Our analysis of the Final reveals a very skewed result
Eurovision 2006: Front Loaded in the Final

esctoday.com, Netherlands
July 10 2006

2006 was one for the record books in a number of ways. Finland won for the
first time Armenia made a strong debut.. Serbia & Montenegro got to vote,
though they didn’t send a song. Only Greece has avoided relegation to the
semi-final since 2004. And Europe overwhelmingly preferred a handful of
songs over all the others. Here’s our analysis.

Thanks to the success of Lordi, our friends in Finland have already begun
work on the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Helsinki on 10 and
12 May next year. So have we here at ESCToday.com! No doubt Armenia are
pleased to have done so well (8th in the final) with their debut. After a
tumultuous selection process got derailed, Serbia & Montenegro ended up not
sending a song-though they were permitted to vote during both the
semi-final and final. And with the poor result for Malta (last, with only 1
point), only Greece has avoided relegation to the semi-final since 2004.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the 2006 results from the final
is how skewed-unbalanced-the final tally was. We’ve crunched the numbers,
which show how a handful of songs were wildly popular, another few very
popular, and the rest left well back.

Crunching the numbers: the basics

Each voting country awards 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10 and 12 points. That adds up to
58 total points award by 38 voting countries: <I>2,204 total points</I>
awarded overall. If you add up all the points awarded this year they
should-and do-add up to 2,204.However, the most a song can earn from any
one country is 12, and no country can vote for itself. So the maximum points
any one entry can receive is 12, from 37 (38 minus 1, itself) countries: 444
maximum possible total points for one song.

The top 6: Wildly popular

If we look at the top six songs from this year (Finland 292, Russia 248,
Bosnia & Herzegovina 229, Romania 172 ,Sweden 170, Lithuania 162), they
account for 1,263 points-well over half the total points available. Six of
24 songs therefore grabbed half the points! In fact, Finland, Russia and
Romania each received points from 35 (of 37 possible) countries. Sweden was
awarded points from 34, Bosnia & Herzegovina from 33, and Lithuania from 32.

The next 4: solid support

If we look at the rest of the top 10, support drops considerably, yet
remains strong compared to most other entries Ukraine’s 145 (from 30
countries), Armenia’s 129 (from only 13!), Greece’s 128 (from 23), and
Ireland’s 93 (from 29) round out the top 10 with an additional 495 points.

Combined with the first 6, this year’s top 10 commanded 1,758 points-80
percent of the points available to roughly 40 percent of the songs!

Turkey and the rest

Sitting just outside the top 10 is Turkey. With 91 points (garnered from
just 8 countries), they just missed the top 10. After Turkey, scores
plummet: number 12 FYR Macedonia and Croatia both scored 56 points from 6
countries each. Germany and Norway are next, all the way back at 36 points
each. Spots 12 through 24 shared 20 percent of the points available.

What’s another year?

Comparisons to the previous two large-scale Contests (with both a semi-final
and final) show this year’s results are unusual. In fact, Greece won in
2005 with a score of 230-both Finland and Russia would have beaten them,
and Bosnia & Herzegovina would have finished just behind. Malta was second
with 192 points, Romania 3rd with 158-38 and 72 points behind the winner.

In 2004 we had 3 songs that were wildly popular: Ukraine (280 points),
Serbia & Montenegro (263) and Greece (252). Turkey was in 4th place (195),
over 50 points behind Greece.

Finland’s win was massive; in a year when a handful of songs ruled the
Contest. Will 2007 be similar? Or will Europe spread the points around more
evenly? We will see…only 10 months until the semi-final!