Here in Australia, and even us at Aussievision, we do often get obsessed about who has been voting for us and who hasn't?
But what about Australia, who do we give more points to and who have we shaded in the contest?
We've looked at the nations Australia has given the highest percentage of total possible points to (eg if we give them 12 points every time, that's 100%) and put together the compete 1st to 42nd ranking.
Who do we love?
1. Moldova - 65.74%
Yes that's right, MOLDOVA is our favourite Eurovision nation. Their position was built on the back of entries like 'Hey Mama' and 'My Lucky Day'.
'Hey Mama' by Sunstroke Project finished 1st in the Australian televote in both the semi final and the final, and 2nd place in the jury both times. DoReDos a year later came 2nd in both the televote and the jury of our semi final, and 9th in the televote in the grand final. What can we say Australia loves the quirkiness that Moldova can often bring.
2. Sweden - 61.9%
We do love a bit of Sweden. Three times we've given them 12 points in the Grand Final - 'Heroes' in 2015, 12 points from the jury to Benjamin with 'Dance You Off' in 2018, and also to John Lundvik's 'Too Late for Love' this year. Add in a some strong public votes and they can always count on us for some points..... except in 2016 when we gave Frans nothing. :)
3. Bulgaria - 51.04%
Again showing Australia has no issue with an Eastern nation, Australia's love of Bulgaria started with Poli's 'If Love Was a Crime' in 2016. In the final she came 2nd in the televote and 3rd in the jury and Kristian Kostov followed up with a 3rd with the jury a year later in 2017. Unfortunately 'Bones' didn't do it for us with zero points from Australia, but it didn't stop the nation being our third favourite overall.
4. Iceland - 50.00%
I had to double check this result, but it pretty much all comes from Hatari. Australia couldn't get enough of them!
In this year's semi final they finished 1st in our televote and 2nd in the jury. They then followed that up with 2nd in the televote and 3rd in the jury. Add in a 9th in the semi final for Svala's 'Paper' and it gives them a solid result. Actually Australia has given a higher percentage of points to Iceland than any other nation since 2015.
5. Belgium - 48.61%
Laura Tesoro's 'What the Pressure' is pretty much the most popular Eurovision song in terms of points from Australia. In 2016 we gave the song 48 out of a possible 48 points. Jury and televote 12 points in both the semi final and the final. Add in Loic's 5th place in 2015 and Blanche getting 7th in the televote and there's lots of love for Belgium (just ignore this year).
And who don't we like?
38. Azerbaijan - 7.5%
Australia and Azerbaijan just don’t get each other. Maybe it’s because we’re both relatively successful outsiders and we’re like a couple of tomcats defending ourselves. We rank super low on the lists of points we give them, and only two countries (Armenia and Montenegro) had a worse percentage of points given TO Australia.
We’ve had six chances to give them points and half the time we gave them absolutely nothing including ‘Hour of the Wolf’, ‘Miracle’ and ‘Skeletons’ in the Grand Final. We did give Elnur and Dihaj some points in their semi final, while the best result from us was 8th in the jury and 9th in the thirsty televote to Chingiz this year.
39. Belarus - 7.41%
Three out of five times we've had a chance to give Belarus points, we gave them zilch. Nothing for 'Time' in its semi final and 'Story of My Life' or 'Like It' in the final. However Ivan got 6 points from our jury in 2016 and 2 points went to Zena in her semi final this year.
40. Montenegro - 7.29%
Australia has only given Montenegro 7 points in the five times it has had a chance to vote for the country. And four out of those five times it’s given the small nation zero points. There was nothing for Knez in the semi or the final of 2015, nothing for Vanja Radovanovic and nothing for D Mol in 2019. The only time points were given, were when the Australian public placed Slavko 4th in our 2017 semi final (the jury put him 16th).
