As another Eurovision season comes to a close, John Egan crunches some of the numbers from this year’s Grand Final. There are some surprises! For the second year in a row the bookies’ favourite has triumphed: congratulations to the Netherlands’ Duncan Laurence, whose Arcade joins the list of Eurovision champions. Duncan and his songwriting colleagues […]
In a live, competitive competition, what you do and when you do it both are important. But how important is the “when” bit, when the immediate goal is qualifying for the Grand Final? In this article John Egan looks at the question of Grand Final qualification in the two semi-final era of the Eurovision.
“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.
The first 2018 semi-final offered an embarrassment of riches: there being a sense of disappointment with what would follow on Thursday seemed inevitable. But even with a lowered set of expectations, what was delivered on Thursday felt, with a few exceptions underwhelming. There was another element to the luck of the 2018 draw that seemed […]
There are few aspects of the Eurovision for which a consensus view emerges. But in 2018 there seemed to be one: that the first semi-final had more than 10 qualification-worthy entries. A corollary of this is that the second semi-final only had a handful of strong entries. This imbalance was accidental—due to the random allocation […]
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 […]
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 […]
