The official fan clubs of the world unite every year to pass their judgement on all the Eurovision acts ahead of the big event.
Over the past month each club has tallied their votes and given their votes Eurovision style on their top 10, from 12 points down to one. The last countries voted today and the winner is.... wait for it... Italy! Quelle surprise! The top 5 were:
1. Italy - 497 points
2. Belgium - 335 points
3. Sweden - 308 points
4. France - 277 points
5. Estonia - 242 points
Australia finished 14th with 36 points with our votes made up from:
7 points - Azerbaijan
5 points - Denmark, Ireland and Sweden
4 points - Estonia
3 points - Iceland
2 points - Austria, Rest of the World
1 point - Belgium, Croatia and Hungary
So now we know who our friends are! :P Yet again we did quite well among the Scandinavian nations. Isaiah has been released there and has charted strongly so it was expected. The 7 points from Azerbaijan was the big, nice surprise.
However does this matter, do OGAE polls actually predict the winners. The polls have been going 10 years and they have:
*Picked the winner four times - Molitva, Fairytale, Euphoria and Only Teardrops
*Had a top 3 song not qualify in four of the ten years
*Picked Russia and Australia in the top 3 last year, but not Ukraine
*Never picked a trifecta of all top 3 songs
However there is a trend that OGAE Fan Polls have found of Australia, where they place us is close to where we finish in the televote. Guy Sebastian came 6th in the poll in 2015 and finished 6th in the televote (5th overall). And Dami finished 3rd in the 2016 polls and then finished 4th in the televote (and 2nd overall - and we're still recovering).
So... will Isaiah be mid-field with the televote with hopefully a top 10 by juries? Time will tell....
Full OGAE results below (and spreadsheet here):
Italy – 497 points
Belgium – 335 points
Sweden – 308 points
France – 277 points
Estonia – 242 points
Portugal – 122 points
Bulgaria – 120 points
FYR Macedonia – 107 points
Israel – 102 points
Finland – 64 points
Denmark – 43 points
Switzerland – 41 points
Hungary – 40 points
Australia – 36 points
Azerbaijan – 34 points
Norway – 30 points
Romania – 18 points
Montenegro – 17 points
Belarus – 15 points
Austria – 14 points
Cyprus – 13 points
Latvia – 12 points =
United Kingdom – 12 points =
Iceland – 9 points
Armenia – 7 points
Croatia – 6 points =
Greece – 6 points =
San Marino – 5 points
Georgia – 4 points =
Ireland – 4 points =
Poland – 4 points =
Netherlands – 3 points =
Serbia – 3 points =
Czech Republic – 2 points
All other nations on 0 points