Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017)

[Schlagerman1]

Remember the old days where a certain number of countries were allowed to compete the next year, while the rest had to sit out? What if EBU never implemented the semifinals and kept it for the rest of the 00s and 10s, which countries would be in the final now?

I decided to experiment with this, starting with 2004. I choosed to have 26 countries in the finals (since there were 26 in 2003 and it is the common final number nowadays), which are containing:
1. Big 4/5
2. The top 10 from the previous year (excluding the big 4/5)
3. Debutants or long awaited comebacks (that said "no" to compete when their turn came up).
4. Countries that didn't qualify in the year before, but competed recently and is put on a "waiting list" according to the placement of their most recent attempt.

For the voting, I used the escnation.com database. To make it as fair as possible I tried to count out average score of songs that qualified. For example if Andorra is voting in 2004 and gave 16 points to Greece on two tries, then I divide 16 with 2, which gets an average of 8. Same goes for countries voting in one semi and later the final. For 2016, I even divide the vote in 4 for countries qualifying.
Then I go down the list, so that the one with the highest average gets 12 points, 2nd 10p and so on. If two countries get the same score, I decided to make a draw to determine who gets the higest. On some cases (more often in the earlier years) I ran out of countries on the list, and decided to draw countries that gets the lowest points.

And remember, of course the votes could have turn out very differently with having just one final, especially comparing to the two semi system we got today. This is though made for fun and to experiment with the system to see how it could look like.

Okay so here we go, let's begin with 2004 and move forward (the running order of the songs are randomly made, just to make it more fun to do it ):

2004

Competing countries in Istanbul 2004:
Big 4:
Top 10 2003:
Debutants & Comebacks: ::cs
Returnees:
Free Tickets (given to the best placed outside the top 10 in 2003):

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 4-ones) has qualified to 2005 (if they do not withdraw).

2005

Kyiv 2005
Sudden withdrawals: None
Debutants & Comebacks:
Returnees:

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 4-ones) has qualified to 2006 (if they do not withdraw).

2006

Athens 2006
Sudden withdrawals: ::cs
Replacements:
Debutants & Comebacks:
Returnees: ( said no to enter this year)

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 4-ones) has qualified to 2007 (if they do not withdraw).

2007

Sarajevo 2007
Sudden withdrawals: None
Debutants & Comebacks:
Returnees:

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 4-ones) has qualified to 2008 (if they do not withdraw).

2008

Belgrade 2008
Sudden withdrawals: None
Debutants & Comebacks:
Returnees:

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 4-ones) has qualified to 2009 (if they do not withdraw).

2009

Moscow 2009
Sudden withdrawals: None
Debutants & Comebacks:
Returnees: ( said "no")

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 4-ones) has qualified to 2010 (if they do not withdraw).

2010

Oslo 2010
Sudden withdrawals: None
Debutants & Comebacks: None
Returnees: ( and said "no")

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 4-ones) has qualified to 2011 (if they do not withdraw).

2011

Düsseldorf 2011
Sudden withdrawals: None
Debutants & Comebacks: (added to Big 5)
Returnees:

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 5-ones) has qualified to 2012 (if they do not withdraw).

2012

Baku 2012
Sudden withdrawals:
Replacement:
Debutants & Comebacks: None
Returnees: ( said "no")

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 5-ones) has qualified to 2013 (if they do not withdraw).
Also, a new pointrecord, earlier record was Katrina & The Waves 1997 with 227 points!

2013

Malmö 2013
Sudden withdrawals: None
Debutants & Comebacks: None
Returnees: ( said "no")

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 5-ones) has qualified to 2014 (if they do not withdraw).

2014

Lviv 2014
Sudden withdrawals: None
Debutants & Comebacks: None
Returnees: ( & said "no")

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 5-ones) has qualified to 2015 (if they do not withdraw).

2015

Amsterdam 2015
Sudden withdrawals:
Replacement:
Debutants & Comebacks:
Returnees: ( & said "no")

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 5-ones) has qualified to 2016 (if they do not withdraw).
A new point record again, beating Loreens 240! Even Russias number on 2nd place makes it to the all time top 3!

