Possible new rule for Grand Final Televoting

[SpiritofKeiino]

Go check ESC Tom's latest video.

As far as I know, statistics is his actual job.

So San Marino finished 10th with 46 points and they got points from 14 different countries.

Cyprus finished 11th with 44 points and they got points from 5 different countries and 3 of those countries gave him 12 or 10 points, the other one was a San Marinese jury.

So, explain to me, how does it make sense that Albania, Slovenia and Azerbaijan gave Cyprus their top marks, when all other countries gave it 0?

And interestingly enough Albania, Slovenia and Azerbaijan have low number of people voting. Hm...

Cyprus votes need to be investigated. Lots of focus on political voting and rightly so, but Cyprus votes in this SF are very strange. It wasn't even a 'winning song' that would typically get top marks

 

[Realest]

2009 is sus af.
4th place in sf1 with 105 pts, 22nd place in the final with 33 pts.

8 points from and in the semi, 0 in the final.
7 points from , and in the semi, 0 in the final.
Suuuuper saspishas and has to be investigated, no?

It's easy to point fingers at Eastern European nations and blame them for rigging.
But voting behavior is much more complicated than that. It's not the same in the semi-finals (with fewer songs) compared to the Grand Final. Even one additional song can lead to significant shifts in people’s voting patterns.
Many of you claimed that Joost’s absence from the final last year played a role in Croatia amassing all those votes to win the televote.

This is totally normal. We have tons of similar examples every single year.
Just a few examples:

2025:
10 from in the semi, 0 (13th) in the final.
10 from ROTW in the semi, 0 (13th or 14th) in the final.
08 from in the semi, 0 (12th) in the final.
08 from in the semi, 0 (14th) in the final.

2023
12 from in the semi, 0 (24th) in the final
10 from in the semi, 0 (18th) in the final.

2023
07 from in the semi, 0 (21st) in the final

2022
10 from in the semi, 0 (19th) in the final
10 from in the semi ,0 (19th) in the final.

2017
10 from in the semi, 0 (17th) in the final.

etc...


There is absolutely nothing suspicious there, since voting behaviour changes from the semi, where people vote for who they want to just qualify and the final where everything is focused on 3-6 topfavourites that get points from almost everywhere.


But the televote results from any song with Kontoupoulos involvement are suspicious since years as I showcased here:

Cyprus - CYPRUS 2025 - Theo Evan - Shh

The staging was phenomenal but there was no song here at all, and in such circumstances, nothing can make up for it. ::cy needs to change its approach to ESC and I hope it happens after this result.

www.escunited.com

And at least I dont think that countries like and have a very special musictaste that benefits any Kontoupoulos songs.

 

[EDC0708]

Is it possible all used jury voting in SF1, there was a long gap before we got the results.

 

[SpiritofKeiino]

Is it possible all used jury voting in SF1, there was a long gap before we got the results.

Has the 'threshold' required for a valid televote ever been disclosed? I remember reading somewhere that Albania failed to reach it in one year.

 

[ESC94]

Has the 'threshold' required for a valid televote ever been disclosed? I remember reading somewhere that Albania failed to reach it in one year.

We don´t know how many votes are needed to get a valid result, probably to avoid manipulation. I guess every country has its own quota that needs to be reached.

 

[Realest]

Is it possible all used jury voting in SF1, there was a long gap before we got the results.

In which universe does any professional jury give 12 points to ?

 

[Harry]

Is it possible all used jury voting in SF1, there was a long gap before we got the results.

It would have to be disclosed publicly that any country unexpectedly did not meet the threshold. Besides the official results page would reflect that. San Marino use jury votes every year for the semi finals and their grand final “televotes” are an aggregate; similar to 2022 when a number of jury votes were declared invalid - they used an aggregate based on regional voting patterns.

It would be interesting to know why there was such a long gap though! Maybe one country’s results needed ratifying for one reason or another, such as if it was too close to call between some placements in rankings.

 

[SpiritofKeiino]

It would have to be disclosed publicly that any country unexpectedly did not meet the threshold. Besides the official results page would reflect that. San Marino use jury votes every year for the semi finals and their grand final “televotes” are an aggregate; similar to 2022 when a number of jury votes were declared invalid - they used an aggregate based on regional voting patterns.

It would be interesting to know why there was such a long gap though! Maybe one country’s results needed ratifying for one reason or another, such as if it was too close to call between some placements in rankings.

Has it ever been disclosed that a televote did not meet the threshold? I remember reading something about Albania one year although I don't think I saw an official confirmation. I'd be interested to see this data if it exists.

