Eurovision 2011 Results – A Fuller Dissection

Jun 24, 2011 by Rob

It’s something of a fallow period on the tv betting front currently, so a good opportunity to analyse the Eurovision 2011 result in greater detail.
One of this year’s biggest surprises was the high score achieved by Italy to finish 2nd. It was boosted by a massive jury score of 251. To be fair, Raphael Gualazzi performed ‘Madness Of Love’ very well and by all accounts he was more impressive than France’s Amaury Vassili in the jury performance on the Friday evening as well. Even so, it remained a shock that this song was so loved by juries.
While Italy was mostly overlooked, the live bloggers in Dusseldorf were all raving about ‘Sognu’ during rehearsals and it remained a short-priced fav going into the final on Saturday night. France’s desperately poor televote score of 76 can be explained by a very nervous, off-key performance by Amaury in the live final that clearly failed to connect with viewers at home, but it is also to be noted that Italy only achieved a televote score of 99.
Much of the damage had been done, in hindsight, the night before but why juries went for Italy’s classical jazz and not France’s pop opera – to the extent of a 161 point disparity – still remains hard to fathom. Maybe juries were weighted this year in favour of jazz fans, or more realistically, they perhaps scored Italy higher than the song merited given it was Italy’s first appearance at the ESC since 1997. Be it sentiment or an official ESC directive, who knows, but encouraged by such an excellent result, one would expect Italy to form part of effectively a ‘Big 6’ in 2012, helping to fund the event with the other 5 automatic qualifiers – UK, Germany, France, Spain and hosts Azerbaijan – which can only be a boost to the event.
A noticeable aspect of jury voting this year was their support of well sung solo female ballads. Maja Keuc of Slovenia and Austria’s Nadine Beiler were stand out vocalists and they were justly rewarded by finishing 4th and 5th respectively in the final jury vote. Disappointingly, their support collapsed among televoters, Slovenia only receiving 39 points and Austria a meagre 25. They both had decent late draws but having so few voting friends in the final damaged their scores dramatically. It also shows that the general televoting base of the ESC is not refined or discerning enough to reward genuine vocal talent, or songs of subtlety and depth. We saw a similar trend in 2010 with Ukraine’s Alyosha singing ‘Sweet People’ only finishing 13th on the televote in the final. Georgia’s 9th place on the televote with ‘Shine’ by Sopho Nizharadze last year, and a points tally of 127, remains something of a televoting high benchmark for the pure, solo female ballad (this year’s Ukraine song is not included here for reasons explained below).
Lithuania’s qualification from semi-final 1 certainly raised a lot of eyebrows at the time. Looking at the breakdown of the scoring, ‘C’est Ma Vie’ actually won the jury vote which again highlights jurors love of a well sung, solo female ballad. One might assume being drawn 17 of 19 must have helped boost Lithuania further, but in truth it only achieved a televote of 52 points which was the same as Austria in semi-final 2, which was disadvantaged by its draw in 2. Slovenia, which won the semi-final 2 jury vote and managed 3rd overall in this semi, received only 68 points on the televote (a placing of 7th overall on the televote). What we can summise is that such songs are loved by jurors but rejected by the public unless such songs are able to rely on a strong diaspora.
A criteria jurors are supposed to factor into scores is a song’s hit potential. Based on this year’s results, this remains a difficult factor to gauge. ‘Popular’ by Eric Saade is certainly our idea of a song with hit potential. A televote score of 221 in the final backs up our view, pointing to European teen girls loving it and going into overdrive texting their votes for the Swedish heart-throb who offered up the catchiest of Schlager. Yet it was Sweden’s poor jury vote of 106 (9th in the jury vote overall) that cost Saade his chance of victory, resulting in an overall placing of 3rd.
Somewhat bizarrely, Jedward’s ‘Lipstick’ was considered superior to Saade’s ‘Popular’ by juries in the final, achieving 119 points – placing it 6th on the jury vote. This was a big turnaround from semi-final 2 in which Sweden received 99 points compared to Ireland’s 66. Was ‘Lipstick’ genuinely considered to have stronger hit potential than ‘Popular’ among the 43 juries? Similarly, 2 other songs vying for approval among jurors for their hit potential were the UK’s ‘I Can’ by Blue and Russia’s ‘Get You’ sung by Alex Vorobyov, and yet both completely bombed – the UK receiving only 57 points, and Russia an even more dismal 25 points.
Did these 2 songs not have hit potential by comparison? Their excellent televoting scores of 166 (UK) and 138 (Russia) would suggest otherwise so why were they shunned? Blog reports told us that Blue performed poorly in front of the juries on the Friday night which might partly explain the UK’s poor jury score but Russia’s Alex Vorobyov sang adequately enough to the best of our knowledge. Might this be a case of juries assessing Russia harshly due to its powerful diaspora? Possibly.
Two strongly fancied nations in the lead up to Dusseldorf were Estonia with Getter Jaani’s Rockefeller Street, and Hungary with Kati Wolf’s ‘What About My Dreams?’. Both might legitimately have been considered songs with hit potential, yet they, too, fared poorly with juries, achieving scores of 74 and 60 respectively. We wonder if these songs were penalised by jurors for their unimpressive live vocals though, to be fair, the public also gave the thumbs down to these 2 songs. Perhaps Getter Jaani was too ‘Disney Channel’ and Kati Wolf too niche – as an anthemic house tune – to suit the tastes of the general ESC vote base. Given the advent of text voting, perhaps this also now gives male pop performers a big edge on the televote, as they are strongly supported by teenage girls/young women – the UK, Russia, Sweden and Ireland all achieving decent 3 figure scores on the televote.
Another possible clue to jury scoring of these songs could lie in the staging. Sweden’s staging was impressively slick and Russia’s not nearly as good. The UK’s staging was extremely poor as was Hungary’s whereas Ireland’s was a triumph. Given that Jedward cannot hold a note but were cleverly concealed by backing singers, a mesmerisingly colourful canvas for a backdrop, and the sheer energy they threw into the performance, perhaps ‘hit’ potential, in the eyes of juries, now encompasses the visuals as much, if not more, than the song, or the vocals. But overall, this whole ‘hit’ potential aspect of jury scoring remains something of a mystery and hard to nail down.
Along with Italy, another surprise top-10-er, at least for us, was Ukraine. Mika Newton’s ‘Angel’ struck us as very bland and yet it managed to finish 4th, an exceptional result for a solo female ballad. A great draw of 23 out of 25, certainly didn’t hinder its televote but its score was clearly inflated by an element totally separate from the song or Mika’s voice, namely, the visual impact of the sand artist used to tell the story of the song. This undoubtedly bewitched the tv audience, and again highlights the power of staging.
In the semi-finals, it was hammered home again how much of an advantage it can be to be drawn late. The best illustration of this is the largely unheralded Greek song winning semi-final 1 (tipped up by us at 50-1). Yes, it was bolstered by having strong voting allies in this semi – only Azerbaijan had superior voting strength in this semi – but ‘Watch My Dance’ was able to steal the show and knock Azerbaijan, which preceded it, off top spot. Loukas Giorkas’s outstanding vocal was able to take a fairly average Greek song to a higher level, as did the tremendously evocative staging, but the draw must also have helped Greece to top the televote.

