The Jury Effect

Many have wondered about the real effects of bringing the professional jury back to the contest. Much has been said about nothing changing and still having an enormous amount of friendly and diaspora vote. This is true to some extent. I mean, Andorra did give Spain 12 points, as Cyprus did to Greece. The Nordic countries still swapped high marks among them (of course, let’s just not forget that both Norway and Iceland were among the favorites, and that Estonia did have one of the best songs of the year), as did the ex USSR and former Yugoslavia. Turkey still managed to take away a lot of points from countries where their diaspora accounts for a large amount of people.

How then, can we say that the jury actually worked? Simple. A lot of countries that wouldn’t have otherwise scored did get some points. France is a really good example of how the jury vote helped a really good entry reach a decent position.

Three countries have revealed their complete results, and so we can compare the televote, the jury vote and the actual result. Of particular interest are Poland and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where it is clear how the new system favored some countries and helped them get points. The case of Finland is less evident, as Estonia, Iceland and Norway, top scorers are within their normal pattern of voting. Still, some conclusions can be drawn from these three countries. Let’s take a look at their results

Bosnia-Herzegovina
Televote Jury vote Final result
Croatia Israel Croatia
Turkey France Norway
Norway Croatia Israel
Greece UK Turkey
Azerbaijan Portugal France
Albania Norway Greece
Iceland Germany UK
Estonia Armenia Azerbaijan
Germany Sweden Germany
Romania Turkey Portugal

So well, Croatia did get the 12 points from Bosnia. It was expected that being the only other former Yugoslav country they would win the televote, but after knowing that Croatia moved forward from the semifinal thanks to the jury vote, logic is that the juries would back it up in the final too. As they did, and therefore they were unreachable and thus got the highest mark from BiH.

But then, there are four countries that if only televote counted would have got no points at all: Israel, France, United Kingdom and Portugal. Seems then, that the friendly vote was indeed affected here. Greece lost points and went from 7 to 5, and Albania got nothing, whereas if only televote mattered they would have got 5 points. Four countries that would have got points in the televote were left out of the final Bosnian results when the jury acted: Albania, Iceland, Estonia and Romania. Thanks to the jury Israel reached one of the top three spots. So then, can we say that the jury in Bosnia balanced the results? Yes, indeed, it’s impossible to deny this.

Finland
Televote Jury vote Final result
Estonia Iceland Estonia
Norway Estonia Iceland
Iceland Norway Norway
Sweden Malta Sweden
Bosnia France Bosnia
Azerbaijan Turkey Turkey
Turkey Armenia France
France Bosnia Malta
Russia Sweden Azerbaijan
Greece Israel Armenia

As I said before, the Finnish vote does not show a lot of differences in the top spots from their normal patterns of vote. But then again, no one can judge them for giving high marks to three countries that managed to reach the top 6. Norway and Iceland were hot favorites, and Estonia did have a pretty good song, which was supported by a lot of other countries.

How was the jury important in Finland, then? Well, to begin with, it made Norway and Iceland swap positions, the latter getting 10 and the former 8 points, which would have been the other way around. It helped Turkey and France get some more points. And it gave Malta and Armenia something to add to their scores, which otherwise wouldn’t have happened, since they both scored zero in the televote. It also meant that the neighbor 2 points that Russia would have got just faded away, and that Greece was left out too. So again the question, how much the jury mattered? To some extent, if anything to balance the results and change the amount of points some countries received.

Poland
Televote Jury vote Final result
Norway Denmark Norway
Azerbaijan Norway Ukraine
Estonia Ukraine Estonia
Ukraine UK Denmark
Armenia Moldova Azerbaijan
Russia Iceland Moldova
Albania Estonia UK
Moldova Germany Russia
UK Russia Armenia
Iceland France Iceland

In Poland’s case only one country actually entered the final points thanks to the jury, but earning a very respectable 7 points. That means that Denmark, which received no points from the televote actually managed to sneak to the top thanks to the 12 points from the jury. All Ukraine, Moldova and the UK got higher marks after the jury vote was added, and Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia lost some. Estonia and Iceland remained the same. Can we say that the jury influenced here? Of course, particularly taking points away from Russia, who probably after the performances deserved the last place, but still got points from many countries. Yet, their position would have been considerably higher if only the televote would have counted.

Did EBU succeeded by introducing this formula? I wouldn’t doubt to say they did. Some fans have said that the voting had no interest at all. That’s probably true, but for a change, this year it had nothing to do with the possibility to actually know how every country would vote, but more with the fact that the hottest favorite from minute one did actually live up to the expectations and picked up points from every other country. Yes, It became clear from the moment the fifth country voted that there was no way anybody would beat Norway. But then again, who would have thought that Iceland and the UK, and even France would do as well as they did.

Yes mates, the jury vote indeed played an important role in this year’s outcome. It stopped the all-eastern countries top ten, it launched some very good entries to the top of the scoreboard and even though not all the songs ended in the positions we wanted, at the very least we can say that we saw a more balanced result.

A suggestion to EBU to wrap this one up. Let’s take the 50-50 system to the semifinals as well. It surely will improve the quality of the contest, and it will force countries to actually make an effort to send their best representatives. We already saw the unthinkable this year: Serbia not qualifying. Let’s make it even harder. Let’s have just the best entries in the final. Let’s give every country an opportunity to make it to the big night. Let’s make ESC a pure song contest once more.