2016

Stockholm 2016
Sudden withdrawals:
Replacement:
Debutants & Comebacks:
Returnees:

Final score:

The countries above of the double line (excluding the Big 5-ones) has qualified to 2017 (if they do not withdraw).

So this is how it sorta would look like, but if you find some error, then I will try to fix it whenever I can. Hope you enjoy this.

 

[Schlagerman1]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

Also (cause I wasn't allowed to post longer), here is how 2017 could looke like:

2017

Kyiv 2017
Sudden withdrawals:
Replacement:
Debutants & Comebacks: None
Returnees:

2018

The countries that looks like they would compete in Lisbon 2018:
:de
(or )

 

[Alaska49]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

this was such a journey to read through, thank you!!

some results turn out to be very depressing (that 2006 top five, good lord) and some are hilarious (serbia doing so well in 2016 because their entire alliance also happened to get to compete )

 

[EscGeek]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

thanks,but i prefer the current system

 

[WhoKnows]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

Sochi 2017

Brings back memories of some people being SO certain back in March-May that's where we'd be going in 2017.

 

[NemesisNick]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

Have you stuck to using just one set of points for your mock 2016 result, not the one set of jury points and one set of televoting points from each country as did happen?

 

[John1]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

That's quite interesting to see how the whole thing would've turned out if some winning countries, such as , and , had been out for 1 edition.
Congratulations for your researches, and those information.

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

Very interesting, thanks! Have to say the current qualification system works best for me

 

[Schlagerman1]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

Have you stuck to using just one set of points for your mock 2016 result, not the one set of jury points and one set of televoting points from each country as did happen?

Instead of dividing in 2 (semi + final = total points, thendivided by 2, I decided to divide it by 4 instead (semijurypoints + semitelevotes + final jury + final televote = total points, then dividing that with 4.) For the Big 5, I never divide the points, except in 2016, by then just by 2.

 

[NemesisNick]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

Well done doing this, but how can you be sure the voting between countries would have gone with the participating countries in the one-night contests from 2004 to 2016? Especially as, in many cases, the country line-ups varied quite a bit from the actual grand finals those years under the system that's been used since 2004. It must have been tricky enough working it out for 2004, but by around 2006 or 2007 the results may already have been not what you expected, with some countries who you say would have been in for a particular year actually relegated that year, and vice versa. Furthermore would Monaco, Austria and Turkey have given up when they did if the relegation system was still in use? Maybe not. From what I was led to believe, Austria declined to enter in 2008 because they felt there was no hope of them qualifying to the final from the semis; they wouldn't have needed that excuse if they were relegated for one or two years but knew their turn would come up again.

The relegation system was fine from 1994 to 2003, when the EBU could just relegate the bottom 6 or 7 of the previous year's contest (or bottom 6 or 7 based on an average points total of the previous 4 or 5 years). Nowadays with 50 currently existing countries that have participated at least once in the history of the ESC, relegation is impractical. Even if only the Big 5 and host country (or 2nd placed country of the previous year if the host is a Big 5 country) were given automatic entry, only 20 of the other 44 countries would be able to take part. Far too many countries would have to be relegated now; countries who are relegated would typically be forced to sit out two years, possibly three years before being able to enter again.

 

[Hele.]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

Wow, so interesting! I had so much fun analyzing those results! Thank you [MENTION=4395]Schlagerman1[/MENTION]

 

[Schlagerman1]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

I just made how 2017 would look like:

2017

Kyiv 2017
Sudden withdrawals:
Replacement:
Debutants & Comebacks: None
Returnees:

And these countries would be competing next year...

2018

The countries that looks like they would compete in Lisbon 2018:
:de
(or )

 

[Alaska49]

lol russia suddenly withdrawing from the contest they won although to be fair you could pretend russia did do it and it was ukraine who suddenly withdrawn because flame is burning would be lucky to get all of 11 points anyway

 

[Guilep]

lol russia suddenly withdrawing from the contest they won although to be fair you could pretend russia did do it and it was ukraine who suddenly withdrawn because flame is burning would be lucky to get all of 11 points anyway

what is you?

