Author: Berry Matijssen
Reading time: 4m:41s
Updated: 22 May 2025
Index
1. Eurovision 2025 was like a déjà vu
2. Why did Austria win
3. Confirmation of the myth of the winner in the last half of the show
4. The politics of the public vote makes making it a jury event
5. A potential cause for the poor public voting for Switzerland, France and The Netherlands
6. A sidenote about sacrificing participants
7. A closing note from the author
1. Eurovision 2025 was like a déjà vu
The reason that Austria won is that it matched all above rules. The number of points awarded by the jury was 258. This is significantly more than the main competitors srael (60 points), Estonia (98 points), Sweden (126 points) and Italy (159 points). Out of this list, it was expected by the organizers based on the semi-finals that Israel would get a massive amount of points from the public while Austria, Estonia and Sweden would get a relative equal amount of points. The points from Switzerland and Italy in the semi-finals were unknown. The combination of the public favourite hardly getting points from the jury while the other contestants score equally, puts the jury in the deciding position.
When it comes to the order of the participating in the finals, there are some remarkable observations.
- Austria is the only favourite contender placed next to poorly performing countries. It was positioned next to United Kingdom and Iceland which both got not much love from the public.
- The other favourites Sweden and France were placed next to each other which I suggest steal points away from each other. Both countries did perform considerably worse than expected in the televote.
- Israel was placed next to Estonia which is a remarkable choice. Estonia did very well in the semi-finals, so the organizer knew this was a competitor in the public vote. By placing it next to Israel they would take votes away.
With Austria being placed favourable and their competitors in a much more difficult position they got a big advantage on their journey to winning the Eurovision.
2. Why did Austria win
The reason that Austria won is that it matched all above rules. The number of points awarded by the jury was 258. This is significantly more than the main competitors srael (60 points), Estonia (98 points), Sweden (126 points) and Italy (159 points). Out of this list, it was expected by the organizers based on the semi-finals that Israel would get a massive amount of points from the public while Austria, Estonia and Sweden would get a relative equal amount of points. The points from Switzerland and Italy in the semi-finals were unknown. The combination of the public favourite hardly getting points from the jury while the other contestants score equally, puts the jury in the deciding position.
When it comes to the order of the participating in the finals, there are some remarkable observations.
- Austria is the only favourite contender placed next to poorly performing countries. It was positioned next to United Kingdom and Iceland which both got not much love from the public.
- The other favourites Sweden and France were placed next to each other which I suggest steal points away from each other. Both countries did perform considerably worse than expected in the televote.
- Israel was placed next to Estonia which is a remarkable choice. Estonia did very well in the semi-finals, so the organizer knew this was a competitor in the public vote. By placing it next to Israel they would take votes away.
With Austria being placed favourable and their competitors in a much more difficult position they got a big advantage on their journey to winning the Eurovision.
3. Confirmation of the myth of the winner in the last half of the show
As mentioned in my previous article, the placement of the winner in the second half is a myth. This correlation is the result of programming choices, not an artefact of the show itself. This was clearly shown in this years edition with both the highest scores from televote (Israel and Estonia) and the winner (Austra) in the first half of the show.
4. The politics of the public vote makes making it a jury event
There are real concerns about the validity of the public vote as a judge of the participating acts. A few examples:
- Sweden got a high score from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Estonia. These clearly form the Scandinavian part of the world.
- To confirm this, Iceland was predicted not even to make it to the finals, but got points from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Estonia. It hardly got points from other countries.
- San Marino hardly got any points, except for the 12 points from Italy.
- Latvia also got few points, but the 12 points from their neighbor Lithuania.
On the other side, the jury score also shows its political side:
- Israel got few points, but the full 12 points from Azerbaijan. A quick search reveals a strong connection between both countries related to their trade and geopolitical view.
- Ukraine gave 12 points to Germany and 10 points to the United Kingdom which are two of their important partners in the current conflict.
- Austria gave their 12-10-8-7 points to countries with few points. Israel did exactly the same which improves their chance of winning.
Both sides have political influences, but how can the jury vote then be more important. The answer is clearly to be seen in the numbers. The jury only gave two countries (Austria and Switzerland) consistent votes. For the public vote there are four counties (Estonia, Israel, Austria and Sweden) with high points. Only Austria is listed in both.
Because the organizers already knew the public vote from the semi-finals and control the order in which the performing acts appear on stage they can influence the outcome. With the jury focussing on two countries while the public focuses on four, they increase their choice of picking the winner by a lot.
5. A potential cause for the poor public voting for Switzerland, France and The Netherlands
There were three countries that got good results from the jury, but did poorly when it came to the public vote. There is not definitive proof for this outcome, but they did have a commonality. The live broadcast of them focused almost solely on the artist and not on the surrounding stage, light-effects and audience.
Here is an observation from the three countries
- Switzerland looked like it was a videoclip shot in a studio with only at the end showing the audience.
- France had not much more on the show than sand falling from the sky with a few modest light effect.
- The Netherlands did a one-follow-shot from the camera with rarely showing the artist in full body view.
The winner Austria also focused largely on the singer, but there were significant differences.
- The focus was not only on the singer but also on the stage props which he was interacting with strongly.
- There were many camera-shots that were quite dramatic.
- It seems it was able to bring together the singing, props and effects into a story.
Based on these findings, it can be suggested that a performance that focuses largely on the singer and does not create enough expression combining the whole stage, audience and showeffects is unlikely to get the vote of the people at home. The rational argument behind it is that the viewer at home expects a live performance on a big stage in a large venue, not a video-clip.
6. A sidenote about sacrificing participants
The role of Israel is controversial. It is clear that they rally their supporters to vote for them in the Eurovision. Combine this with the controversy in the current situation in the middle east, it creates strong opinions going both ways, with the ones in favour of Israel being rallied to vote making them a relatively large group as most people do not vote. To compensate for this effect, a popular act that is considered ‘original, funny and popular, but unlikely to win’ is then sacrificed to prevent their victory from happening. This year it was Tony Boss with Espresso Machiato and last year it was Joost Klein with Europapa. It can be argued that this goes well against the principles of the EBU not taking part in politics.
7. A closing note from the author
The Eurovision has always been criticized, but the amount of politics on both the jury and televote score is taking its toll on how seriously the result should be taken. It can be suggested that the jury likes to see some high-level difficult artistry as a winner, while the televote focuses largely on geographic politics. Admittingly, it is difficult to to come up with a system that fairly judges all participating acts. But given that you have to pay for voting, the practice of favourable placement is questionable.
As a final remark, I wish every radio station all the best if they have intentions to regularly broadcast the winner of this year as it might not be to everyone’s taste.
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