While the Eurovision Song Contest itself celebrates a 70th edition this week, within the contest the current scoring system also marks 10 years since its inception back in Stockholm 2016.
2016 saw the first major overhaul on the voting system at Eurovision since the famous “12, 10, 8, etc” system was introduced in 1975. While that system was refined over the years, of note when it transitioned from a jury vote to a public in the late 1990s, then in 2009 when it was changed to a 50/50 system where judges and public had equal say.
The current system saw a similar format but a drastic change to the overall outcome, the amount of points on offer and arguably most importantly, the presentation of the results. While up to this point each country had a set of points to distribute which was calculated from an equal blend of jury and public, this new system meant within each country, jury and televote had their own set of scores for the board which the other party could not interfere with, allowing both to distribute points for all of their favourite songs for the first time.
At the time of introduction, the Eurovision Song Contest was well conditioned to accommodate upwards of 40 countries competing each edition, one side effect this number brought was the lack of suspense towards the end of the voting sequence if countries strongly agreed with each other. The most shining example of this was 2009 when it was mathematically impossible for Alexander Rybak to lose for Norway even though there were still 11 countries left to vote. Therefore a new system was developed combining tradition with new thrill. Each country were contacted one by one for their points as always, however this was only to announce the jury points, 50% of the mark. When this was complete, everything could change, because every country’s televote points were then added up and the total score was revealed one by one, guaranteeing a winner couldn’t be known until much later in the sequence.
Evolving the System
While the general premise of this new system has stayed the same since introduction, there have been minor tweaks. After three runs of the new presentation an adjustment was made. Where previously the results were read out from lowest televote score and working up, with more points guaranteed the longer you stayed uncalled, the new way from 2019 onwards meant presenters would announce in jury order. This meant the countries would be called from the bottom of the current scoreboard upwards, and the score read out could be absolutely anything from overwhelming surprise to bitter disappointment.
It is believed that part of the reason for the presentation switch is because Netta with her entry “Toy” for Israel in 2018 but more so with Salvador Sobral for Portugal the year before were already too far ahead in the jury, that the mere fact they were still in the running meant the televote points left were going to be enough to secure victory, meaning a rush finish at the end of the presentation. The new system guarantees that every vote needs to be heard.
When this new system was introduced it also rolled out into the semi finals, though specific points were still kept secret in the semi finals so this would appear to be unchanged by the unknowing public. Following the 2022 contest after a few discrepancies and interesting moments it was decided that the semi finals would now be 100% televote, meaning people at home had complete free reign as to who the qualifiers would be. This decision stayed for three contests however starting on this week’s contest, the jury will be returning for a 50% say in the semi final’s outcome, additionally the juries have been expanded from five members a country to seven members.
Who Has Decided The Winner
With the data we know of between 2009 and 2015, a majority of the time the jury and televote agreed on a winner, with the only exceptions being Azerbaijan in 2011 who won thanks only to the public and Sweden in 2015 who won thanks only to the jury. Since then, trends have drastically switched and it has become much rarer for the jury to have exactly the same winner as the public at home.
In fact, there has been two scenarios since the new system where the jury and televote were so split that another entry was able to leapfrog to the top despite winning neither. The first instance was in 2016, the jury winners Australia with Dami Im’s “Sound of Silence” could only secure fourth with the public, meanwhile the public’s winner Russia with “You Are The Only One” by Sergey Lazarev only scored fifth with the jury. This was enough leigh way to allow Ukraine with the entry “1944” by Jamala who sat second on both lists to bypass both winners and have victory overall.
2019’s contest in Tel Aviv saw an even greater disagreement. KEiiNO’s win for Norway in the public vote with “Spirit in the Sky” was completely diluted as they could only secure 18th place with the jury. Likewise, North Macedonia’s shock win with “Proud” by Tamara Todevska in the jury vote couldn’t be matched and they reached 12th place with the public. With this huge disagreement, not only did neither individual winners take victory, neither could even secure a place in the top 5. Instead it was The Netherlands and their entry “Arcade” by Duncan Laurence who were third with the jury and second with the public that won overall.