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

You forget what an awful system was in place before 2004 lol

 

[NemesisNick]

Re: Results if the pre-2004 regulation system would have stayed (2004-2017?)

I just made how 2017 would look like:

2016 Sudden withdrawal Romania - fair enough, under the current two semi-final system, Romania were forced out close to ESC 2016 due to their debts. So I'll accept your hypothetical sudden withdrawal of Romania here.

2017 Sudden withdrawal Russia - that's a tricky one. What criteria / excuse have you used for Russia withdrawing from the 2017 ESC after, under your hypothetical scores, they won the 2016 ESC? Having (hypothetically) won, did they not want to host in 2017? Under the real scheme of things (two semi-final system), the 2017 ESC was in Kyiv (due to Ukraine having won ESC 2016), and Russia suddenly withdrew from the 2017 ESC late (after selecting their song and artist) due to their chosen artist Yulia Samoylova not being allowed into Ukraine. That was the reason for Russia's unexpected late withdrawal from the 2017 ESC. However under your hypothetical analysis still using the relegation system, surely if Russia won in 2016, they'd have hosted the 2017 ESC from Moscow (or another Russian city), and then "Flame Is Burning", performed by Yulia Samoylova would have been the host entry (Russia). Surely Yulia wouldn't have had the problem performing at the 2017 ESC if it was in her home country Russia (despite having illegally travelled directly from Russia to Crimea prior to the 2017 ESC). I don't think it's fair to put a sudden withdrawal of Russia for your hypothetical 2017 results.

The list goes on and on. Thank you for your "what if" analysis of all these years, it must have taken you quite some time. However the longer you continue with it, all sorts of problems are going to creep in which will distort your hypothesis / assumptions. Going right back to 2004, if the EBU wanted to stick with the relegation system 2004 onwards exactly as it was for entry into 2002 and 2003:

1) Would they have allowed any new countries to join the "Eurovision Family" 2004 to 2008 inclusive? As it was, they seemed reluctant to let any newcomers in for 2003, they let Ukraine in but no more as that would have meant relegating too many other countries that took part in 2002 - even so it was necessary to have 26 countries for the first time ever in 2003, which was really a bit much. If the EBU wanted to stick with the 2002 / 2003 style qualification system from 2004 onwards, perhaps they wouldn't have wanted to have so many eligible countries that some would have to wait two or three years for their turn to come back again.

2) Would Monaco have tried to come back in 2004 after their long absence? Maybe yes, maybe no, but if they suddenly wanted to come back in 2004, would the EBU have refused them a place as, by then, it would have been necessary to relegate too many countries that took part in 2003? We know how in the late 1980s Malta were trying to make a come back from their long absence, and were finally allowed the slot vacated by The Netherlands in 1991, but were warned they wouldn't be allowed back in 1992 unless another country dropped out.

You've just got to accept that relegation (the various criteria for it) is now ESC history. The EBU abandoned it after the 2003 ESC so that more countries could take part. They introduced the one semi-final system in 2004, which was used until 2007. That wasn't quite fair, I noticed the semi-final qualifiers generally did better than the direct qualifiers those four years, and many of the semi-final qualifiers songs tended to sound better (to me anyway) than many of direct qualifiers' entries. Then the EBU introduced the two semi-final system in 2008, and that's still in use to this day. Unfortunately it does mean that a country can fail to qualify for several consecutive years (e.g. Netherlands 2005 to 2012 inclusive), but at least it means that, every year each eligible country can submit a song, perform it live (officially as part of the ESC - the semi-finals are officially part of the event) and vote in the Grand Final (and thus have their spokesperson appear during the results announcement) even if they fail to reach the Grand Final. A big improvement on relegation, and the "hidden" pre-qualifier of 1996 (the countries which submitted songs for the 1996 audio qualifier were judged on pre-recorded tapes, those that failed to qualify didn't get chance to perform live before an international TV audience).