This article is data focused looking at the bigger picture. I will be sharing some thoughts about the season that is about to start as well.
Switzerland has become the second country after Sweden to win the Contest despite winning just the Jury vote. It has only happened once ('15 - Sweden) between '09 and '22, but suddenly we have had a back to back for Sweden and Switzerland.
Both jury scores (Switzerland 365 points, Sweden 340 points) are the highest Jury scores in history in percentage of the maximum points an entry can receive. It is more impressive when someone checks the scores the Public vote winners have received. Finland in '23 lost despite scoring 376 Public vote points and Switzerland won respectively Croatia, Israel and Ukraine the first trio ever to score +300 televote points in the same year! And who would have thought a few months ago that two out of these three +300 points would come from #2 and #6 (#5 actually) in the running order!
The change of the rules back in '23 has favored the public vote magnets to qualify and/or achieve high scores in Semi - Finals but most of them suffer in the Final, failing to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Jurors are not that keen to give their full support unless there is proof that there is some substance, credibility and authenticity in an entry.
On the other hand, it is harder for a jury magnet to perform in a Semi - Final environment, but if they make it to the Final it is easier to achieve a great result. Estonia in '23 finished 10th in the Semi - Final and 8th in the Final thanks to the Juries and Belgium 8th in the Semi and 7th in the Final! In 2024, Portugal finished 8th in the Semi and achieved a Top-10 result in the Final and of course Switzerland! Finished 4th in the Semi and won the Contest.
Another trend that is visible in the Jury vote is that the gap between the winner and the runner-up is very big. Sweden in '23 had almost a double score (340 - 177) versus Israel that finished 2nd and Switzerland had a 147 points lead from France (365 vs 218). The threshold for the 2nd and 3rd place in the Jury vote is usually 260-220 points but has not happened in the last two years.
Will the 'Jury winner wins the Contest' trend continue in 2025?
I do think that the rule will keep boosting the Jury focused entries and will be guaranteeing Top-2/3 results for the Jury winner but things do evolve and there are a few arguments supporting that the scores will be more balanced.
'Tattoo' and 'The Code' are both great entries but there were lacking tough competition in their field. 'Due vite' and 'Mon Amour' were the only entries that could be considered jury magnets and both missed the 225-250 points threshold. The main reason is that Sweden and Switzerland ended up sweeping all the 12s and 10s leaving no room for the others. 'Tattoo' received 15 sets of 12 points and 8 sets of 10s (23/36 countries) and 'The Code' received 22 sets of 12s and 6 sets of 10s (28/36 countries). Add to that the half dozen 12s that end up in friends and neighbors every year and things become more difficult.
I cannot predict if we will have an entry that could replicate these scores with the Juries in 2025 (Mans?), however I can predict that we will have more entries in the 230-260 Jury points threshold. Jurors are gradually adapting to the trends and do recognize the artistry and the authenticity in entries like they have never done in the past.
'Cha Cha Cha' received 150 points and it was considered the absolute maximum he could get for this type of entry. In 2024 ' Rim Tim Tagi Dim' scored 210 points finishing 3rd, above Italy that many considered a potential Jury winner. At the same time 'Doomsday Blue' scored 142 points finishing 6th, above Portugal and Sweden and very close to Ukraine and Italy. A few years ago it would be unthinkable for an entry like this one to be even close to a three digit score.
That means that we will be seeing more mixed genre/ out of the box entries that will be aiming for high scores with both constituencies and the more of this type of entries we have, the more the jurors will become less strict/ hesitant to vote for them.
The fact that the Jury winners of the last two editions won the Contest raised some concerns that the audience will lose interest if the Juries decide the winner year after year. There is a point there, however, there is a simpler explanation for this outcome.
The elephant in the room...
And of course the elephant in the room is Ukraine's and Israel's public vote scores and the ways they are distorting the big picture and are causing headaches to EBU, the national broadcasters and the public.
