58 Points

As we await clarification about the dates (hopefully identical to 2017), city (hopefully Lisbon), and venue (hopefully MEO Arena) for 2018, we’ve drilled down a bit into the fortunes of this year’s semi-finalists.

There were 18 songs competing in each semi-final and half of the pre-qualified countries’ juries and public also voted in each. Therefore, when crunching numbers from the semi-finals, the maximum component score for each delegation is 240 points: 20 delegations (you cannot vote for yourself) times 12 points. Or a maximum of 480 points when combining both score components.

Semi-Final One

Portugal clearly won the televote for 197 points, receiving points from every country and 82 per cent of the televote points on offer: their lowest televote score was 4 points. Amar Pelos Dois  earned douze points from 9 countries and an average televote score of 9.85 points per delegation–in other words, close to 10 points, meaning an average ranking of 2nd across all countries.

Salvador’s Sobral jury support was in relative terms a bit weaker than his televote support, with a lower score. Portugal’s 173 total jury points relfects 72 per cent of the maximum jury score available. While every jury gave points to Portugal: the Italian and Montenegrin juries awarded them “only” 4 points each. Seven juries awarded Amar Pelos Dois the maximum twelve points.

Aside from Portugal, there was significant agreement between the public and juries: six entries (Moldova, Sweden, Cyprus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Greece) were in both top 10 lists. But the rankings were mostly rather different, save Portugal:

Place	Televoting	Points	Jury	Points		Place	Combined	Points
1	Portugal	197	Portugal	173		1	Portugal	370
2	Moldova	180	Australia	139		2	Moldova	291
3	Belgium	125	Sweden	124		3	Sweden	227
4	Sweden	103	Moldova	111		4	Belgium	165
5	Cyprus	103	Azerbaijan	87		5	Cyprus	164
6	Poland	69	Armenia	87		6	Australia	160
7	Armenia	65	Czechia	81		7	Armenia	152
8	Azerbaijan	63	Georgia	62		8	Azerbaijan	150
9	Greece	54	Greece	61		9	Poland	119
10	Finland	51	Cyprus	61		10	Greece	115
11	Montenegro	39	Poland	50		11	Georgia	99
12	Albania	38	Finland	41		12	Finland	92
13	Georgia	37	Belgium	40		13	Czechia	83
14	Iceland	31	Albania	38		14	Albania	76
15	Australia	21	Iceland	29		15	Iceland	60
16	Slovenia	20	Montenegro	17		16	Montenegro	56
17	Latvia	20	Slovenia	16		17	Slovenia	36
18	Czechia	2	Latvia	1		18	Latvia	21

Source: Wikipedia

• Moldova was 2^nd with the public and 4^th with the juries (2^nd overall)
• Sweden was 4^th with the public and 3rd with the juries (3^rd overall).
• Cyprus was 5^th with the public and 10^th with the juries (5^th overall)
• Armenia was 7^th with the public and 6^th with juries (7^th overall)
• Azerbaijan was 8^th with the public and 5^th with juries (8^th overall)
• Greece was 9^th with both the public and juries (10^th overall)

We were also required two tie-breaks for this semi-final. Good pals and friendly neighbours Azerbaijan and Armenia had the same juries score: 87 points. Both received a single douze points, so it came down to how many countries awarded jury points to Skeletons versus Fly With Me. Therefore Azerbaijan is ranked ahead of Armenia because Dihaj earned points from 15 countries; Artsvik earned points from 14 countries. Cyprus and Sweden both earned 103 televote points, but Sweden’s two douze points trumped Cyprus’s one.

Many fans were shocked when Finland did not qualify from Semi-Final One. Blackbird was only 10^th with televoters and 12^th with juries. Norma John’s combined score was only 12^th highest. Because it’s the aggregate scores that determines the final ordinal rankings—not the two ordinal rankings themselves—Finland did not qualify.

Semi-Final Two

Bulgaria’s second semi-final victory was also wholly unambiguous. Beautiful Mess rocked the televote for 208 points, receiving points from every country and 87 per cent of the televote points on offer, for an average televote score of 10.4 points. Kristian Kostov received douze points from nine countries’s televoters.