When Israel’s Netta won in 2018, Italy’s Måneskin won in 2021 and Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra won in 2022, all of these entries won mostly from the televote as they managed to take first place overall. This trend has strayed recently where ever since 2023, the last three winners had already secured enough with the jury that losing the public vote later didn’t matter overall. Only once since the new system began have public and judges agreed, that being for Portugal’s entry in 2017.
The Highest Score
With double the points now on offer, the winner of the 2016 contest would have had a very hard time to not automatically secure the highest score in Eurovision history, whoever it may have been. Jamala for Ukraine indeed secured this accolade with her 534 points. Though this set the new benchmark for future, it was unknown how easy this could be reached again. The following year however, domination on both jury and televote sides meant Portugal’s Salvador Sobral and the entry “Amar pelos dois” completely overshadowed the new record and set a new mark of 758 points.
This record has remained untouchable even nine years on, in fact that same year Bulgaria who finished second earned 615 points, even that was unreachable for future entries including winners until 2022 when Kalush Orchestra won for Ukraine with 631 points. Kalush Orchestra by far secure the highest score in this period for televote only scores, breaking the 400 barrier and collecting 439 points, including an astonishing 28 of the 39 available sets of 12 points.
Salvador Sobral still also retains the record for highest jury score in this time frame, however 2024 winner Nemo for Switzerland came exceptionally close to that record with their entry “The Code” just 17 points behind Salvador despite there being 5 less countries voting in 2024 compared to 2017 and therefore much less points to collect. Along the way they collected 22 of the 36 available 12 points.
The Lowest Score
Perhaps one negative of the new presentation on the artists has been the amplification of the dreaded “null points”, meaning you haven’t scored any points at all. Where previously when an artist had been unlucky enough to not have any points, the cameras would be pointing elsewhere. This new system however puts this moment front and centre as the presenters tell all the viewers you’ve received nothing.
Since 2016, a total of five entries were sadly overlooked by the jury, meanwhile eleven have been overlooked by the televote. When this new system began, it was billed by the media as “impossible to get null points”. This of course is inaccurate as there are no guarantees that any countries will place an entry in their top 10, the new system just means there’s double the amount of sets of votes to be distributed and therefore more chance of collecting points from somewhere.
Sadly to confirm it is indeed possible to walk away from a Eurovision final with no points these days, James Newman for the United Kingdom managed to do just that in 2021. Sitting at the bottom of the jury table as the only country to not secure anything from them, the presenters then had the unenviable task of announcing that the televote agreed. However to soften the blow, in total unprecedented fashion this was then followed in the sequence by Germany, Spain and hosts the Netherlands who had also all been unsuccessful in getting any points from the public.
Controversies and Anomalies
Within the time frame of the new system, several instances have occurred that have either sparked controversy or been noted by fans to be unprecedent occurrences.
With the jury now awarding points independent of their country’s voting public, it was now evident that within that country their jury and public can completely disagree. Between 2016 and 2025 there have been 177 scenarios where either a country’s jury or televote have awarded a particular entry 12 points when their corresponding jury or televote has not awarded them with anything.
The widest disparity of opinion however comes in the system’s first year of 2016. Austria’s jury had cast their vote and decided that Poland’s entry that year “Color of Your Life” by Michał Szpak was their least favourite of the competing finalists. Under the new system however the public were able to overrule this thought and in polar opposite fashion the Austrian public actually awarded Poland the 12 points. Though not to this extreme, this was widespread opinion across Europe on Poland’s entry this year and was a glowing visual example of how the public can change everything and how much suspense this new method of revealing can bring. Where all the juries could only spare Poland 7 points, they waited until almost the ended of the sequence to discover that the Polish entry was third most popular with 222 points. This secured an 8th place finish for the nation.
In that same year, following the contest it was revealed in Denmark’s tabloids that one of their jury members, Hilda Heick had accidentally voted in reverse. The mistake is most obvious when seeing a breakdown of each Danish juror’s ranking which sees all of the other ranking Australia’s entry in 1st place and Hilda ranking last instead of first as she had intended. Alterations of these results wouldn’t have changed the winner but would have meant Ukraine’s winning margin would have shortened from 23 to just 9.
