EuroTrivia2016: More Numbers and records.
As the dust and noise from this year’s contest settles, trivia information concerning the results and the statistics is always a post Eurovision reason for new discussions and reviewing the whole event. Just before we turn the page and the new Eurovision season opens with the host city to be decided thats take a quick look back at some trivia of the last contest.
It’s not unusual every years results to face debate or some controversy especially this year Jamala’s victory has created a “battleground” of different approaches to the result and whether it was a fair one or not . Lets give a look to facts and numbers to see if all this debates are justified.
It is the first time that the winner hasn’t topped neither the jury vote or the televote, making for sure some of the winner’s fans uncomfortable with that fact. We remind you that last year’s winner Måns Zelmerlöw was beaten by Italy’s Il Volo in the televote but won the jury vote. It s this that brought Filipp Kirkorov to state through the social media his disapproval of the current voting system proposing that the percentage of the the juries vote but decrease to 25% and claiming that the unfair jury vote hobbled Sergey Lazarev’s chances for the win.
The fact is as powerful and breathtaking was Jamala’s performance of 1944 on Globen Arena’s stage , a winner’s performance for sure, the same impressive and awkward were the 21 zeroes from the juries for a contestant that was considered from the beginning the favorite to win.
On the other hand the new system of voting combination has made a lot of fans to apply last year’s voting system to this year’s results concluding in a different top 3 with Australia on top followed by Ukraine and Russia. However as the system changes from period to period it’s not useful substituting the regulations of another edition especially in past years when the results among countries were very close. Approaching this years results through last 7 years voting system the top 3 result remains the same.
THE SMILES OF SUCCESS
Leaving the top 3 countries we meet countries on the scoreboard that surely have a good reason to smile with their artist’s placing. One of those is for sure Bulgaria. Poli Genova’s uptempo refreshing performance on Globen Arena’s stage without doubt attracted the public’s and juries attention to provide her with an honorable 4th place accomplishing Bulgaria’s best placing since Elitsa & Stoyan’s 2007 fifth place and being one of the two times the country qualified to final.
Satisfaction should me the feeling for Amir and France, who might have not conquered first place, although for a time this was a scenario that bookies placed high, but his sixth place on the scoreboard is France’s best placing since Sandrine François’ entry in 2002.
This year’s contest is for sure a year that the Czech Republic will remember since it was it’s first time to qualify to the final. The country competed for the first time in Eurovisionin in 2007 with Kabat. After 5 years of absence in 2015 made a comeback with Marta Jandova and Vaclav Noid Bartas’s Hope never dies which failed to qualify to the final. This year Gabriela Gunčíková performed her dynamic ballad I Stand and gave the joy to her country to qualify to the grand final for the first time.
FROM GROUND ZERO TO THE TOP
This could be the title that describes Poland’s participation this year and the widest controversy between juries and televoting. The jury voting placed Poland one position before the end, at 25th place. On the other hand the televoting honored the Polish artist with 3rd placing in the grand final, which in combination with the jury voting ended him up at the 8th place , one of Poland’s best results in the contest. This gap between the two votings surpassed even the disagreement in 2011 when the juries voted for the UK at 22nd place but the televoting placed them in the 5th position.
THE NEGATIVE RECORDS
Before we mentioned smiles and success, two elements that have nothing to do with this year’s German’s presence at the contest. The German participant ended up last in the Grand Final for a second year in a row taking this negative record from Malta’s two in a row last placing in 1972 and 1973. However its not the first time Germany manages to “accomplish” this kind of results since in the years 1964 and 1965 the country ended up last too.
Surprising were this year’s disqualifications from the final for the first time since the semi finals were introduced, of Bosnia and Greece. Of course Bosnia had three year absence ( 2013-2015) but Greece was one of the few countries that had never experienced the failure of disqualification.
It is the first time a country was expelled from the contest, Romania, due to economical reasons.
Its worth mentioning this year’s loneliness for Sweden in the Grand final, since it was the only Scandinavian country to compete in the final. This hasn’t happened since 1957 when Denmark was the only country representing this part of the European region.
On the other hand 10 out of 42 participating songs were made by Swedish songwriters or composers. Eight of them qualified to the final and only two didn’t manage to reach the final (Moldova and Norway).
Petra Mede added herself to the list of hosts that have presented more than one contest. The previous one was at Malmö in 2013. Top position in this list has Katie Boyle with four contests and Jacqueline Joubert secondly with two contests.
Austria was the second non speaking French country to perform its song on the Globen Arena Stage in French with the Zoë’s song «Loin d’ici
It was the first time that the winning song used in its lyrics a dialect of a language.
The Ukranian artist Jamala won this year’s contest performing the song “1944” , singing its refrain in a Tataric dialect, a dialect spoken by a Turkish tribe that used to live in Crimea.
We have for the first time a psychedelic rock – indie rock band participating in the contest, as Georgia was represented by the band Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz and their song «Midnight Gold»
It was the first time the Eurovision song contest was broadcast in two arenas the same time ( (Globe & Tele2) and it was the second Eurovision song contest with the most Eurostar comebacks ( a total of 9). The contest of 1985 had the most as 13 Eurostars then made their comeback on stage.