Kostov’s jury support was nearly identical: 199 points with no jury awarding Beautiful Mess less than 6 points. Nine juries gave Bulgaria their douze points. It’s a remarkably high and consistent result.

Bulgaria’s semi-final total score was 33 points ahead of Portugal’s aggregate score from its semi-final. But that’s an apples (semi-final one competing entries) and oranges (semi-final two competing entries) comparison: until Saturday night there was no opportunity for juries or the public to consider the merits of Amar Pelos Dois and Beautiful Mess. side by side. On the nights that matter most, both juries and televoters from across Europe clearly preferred Amor Pelos Dois.

Aside from Bulgaria, however, there was little agreement between the public and jury rankings: only five other entries (Belarus, Hungary, Israel, Norway and the Netherlands) were in both top 10 lists:

Place	Televoting	Points	Jury	Points		Place	Combined	Points
1	Bulgaria	204	Bulgaria	199		1	Bulgaria	403
2	Hungary	165	Netherlands	149		2	Hungary	231
3	Romania	148	Norway	137		3	Israel	207
4	Israel	132	Austria	115		4	Netherlands	200
5	Croatia	104	Denmark	96		5	Norway	189
6	Estonia	69	Israel	75		6	Romania	174
7	Belarus	55	Hungary	66		7	Austria	147
8	Norway	52	Malta	55		8	Croatia	141
9	Netherlands	51	Belarus	55		9	Belarus	110
10	Switzerland	49	Serbia	53		10	Denmark	101
11	Serbia	45	Switzerland	48		11	Serbia	98
12	Ireland	41	Ireland	45		12	Switzerland	97
13	Macedonia	40	Croatia	37		13	Ireland	86
14	Austria	32	Macedonia	29		14	Estonia	85
15	Lithuania	25	Romania	26		15	Macedonia	69
16	Denmark	5	Lithuania	17		16	Malta	55
17	San Marino	1	Estonia	16		17	Lithuania	42
18	Malta	0	San Marino	0		18	San Marino	1

Source: Wikipedia

• Hungary was 2nd with the public and 7^th with juries for 2nd overall.
• Israel was 4th with the public and 6^th with juries for 3rd overall.
• The Netherlands with only 9^th with the public but 2nd with juries for 4th overall.
• Norway were 8^th with the public and 3rd with the juries 5th overall.
• Belarus was 7th with the public and 9th with juries for 9^th overall.
• Denmark only scored 5 televote points (16^th place) but their 96 jury points (5th place) snuck them in at 10^th overall.
• Estonia were 6th in the televote (69 points) but 17^th with juries (16 points): they ended up 14^th overall.

And then there was Malta…and San Marino. Breathlessly had a dearth of pan-European support. Claudia Faniello  got  null points in the televote: even 8^th place with juries could not lift Breathlessly higher than 16^th overall. Meanwhile San Marino got null points from jury support and only one televote point from Germany (the Ralph Siegel effect?). Yikes.

Meanwhile on Saturday Night…

Nine of the top 10 Grand Finalists this year were qualifiers from the two semi-finals: Italy (6^th overall) was the only pre-qualified entry in the top 10. Four came from the first semi-final, five from the second.

Australia was 6^th in the first semi-final, but managed 9^th in the Grand Final—in both instances thanks to massive jury support. This is an anticipated outcome of the aggregate scoring system: a massive score in either component will almost certainly result in a top 10 overall. Last year we saw it for Poland in the televote.

In the second semi-final Norway was 6^th and Romania 7^th: in the Grand Final Romania finished ahead (in 7^th) of Norway (10^th). Romania racked up massive televote scores in both the semi-final and Grand Final (148 and 224 points). Norway’s  televote scores (52 versus 29 points) indicate that Grab the Moment didn’t really grab the Eurovision public.

Before 2016 the jury and televote score components were synthesized to create a top 10 from each delegation: songs with skewed support either from juries or the public tended to get flattened scores—sometimes ending up with no points despite massive televote support. This current system treats both the public and jury score components equally.

Next: interesting aspects of the Grand Final results.