“Brutal.” “A bloodbath.” “So unfair.” “Toughest semi-final in history.” These were but a few of the comments made in the Lisbon bubble about the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest first semi-final. The overwhelming consensus was that Tuesday’s line-up of entries was much stronger, there were more than 10 entries deserving of a place in this year’s […]
Does said membership disproportionately benefit a 12 member Russophone bloc’s preferred entry? Click through for a lengthy analysis!
the 2018 Grand Final result was clear and unremarkable. John Egan takes a look at some of the numbers.
Portugal’s 2017 victory was a landmark: a first victory after 50 attempts, a non-English language victory for only the second time in the televote era, and the first aligned victory (in terms of jury and public rankings) since 2014. All of which makes for a comprehensive victory…unless all is not necessarily as it seems, if you dig a bit deeper. So dig we have. Or at least tried
Before this year’s Contest, most fans would probably agree that hip hop is the one genre that has not done nearly as well at the Eurovision when compared to its global popularity. Although 2003 champion Sertab Erener rapped her way through the bridge of Every Way That I Can. the song, however, was more a […]
Aside from its own argot—because expressions like pre-selection, do a Rossinelli, PED, Eurovision-by-numbers, styling och consulting, make no sense outside ESC fanland—few topics are as vexing as the issue of language at the Eurovision. Whilst for the most part the Contest using English as its business language is accepted (with French increasingly only used for […]
Around a hundred million people watched at least part of this year’s Grand Final. In fact, for many viewers the Saturday night show is the Eurovision Song Contest. However, most of the songs in a Grand Final have to earn their place through qualification from a semi-final—and only twice in the televote era has an […]
In many respects 2017 has been a noteworthy one. In this first article we take a look at some of the Grand Final results. This is the first in a series: subsequently we will drill down into particular elements of this year’s results, including detailed looks at the two semi-finals. Joy More than fifty years […]
In this next article in our series looking back at the 2016 Contest we examine the overall Grand Final results. We identify the winners (yes, plural), and highlight how differential jury and televote scores are no longer squashed to the bottom of the leader board.
In the dark of night they worked, cobbling together performance data, considering delegate importance and personalities, and calling upon their extensive experience as light entertainment producers to create something magical. But what does this year’s producer-led draw tell us?