 

[Verjamem]

@SpiritofKeiino it was 2005.

During the commentators meeting, that just took place in Kyiv, it was announced that televoting has been declared invalid in three countries.

Due to the low number of votes, the televoting in Albania, Andorra and Monaco has been declared invalid and the jury votes were used to determine the points given by these countries. To avoid future attempts to influence the televoting in these countries, the European Broadcasting Union did not want to tell what the neccesary minimum amount of votes was to make it valid.

Not sure I can tell the source

 

[SpiritofKeiino]

@SpiritofKeiino it was 2005.

Not sure I can tell the source

Oh thank you! That must be where I saw it. Surprised it's so long ago.

 

[Judas]

Has the 'threshold' required for a valid televote ever been disclosed? I remember reading somewhere that Albania failed to reach it in one year.

As far as I am aware, it has been lifted since 2016 and not in use anymore.

 

[EDC0708]

Wasn't aware the televoting threshold had been dropped.
The ones I could find where jury votes replaced televote from 2004 to 2016 (excluding San Marino, which has never used a real televote)
2004 Semi FInal - Monaco (From the 50 year ESC book "There were so few votes cast from Monaco - less than 100 - that the computer had not been able to recognise the paltry scores and randomly invented votes instead")
2005 Semi Final - Monaco Andorra and Albania
2005 Final - Monaco, Andorra and Moldova
2006 Semi Final - Monaco and Albania
2007 Semi Final and Final- Andorra and Albania
2009 Semi Final 2 - Spain and Albania (Wikipedia states this, although I think EBU only said Spain and another country at the time)
2009 Final - Norway (technical issue) - Hungary's televote was also SMS only due to technical issue
2010 Semi Final 1 - One unnamed country (I would suggest Albania based on trends of other years)
2012 Semi FInal 1 - Albania allowed to use jury voting only
2013 - not announced, but as the results of both SF2 and the final don't add up correctly, but SF1 does, their may have been both jury and televote issues that weren't announced that year, or just that the announced numbers were incorrect!)
2014 SF1 - Albania, Montenegro and Moldova
2014 SF2 - Georgia and F. Y. R. Macedonia
2014 Final - Albania
2015 SF1 - Georgia
2015 SF2 - Montengro and Azerbaijan

Incidentally, in the first Eurovision Dance Contest in 2007, where Greece took part but didn't broadcast the event live due to forest fires in the nation at the time, Graham Norton did announce immediately before Greece's points were announced that their results came from the Greek back-up jury, as far as I am aware we have never had an equivalent announcement of this type at ESC.

 

[SpiritofKeiino]

Wasn't aware the televoting threshold had been dropped.
The ones I could find where jury votes replaced televote from 2004 to 2016 (excluding San Marino, which has never used a real televote)
2004 Semi FInal - Monaco (From the 50 year ESC book "There were so few votes cast from Monaco - less than 100 - that the computer had not been able to recognise the paltry scores and randomly invented votes instead")
2005 Semi Final - Monaco Andorra and Albania
2005 Final - Monaco, Andorra and Moldova
2006 Semi Final - Monaco and Albania
2007 Semi Final and Final- Andorra and Albania
2009 Semi Final 2 - Spain and Albania (Wikipedia states this, although I think EBU only said Spain and another country at the time)
2009 Final - Norway (technical issue) - Hungary's televote was also SMS only due to technical issue
2010 Semi Final 1 - One unnamed country (I would suggest Albania based on trends of other years)
2012 Semi FInal 1 - Albania allowed to use jury voting only
2013 - not announced, but as the results of both SF2 and the final don't add up correctly, but SF1 does, their may have been both jury and televote issues that weren't announced that year, or just that the announced numbers were incorrect!)
2014 SF1 - Albania, Montenegro and Moldova
2014 SF2 - Georgia and F. Y. R. Macedonia
2014 Final - Albania
2015 SF1 - Georgia
2015 SF2 - Montengro and Azerbaijan

Incidentally, in the first Eurovision Dance Contest in 2007, where Greece took part but didn't broadcast the event live due to forest fires in the nation at the time, Graham Norton did announce immediately before Greece's points were announced that their results came from the Greek back-up jury, as far as I am aware we have never had an equivalent announcement of this type at ESC.

This is very interesting. Also notable that Iceland, Cyprus and Malta never appeared in the list above despite low populations. Perhaps there was/is more interest in ESC in those countries than say Albania or Georgia.