Conversely, an early draw makes it tougher for countries. We had the shock result in semi-final 1 of seeing the first 5 songs to perform all failing to qualify. The first 4 were sung by women so possibly helped to cancel each other out, but the big hitter of Turkey missing out from the 5 draw, highlights the vulnerability of songs from an early draw position.
An anomaly we have noticed in semi-final 2 is Bosnia’s surprisingly low jury vote (65) and high televote (131) given its draw in 1. Indeed, we would have expected a reversal of those scores and anticipated Bosnia to be vying for top spot on the jury vote yet it was shunned, finishing 11th. Dino Merlin certainly didn’t sing the song to the best of his ability when singing live in the semi-final – though televoters forgave him for this – but we were not aware of him performing poorly in his jury performance the previous evening. Is this another example of juries being harsh on a nation with a strong diaspora – trying to make the event more of a level playing field?
The impressive jury scores achieved by minnows by way of voting friends, Lithuania (113), Iceland (104) and Switzerland (76), in semi-final 1 – enabling them all to qualify with what were largely considered pretty ordinary entries –  and the likes of diaspora big guns Georgia (51), Armenia (33) and Russia (31) being heavily penalised by juries, might also suggest there is something in this.
One of the biggest disparities in the final saw Denmark finish 3rd on the jury vote, but 18th on the televote. An early draw didn’t help Denmark win televotes yet Bosnia was able to overcome this obstacle to achieve 6th place in the televote. While it is easy to point to Bosnia having more voting friends than Denmark, Bosnia’s comparative failure with juries, along with Denmark’s failure on the televote, reveal part of the beauty of the ESC – its great uncertainty as a contest and the guesswork required in assessing the impact of the different variables at play, and attempting to penetrate the tastes of both the jury professionals and the wider public.
For jurors to rate the likes of Italy and Ireland as superior to Bosnia and Georgia still baffles us, and shows that no end of study will ever give you the full picture, and some results will always leave you scratching your head for answers.
What are your opinions on the 2011 ESC vote breakdown? Is there anything you have spotted ahead of next year’s contest in Baku? Do you agree or disagree with some of the trends highlighted above? Please feel free to add your thoughts below and join in the discussion.
Rob Furber

The split results of the Final were as follows:

First Semi-Final split results

The split results of the first Semi-Final were as follows:

Second Semi-Final split results

The split results of the second Semi-Final were as follows: