The 20 Biggest Jury-Televote Gaps in Eurovision Voting History

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Hello, I'm Stephen Perkins and this is Douz Boi. The Eurovision podcast from the team that brings you Bingewatch. It is Monday, 3rd of February and we've got another deep dive coming up for you in which I'm going to look at the times where the juries and the televoters were deeply divided on particular songs. But first, let's take a look at the latest news.

First up, the draw for the semi final allocations in this year's contest was held in Basel on Tuesday and we now have a rough idea of the shape of the two evenings. Competing in the first half of Tuesday's semi final in May will be Estonia, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and Ukraine. And in the second half will be Albania, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Netherlands, Norway and San Marino on Thursday.

Competing in the first half of the semi final will be Armenia, Australia, Austria, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Montenegro. And that means the second half will be occupied by Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Israel, Luxembourg, Malta and Serbia. We've also had a few confirmations of artists and songs from internal selections over the last week, even if there's nothing to hear from them just yet.

28 year old singer and actress Luanne has been selected to compete for France with the song to be revealed at a later date, while Czechia's previously announced artist Adonis will be performing a song called Kiss Kiss Goodbye. Also, Austria will be sending JJ, who competed on the Voice UK under his government name of Johannes Pietsch in 2020 with the song Wasted Love and that's going to be released in March.

Greece, Belgium, Slovenia and Spain also concluded their national finals this week, so let's take a quick look at the results of those. Greece's Ethnicos Delicos was won by Claudia with Astaromata or Starry Eyed, which was one of the pre contest favourites. This one made a strong instant impact on me. It feels very controlled and powerful and I think it could do really well for them. Given that it's more of a slow number, I'm really intrigued to see how they're going to stage it.

For maximum dramatic impact, Belgium's entry couldn't be more different from Greece's. They're sending Red Sebastian with strobe lights. This is a trance banger that absolutely romped home in Eurosong 2025, winning with both the juries and the televote. He had a margin of over 200 points over the song in second place in the televote, so it was a decisive Victory in every conceivable way. I'm not sure about the live performance from the national final, though.

I think it was a little bit shaky, but there's plenty of time between now and May to refine that and the song itself feels like a sol place to build from. Slovenia's national final was pretty much a two horse race between Clemens with How Much Time do we have Left? And July Jones with New Religion. And it ended up being fairly close, but also kind of not. Clemon won the juries by a margin of just one point, but then had double the televote points of July Jones.

Honestly, based on these two songs, I think it was the right call. I don't know if either one had much chance of qualifying for the grand final, but there's something simple and beautiful about the lyrics and the performance of how much Time do we have left that really moved me and I think there's at least an outside possibility of connecting with the viewers at home on the night. While I think New Religion was a bit too by the numbers to have much of a shot either way.

Finally, after an addition of Benidorm Fest, that did seem a little bit underwhelming on the quality front, Melody emerged triumphant as this year's representative for Spain with Essa Diva or that Diva. I'm in two minds about this one. It's fun and it has got some attention grabbing staging already in place, but it does feel a little bit like asking your mum if you could have Chanel again and your mum telling you that you've already got Chanel at home.

But Melody is at least a talented singer and a charismatic performer, giving 100% drag race lip sync energy throughout and even helicoptering her ponytail at one point. So if sheer enthusiasm can carry you through on the night, I think she's in a fairly good position. Now, you could say that the Eurovision Song Contest is a song competition forever in search of a scoring system that works for everybody.

For the first 40 years of its life, the points were awarded by national juries, sometimes comprised of industry professionals, sometimes of ordinary members of the public. But inevitably, as time and technology marched on, the viewers at home wanted to have more of a say in shaping the outcome of the the contest.

From 1998, the contest operated on an almost exclusive televote system for over a decade, but this too came in for criticism over the number of countries that always seemed to vote for their neighbours, irrespective of the quality of the song. So from 2009 onwards for the Grand Final, at least the Votes have been split 5050 between a national jury and a public televote.

Inevitably, this system hasn't been perfect either, as the juries and the public tend to respond to very different types of songs. And since the joint voting system was brought in, we have had multiple occasions where a song that was top of with the juries did significantly worse in the televote or vice versa.

So for this week's episode, I decided to crunch the numbers and work out the biggest differences of opinion between the juries and the televote. I'm just going to quickly share how I worked this out. First of all, with a big shout out to my husband for being very much the stats minded person in our household and helping me to come up with a formula to work all of this out.

I went through all of the published individual scores from each grand final since 2009, worked out each country's jury score and televote score as a percentage of the overall number of points available that year, which of course varies from year to year depending on the overall number of countries competing in the contest, and then compared the two stats to see the overall percentage difference.

So bear in mind the following results don't take the semi finals into account purely because the overall number of points available in those is smaller and it would have skewed the data.

As much fun as it would have been to dwell on the 2022 contest when Azerbaijan qualified for the Grand Final despite having received zero points in the televote for statistical reasons, I have also had to exclude the 2013 contest from the results because the EBU didn't actually release the full points breakdown that year and instead released the average ran ranking that each song had received in the overall jury and televote.

So that data is kind of useless to us for the purposes of this episode. And my apologies to anyone who was hoping to hear all about how Cesar's It's My Life for Romania was done dirty by the juries. We'll have to save that one for another time. So what we're going to do is a top of the pop style countdown of the top 10 songs at each end of the scale and we're going to start with the songs that got a huge response from the viewers at home, but didn't get such a warm reception from the juries.

As a little spoiler, I will reveal in advance that there are two countries of each on this list twice and one the narrating list being on it three times. We are going to start with one of the two Countries that is on this list twice. That's Italy at number 10. We've got their entry from 2018, non mi avete fato niente. Or in English, the slightly less catchy sounding, you Haven't Done Anything To Me by Ermato and Fabrizio Moro.

This one finished in 17th place with the juries scoring just 59 points, but it got a huge boost in the televote, finishing third with 249points, a difference of 7.62%, propelling it to fifth place overall. I am going to hold my hands up and say that I'd kind of forgotten about this one, possibly because the massive surge it got on the televote kind of got lost in the great Neta versus Fuego battle of that year.

I can't really speak to why the juries weren't moved by it, but I do think its appeal with the public is a lot easier to explain. It's a classic Eurovision call for peace that referenced specific recent terrorist attacks, and the performance was accompanied by messages flashing up on the screen in a variety of languages that I think would have helped make the whole thing feel a lot more personal in a whole bunch of countries.

Beyond that, it was a beautiful, heartfelt performance and it was also the last song performed that night in slot number 26. So you can't underestimate the impact of it being the last thing that viewers saw and heard before the voting lines opened. You won't have to wait long for Italy's second appearance in this part of the countdown, because here they are again at number nine, this time with their entry from 2015, Il Evolo with Grande Amore or Great Love.

This is a different situation to 2018, because it's not like this one was unpopular with the juries at all. It actually finished sixth overall with them with 184 points. But it still makes it onto this list because it absolutely romped home in the televote, finishing top with 366 points, a difference of 7.84%, and enough to put it third on the overall leaderboard with 292 points.

Remember, this was back in the days when the jury and televote scores were combined into a single set of points from each country. Again, the public appeal here isn't difficult to spot. It's an extremely X Factor friendly, semi operatic performance from three conventionally attractive men. And it was again in the very last performance slot of the night.

Moving on to number eight in our countdown, it's Poland. Now, if I were a betting man. The Polish entry I would have put money on making it into this top 10 was the 2014 entry by Donatan and Cleo Mieslovjania. We are Slavic. You know, the one with the sexually suggestive milkmaids churning butter, as spoofed by Mel Gadroitsch in the 2023 contest in Liverpool. But believe it or not, that's actually only in 15th place. Nope. This one is the 2016 entry colour of youf Life by Michael Spackling.

This one finished in 25th place, with the juries that year picking up just seven points, its highest score with the juries being three points from Lithuania. But it had the luck to be part of the very first contest where the jury and televote scores were tallied separately, resulting in it zooming up the scoreboard at the end of the night. After finishing third in the televote, scoring 222 points, a percentage difference of 8.83%, bringing Poland up to eighth place that year.

Overall, it was one of two big shocks in that part of the evening, the other being Austria's Zoe with Luan dici, who finished 24th with the juries and eighth in the televote. Since every other country in the televote top 10 had also been top 10 with the juries. I must admit, I was taken by surprise that Colour of youf Life was such a huge hit in the televote because it hadn't really landed with me that night at all.

Possibly because I was still smarting that Margaret's Cool Me down had fared so poorly in that year's Polish national final after his admittedly ropey live performance. But if anything, Poland's success with the viewer vote that year just went to show how much the Eurovision audience responds to a sincere ballad sung extremely well by a performer with considerable stage presence and an ability to connect with the camera.

So maybe there is something in there for Slovenia to take away this year at number seven, it's the other country making its first of two appearances on the Countdown. And get ready to boo and hiss because it's Russia. We're still in 2016 for this one. Sergei Lazarus with youh Are the Only One. Much like Italy in 2015, this one wasn't really done dirty by the juries. By anyone's definition, it finished fifth with 130 points.

But thanks to a catchy chorus and some memorable staging, it was the televote winner that year with 361 points. That's a difference of nine points in what turned out to Be an interesting set of results for the first explicit jury and televote split reveal in Eurovision history.

Neither the televote winner nor the jury winner that was Australia's Dami Im with Sound of Silence ended up winning overall, since Australia could only manage fourth in the televote and Ukraine's Jamala with 1944, who was the runner up with both the juries and the televote ultimately took the win with an underdog victory that I think no one really saw coming, which made it all the more exciting. Just missing out on a spot in the top five. At number six, we have the 2022 entry from Moldova.

That's Zob I Zdub and Atvahoff Brothers with trenuletsel. It finished 20th with the juries with 14 points and second in the televote with 239 points, a difference of 9.7%. That took it to seventh place overall that year. I can honestly tell you I don't need to do a particularly deep dive to explain the appeal of this one, because I remember it really vividly. 2022, you may remember, was a grand final that was a little bit top heavy with ballads.

And there was a point in the middle of the running order where we'd had five of them back to back, and I think a lot of us were craving some respite. Then came Moldova with this delightfully jolly piece of fiddle pop with a hey ho, let's go refrain. And I honestly cannot describe the relief that came with it when the pace of the whole evening just seemed to lift by about 500%.

I can understand why the juries didn't go for it, but the viewers at home were clearly so grateful for something fun and up tempo at that point in the evening that they remembered this one very clearly when the lines open opened at number 5, it's Russia again. Boo, hiss. Etc from 2012 with party for Everybody by Buranovsky Babuski.

This one finished in 11th place with the juries netting 94 points, but finished second in the televote with 332 points, a difference of 9.77%, finishing second overall. Again, this is one of those cases where the jury televote split is not particularly hard to explain. This was a gimmick entry.

A group of extremely adorable grandmothers singing a mostly self penned folk song about cooking a lovely loaf of bread for when their families come home, which they then acted out on the stage and then putting a donk on it for the chorus, which was in English. They weren't the Best singers, hence the lack of love from the juries. But it was never meant to be for them. This was meant to be the funny song that resonated with the viewers at home. And it worked.

At number four, you'll all know this one. Finland 2023. The People's Princess, Ka Ria with Cha Cha Cha. This one, I think, actually performed better with juries than any of us were particularly expecting, finishing in fourth place with 170 points points.

But in a year where Sweden's Loreen was absolutely hoovering up the jury votes with tattoo that was still just under 7% of the available points, he did far better with the voters at home, topping the televote with 376 points, a 17% share of the available score, giving him a 10.07 percentage difference. And we could sit here relitigating whether Ka Ya or Loreen was the true winner in 2023, but let's not pretend that hasn't been done to death already. And let's move on.

At number three, it's my personal poster child for being absolutely robbed by the juries. It's Norway from 2019, Kano with Spirit in the Sky. Norway received 40 points from the juries, finishing in 18th place and picking up just 1.68% of the available points, but proceeded to top the televote with 291 points, drawing 12.24% of the available points and making that a 10.56% margin of difference.

This one's an interesting case because it's on record that there were technical problems with kano's performance during the jury rehearsal for the grand final in 20. To the extent that the Norwegian delegation requested a do over of their performance, but the request was denied by the ebu. So we'll never know for sure if the technical problems that they experienced truly marred the jury's impressions of Spirit in the Sky.

But it is worth noting that they had similar results in the semi final, winning the televote, but finishing 11th with the juries. So it seems like the juries just plain didn't really like this song. Incidentally, Norway's final placing of sixth on the Grand Final leaderboard is the worst placing a televote winner has received under the current system. And honestly, I hope all of those alleged music industry professionals responsible are now blacklisted.

At number two, it's Ukraine in 2022, Kalisch Orchestra with Stefania. They finished fourth with the Juries with 192 points and topped the televote, receiving 439 points, making for a percentage difference of 10.65%. I don't think you particularly need me to explain the circumstances of this one.

We all knew Ukraine were going to top the televote in 2022, and it was only really exceptionally strong entries from the United Kingdom, Sweden and Spain that year that stopped them from ranking higher with juries. Incidentally, Ukraine were the country I mentioned at the beginning, who almost appeared three times on this list, as they're at number 11 for their 2021 entry, go A with Shum and number 13 with their 2024 entry, Alena. Alena and Geri Hale with Teresa and Maria.

So we can deduce that Ukraine are reliably popular in the televote, even if they don't always get as much love from the juries.

And at number one. Well, well, you've probably guessed it. We're in 2024. It's Israel's Edn Galan with Hurricane. She finished 12th with the Juries receiving 52 points, and finished second in the televote with 323 points, which works out at a 12.23% difference in points. As we've mentioned previously on this podcast, as far as Israel's participation in 2024 and beyond is concerned, we only report on the bare factual matters. So that's the end of it.

There was a very pronounced difference in the jury and the televote. Okay, so now we've got that one out of the way, let's turn our attention to the grand finalists, who were beloved by the juries but did not have the same appeal with the viewers at home. Before we start this top 10, there's only one country in this countdown twice.

Although Portugal narrowly missed that happening to them by charting at number 11 for their 2024 entry, Crito by Iolanda, and number 12 with their 2022 entry, Mauro and Soda de Sodade. Possibly because Portugal tend towards the more serious MUSO entries. Hey, Eurovision. Also, interestingly, two contests are responsible for five of the songs we're about to reveal. So clearly, spoiler alert.

2018 and 2019 were quite divisive years. Let's get things rolling. At number 10, Czech Republic with our first song from 2019, that's Lake Malawi with Friend of a Friend. This one quite surprised me because in my head, this one always felt like more of a televote favourite, but it is quite divisive. There's something about the calculatedly cheeky indie pop ness of it that can be quite irritating. They finished eighth with the juries receiving 150 points.

But when the public's turn to vote came, they only received a total of seven points, ahead of only the United Kingdom and Germany, and working out at a 6.01% points difference. I think the running order did play a part here. This had a reasonably healthy televote in the semi final, but crashed and burned in the final after they performed in slot number three out of 26 countries, up to number nine now.

And in a pleasing inversion of the previous top 10, this time it's Italy from 2011 getting the bulk of their support from the juries rather than the televote. This was, of course, their big return to the contest for the first time since 1997. Rafael Gulazzi with Badness of Love. He finished top with the juries, receiving 251 points, but was only 11th in the televote with 99 points, a percentage difference of 6.09%.

So, again, this wasn't one of those scenarios where it got a terrible reception from one set of votes, just a less enthusiastic one. Watching this one back, I can kind of see why it might have appealed to the juries more than the voters. It is quite muso in its leanings and there is something a little bit antiquarian antiquated about the jazziness of it that I think might have left viewers at home just a little bit unmoved. Into position number eight now.

And we're back to 2019 again with the first of two appearances for Sweden in this top ten. We have covered before on this podcast how, despite Sweden's dominance at Eurovision, they are often more popular with juries than they are with the voters at home. And that was certainly true here with Too Late For Love by John Lundvik. Despite being announced as the jury winner on the night, John actually finished in second place with the juries for reasons we'll explain in a minute.

Netting 241points and emerging as what seemed like a strong contender for the winning. It looked like it was coming down to Sweden versus the Netherlands to take the victory. But when the televote was revealed, John had finished in ninth place with 93 points, leaving Sweden in fifth place overall with a 6.22% difference in the votes. There are many explanations we could consider here. Was it the song's underpowered chorus?

Was it the uncomfortable truth that black singers often underperform in the televote at Eurovision? Or could it be that the voters had discovered that John was also responsible for co writing the UK's entry that year, Bigger Than Us by Michael Rice, and felt he needed to be held accountable for his crimes. We may never know. At number seven, it's a slightly surprising entry on the list. Latvia in 2015. Amenata with love Injected.

This was again back in the times when the jury and the televote were delivered as a combined overall score, so it wasn't so immediately obvious when there was a measurable difference between the two. But aminata actually finished second with the juries receiving 249 points, but only eighth with the public receiving 100 points for a 6.42% difference. There's not really a lot to say about this one, in all honesty.

I thought this song was a banger and it was clearly popular with patella voters, but they just weren't as down for it as the juries were. But that said, it still doesn't feel particularly like a miscarriage of justice, given that it still finished in sixth place overall, breaking a six year non qualifying streak for Latvia and giving them their best result in 10 years. In sixth place.

Perhaps controversially, the only contest winner on this side of the list, Switzerland's Nemo, with the code from 2024. As you probably all remember, Nemo romped home with the juries last year, taking home 365 points, a fraction over 17% of the total points available, and giving them a lead of over 100 points over the jury's runner up, France's Slimane. With Mon Amour.

However, Nemo only finished fifth in the televote with 226 points, still an incredibly strong score and over 10% of the available points, but a significant difference of 6.75% over their jury score. Mind you, let's just agree there was a lot going on with the televote in 2024, and it was kind of a law unto itself. Everyone lower than 10th place that year got fewer than 50 points. At 5, it's Australia in 2017. Isaiah with Don't Come Easy. This was a slightly more jarring split.

He finished in fourth place with the juries with 171 points, but 25th in the televote, picking up just nine points and knocking him down to ninth place overall, a percentage difference of 6.94%. After encouraging results from their first two stints at Eurovision, I think this was primarily the novelty wearing off for Australia. At this point.

They were being treated like any other country, and as the standard of their entries started to slip a bit, so did their scores. It's something of a recurring problem For Australia at this point, if I'd been doing a top 20 rather than a top 10, they would have been on the list four times and they've only competed at Eurovision nine times in total. At number four, it's Malta from 2021. That's Destiny with Je Macass or I'm Outta Here.

She was one of the favourites in that year's contest and made it to third place with the juries picking up 208 points points, but was only 14th in the televote, picking up just 47 points. That's a difference of 7.18% since she did well in the televote in her semi final. I think this was largely a combination of two.

A much bigger field at play in the grand final, where there were quite a few uptempo pop songs reasonably similar to Jean Macasse and competing for the same voters and the age old running order issue as she was on sixth in the field of 26. Number three takes us to 2019 for the third and final time. And this is the one I think you've all been expecting to hear. North Macedonia's Tamara Sodevska with prowess.

She won the jury vote that year, although not in the results that actually aired on the night, which gave the victory to Sweden due to an error in the compilation of the aggregated result that replaced the Belarusian jury who were dismissed after breaking the rules during the semi finals that year.

She scored 247 points from the juries, but finished 12th in the televote with just 58 points, a difference of 7.95%. I remember Tamara taking this in good spirits because I think she knew what we all knew, that her song was technically accomplished and the sort of thing that does absolutely hit the sweet spot with juries, but was just a little bit too unexciting to ever be a truly competitive force in the televote.

Just missing out on the top spot is Austria from 2018, Cesar Sampson with Nobody but yout, famously a song that was originally on the BBC's yous Decide shortlist for that year until Austrian broadcaster ORF offered him an automatic internal selection slot.

This was another jury winner overall, taking 271points, but finished in 13th place with the televote gathering just 71 points for a difference of 8.02%. I remember at the time being quite surprised by how well this did with the juries, but honestly, I think if anything, the passage of time has vindicated the juries on this one.

It's a really high quality pop song with excellent live vocals and the only thing that really lets it down at any point is the fact that the chorus is slightly weak and at the top spot. Who else but Sweden? Also from 2018 this was Benjamin Ingrosso with Dance you off who was just 18 points behind Cesar that year in second place with the Juries with 253 points. But he fared even worse in the televote, picking up just 21 points, finishing in 23rd place with a points difference of 9.3%.

This one I think might have been the staging. More than anything, it suffered from both the trying to do a music video on stage problem which never goes down particularly well at Eurovision, and also something about it just came off a little bit creepy more than anything.

Still, not to get too Alan Partridge about it, but arguably Benjamin did have the last laugh, getting to come back to perform as an interval act in the first semi final of 2024 as successful established artist with a parade of his post Eurovision hits that were back to back bangers. Ok, that's it for this week. I hope you've enjoyed this slightly stat heavy rundown and maybe it's given you a little bit more insight into the viewer voting patterns over the last 15 years or so.

I know it's been fairly informative for me. Anyway, thanks for listening. We've got some great stuff coming up in the next few weeks, including some guests coming on to chat about the latest national final results and how this year's contest is shaping up. So don't forget to hit subscribe on your podcast platform of choice to make sure you don't miss any of that.

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