006 even though they weren’t participating, so it’s happened before. Fun fact.
@Pollaski
I think I might be a continental bigot, but Im trying to get used to it. Dami was amazing, It was just two soon for them to win this year, the EBU know that they would be criticized over it, but Australia will do an Azerbaijan and work their way up to victory gradually. Thats what I think anyway but yeah, your Rest of the World/San Marino vote idea sounds good and I’m sure it would be possible.
I personally think this new system is much better because with the old one if the juries punished an entry that did very well with the televote, it would go directly to the bottom. Now, both parts count the same way and everything fells much more fair to be honest