Similar circumstances occurred later in 2019 when several jury members in various countries had been suspected to be voting in reverse in the semi finals as they appeared to have changed their minds drastically when comparing to how they later voted in the final. Fan made restructuring of these votes means that if they were indeed incorrect, then the mistakes cost come countries a place in the final. The EBU has never commented on this discovery.
However the bigger headline in 2019 came when Belarus had their entire jury disqualified after the semi finals because they had revealed publicly how they had voted before the contest’s conclusion which is against the rules. They were not replaced in time for the final so as rules dictate, an aggregated jury vote was cast for Belarus using data from countries that have similar voting patterns to them. However fans became suspicious during the voting sequence that several low scoring nations had managed to secure high points from Belarus and nowhere else.
After investigations it was discovered that ironically, the EBU had aggregated for Belarus in the wrong order, meaning top marks had gone to all the countries that actually finished lowest in Belarus’ ranking. In an unprecedented move, as this was a clear error on part of the EBU, they decided days later to retrospectively alter the overall result of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. While Netherlands thankfully remained the winners, Sweden managed to rise to the top 5 at the expense of neighbouring Norway. While it was also discovered that North Macedonia had topped the jury vote instead of Sweden, taking North Macedonia’s winning moment away on the broadcast.
While it may seem impossible on paper, there are technicalities that mean an entry in the semi final can be compromised out of the final even if both jury and televote agree the entry should qualify. In 2021, Croatia’s entry “Tick-Tock” performed by Albina finished in 10th place with the jury and 9th place with the public, within qualifying boundaries on both sides of the scoring. However, that evening saw disagreements between jury and televote which were enough to make unusual changes. The televote points for Azerbaijan and Norway, as well as the jury points for Sweden and Belgium were enough to dilute Croatia’s chances. Eventually Croatia finished in 11th place overall, just 5 points behind Norway and sadly overall meant they hadn’t secured enough to make the final.
Another anomaly occurred the following year. Azerbaijan’s entry “Fade to Black” performed by Nadir Rustamli had successfully managed to collect 96 points from the jury alone. When it later came for the public to have their say, they couldn’t meet the entry with the same enthusiasm and in fact scored Azerbaijan 0 points. Controversially when adding the two sets of scores, despite being completely ignored by the public, Azerbaijan could still squeak in to the final in 10th place using just their jury points.
Azerbaijan however were also caught in larger spread controversy in 2022 where alongside Montenegro, Poland, Romania, San Marino and Georgia they had raised enough suspicion in their voting for the EBU to take action. Their voting patterns were deemed irregular and it was deemed they were in alliance with each other to secure high points from everyone within the group of six. Because of this, the EBU nullified all these jury scores in both the semi finals and finals, instead using aggregated methods to make up the lost data.
Sweden began a bizarre trend in 2023 when it came to the breakdown of winner’s points. Loreen’s entry “Tattoo” dominated the jury vote in Liverpool, securing 340 points and among that total includes 15 sets of 12 points. Though it is perhaps unsurprising that Finland’s entry “Cha Cha Cha” by Käärijä was more popular in the televote, an interesting point to note in the public was that Sweden were unsuccessfully in collecting a single set of 12 points from any country in the televote. With 243 points however she was still able to top the scoreboard and bring victory back to Sweden.
Though at the time may have seemed exceptional, the following two years continued this trend in some way. Switzerland in 2024 with Nemo’s “The Code” surpassed all expectation with the jury, collecting 365 from them alone. Though once again the jury winner was victorious, Nemo only managed to collect the 12 points in the televote from Ukraine. Then once more in 2025, JJ’s “Wasted Love” was declared the winner and yet, no participating country awarded Austria their maximum of 12 points. This further showed the trend that the eventual winner has massively tipped in favour of the jury’s preference in recent years.
Saturday will see the new voting system in place ready to crown its 10th champion. As always the entry that secures the most amount of points when adding the jury points to the televote will be declared the winner and have the right to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2027.