41. Croatia - 4.17%
With the number of Croatian migrants in Australia it’s surprising to see them so high on our ‘shady’ list. Though let’s be honest, Croatia hasn’t been serving up great songs since we joined, so that hasn’t helped.
To be fair... we’ve only had two chances to vote for them and both have come in a Grand Final (we’ve never been in a semi final with them). But even then they could only manage to get 1 point each time with two of their strongest acts – Nina’s Lighthouse managed 10th with the jury (18th with the televote) and Jacques Houdek’s My Friend finished 10th with our televote (24th with our jury).
42. Albania - 0%
Albania is the only country that Australia has not given any points to when given a chance at Eurovision. And it’s not like we haven’t had the chance. On six occasions (three semi finals and three Grand Finals), our jury and televote couldn’t find a spot for them in our Top 10:
In 2015, Elhaida’s ‘I’m Alive’ came last in the jury and televote in the semi final, and then 25th and 26th (respectively) in the Grand Final
In 2016’s semi final, ‘Fairytale’ came 14th in the jury and last in the televote
In 2017’s semi final, ‘World’ came last in the jury and 16th in the televote
In 2018’s Grand Final, ‘Mall’ came 14th in the jury and 23rd in the televote
And in 2019’s Grand Final, ‘Ktheju Tokes’ came 21st in the jury and 23rd in the televote.
We have been seriously harsh on the small Balkan nation, and quite unfairly too (they are one of my favourites!). And what makes it even worse… they’ve been really quite nice to us. They famously gave us 12 points from both the public and jury in 2016 and we rank 8th on their list overall since 2015.
The surprises....
Two strong Eurovision nations that Australia hasn't warmed to are:
24. Netherlands - 15.91%
This was truly surprising when I first saw the result, but when you start to drill down… it does make some sense.
It started badly with us giving ‘Walk Along’ nothing in 2015, we only gave 3 points from the jury to Douwe Bob in 2016 (only 16th in televote), 4 points from the jury to O’G3NE in 2017, nothing to Waylon in the final of 2018 and reasonably low 5th and 5th from the televote and jury to this year’s winner Duncan Laurence.
To be fair, Australians do generally go for up-beat songs and the Dutch haven’t really served that up since we’ve joined.
27. Italy - 13.89%
Now this was a surprise. Italy have been super successful at Eurovision and we've only given them a total of 15 points, which is 13.9% of total possible points on offer. Only five countries have given a lower % (UK, Bulgaria, Denmark, Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina).
It started off well with us giving 3rd place to Il Volo overall in 2015. In 2016 we gave nothing to Francesca, then in 2017 the public gave Francesco Gabbani two points while our jury gave him nothing, roll on to 2018 we gave zilch to Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro. This year runner-up Mahmood could only managed 6th with our televote and our jury inexplicably gave him 0 points. Some seriously harsh results to one of the most successful nations in the last few years.
The full rankings are below:
Moldova - 65.74
Sweden - 61.9
Bulgaria - 51.04
Iceland - 50
Belgium - 48.61
Israel - 36.81
Denmark - 34.85
Ireland - 31.67
Portugal - 31.48
Lithuania - 31.25
Norway - 30.56
Russia - 30.21
Czech Republic - 28.03
Malta - 27.38
United Kingdom - 26.85
North Macedonia - 26.67
France - 24.07
Estonia - 23.96
Latvia - 22.5
Ukraine - 20.83
Greece - 20.83
Finland - 17.86
Poland - 16.67
Netherlands - 15.91
Serbia - 15.48
Romania - 15.28
Italy - 13.89
Germany - 13.89
Switzerland - 13.33
Austria - 13.1
Cyprus - 13.1
Spain - 12.96
Armenia - 11.46
Slovenia - 11.31
Hungary - 11.11
San Marino - 10.71
Georgia - 9.03
Azerbaijan - 7.5
Belarus - 7.41
Montenegro - 7.29
Croatia - 4.17
Albania - 0
Comments