Ukraine since the break-out of the war in '22, has received 935 Public vote points out of maximum 1380 available points. That means that Ukraine has gotten an average of 8.13 points from every country voted in the last three years! In that same span, Ukraine got 39 sets of 12s out of the 115 available! Their result back in '23 implied that they still had some traction with the public vote and that they would have inflated numbers in the future editions and their '24 result proved the theory was right. They have amassed 307 points performing second in the running order!
I do believe that Ukraine was the reason behind the addition of the Producers' choice to decide the running order of the Final. EBU tried to minimize the Ukrainian effect and has sent a very strong message to them that they do not wish another political Ukrainian victory in the near future.
Things got more complicated last year when Israel, also involved in a war, decided to use Eurovision to promote their agenda. They ended up 2nd in the public vote with 323 points and receiving 15 sets of 12s leaving some room only for Croatia to grab the rest of the 12s available.
Ukraine and Israel combined received 630 Public vote points, which were 28.5% of all available points! Both nations have confirmed their return for Eurovision 2025 and we are heading for a similar result on that end.
Just to give you an idea of how much these two are skewing the voting result here is the list of the number of countries that have received at least one set of 12 points from the public in the split vote era
2016: 13
2017: 13
2018: 16
2019: 15
2021: 13
2022: 8
2023: 12
2024: 10
Eurovision '22 and '24 were the only editions we have had with only 3 countries receiving more than a set of 12s from the public ('22: Ukraine 28, Serbia 5, Moldova 2 - '24: Israel 15, Croatia 9, Ukraine 7) and the third lowest is '23 with 6 nations (Finland 18, Ukraine/Israel 4, Italy/Moldova/Armenia 2).
The new reality is that Ukraine, Israel and the Televote winner get the majority of 12s, half a dozen of countries exchange 12s between them and the rest of the field is fighting for the remaining two-three 12s left on the table.
In my opinion, here lies the biggest threat for Eurovision's future and something needs to be done so that the audience will not lose interest.
There have been heated discussions on X that EBU should change the split percentage from 50/50 to 60/40 favoring the public vote winner, but under the current circumstances that would boost further the already boosted Ukrainian and Israeli scores and this would be a nightmare scenario for EBU, fans and broadcasters.
An easy fix for EBU could be to reduce the maximum number of votes a person has. The threshold is currently at 20 but there are two problems that could emerge from there. The most important one is the loss of revenue that is vital for EBU and the producers. The other problem is that there wouldn't be a significant change in the final outcome even if people could vote just once instead of twenty times. You could have a decrease on the percentage of votes Ukraine or Israel would get, but would still get enough votes to get the high scores. It doesn't matter if instead of 25% of the televotes, you get 10%, a long as the second best gets 9.9%. That method would also lead to less countries getting the high scores.
There is a slightly more complicated fix that could help to bring some balance back and that would be to ask the app users to vote like the jurors giving points from 1-12 and use these as part of the public vote. I am not sure though that there will be enough time to amass all the points and get a result on time, unless the voting is open a day before the Final.
I do have a feeling that EBU will opt for a different option though and that could be the introduction of a demographic/demoscopic jury that could count for the 33% of the voting. That way, there would be a 34/33/33 split with the demographic being the one balancing the inconsistencies between the other two and produce a result that would be fairer. It does worth a try and could be kept in place for as long as the political agendas try to overtake the reigns of the Contest. The extra voting would make things more interesting during the voting and could shake things up a bit.
The fact is that there is not a voting system that is perfect and EBU has been open to changes in order to balance things and I reckon that this is the direction they need to take to prevent the further highjack of the public vote and broadcasters opting out of the Contest or going all radical to secure some votes.
If no changes are made for Eurovision 2025, I do expect the jurors to be the deciding factors again, downvoting both Israel and Ukraine like they did with Israel last year. And that means that we will be a heading a third straight win for the Jury winner...
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