As the live national final season comes to a close, we look back the six songs that won their nation's public vote but won't go on to represent them in Rotterdam.
Most national finals use some form of jury and public vote to replicate the conditions of Eurovision itself.
Sometimes that helps find the best song, but sometimes that takes away from a public favourite. It's all very subjective!
Let's have a look at the six public winners that didn't win for season 2020:
Armenia
Vladimir Arzumanyan - 'Whats Going on Mama'
In Armenia the vote was decided by three groups with equal representation: an international jury, an Armenian jury and the public vote.
Eventual winner 'Chains on You' by Athena Manoukian easily finished top of both juries but only finished 3rd with the public vote.
The public winner was Vladimir Arzumanyan with 'Whats Going on Mama'. He finished a lowly 8th and 9th with the juries and finished 3rd overall. Vladmir had previously won Junior Eurovision for Armenia in 2010.
Australia
Casey Donovan - Proud
Australia had a 50/50 split of jury and public votes with Casey finishing 3rd in the jury 14 votes behind eventual winner Montaigne with 'Don't Break Me'.
Casey's emotional and powerful vocal performance won the public vote with 20.3% of the vote ahead of Montaigne on 17.9%. This equated to a 7 point gap which wasn't enough for Casey to overcome her jury deficit.
She had previously won 'Australian Idol' and 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here' so it was her third straight public vote win on an Australian television competition.
Belarus
CHAKRAS - La-Ley-La
The vote was 50% international jury and 50% public vote, with each giving a final score in traditional Eurovision format (12, 10, 8 down to 1). After finishing in 5th place in the jury, CHAKRAS scored 6 points.
However their incredibly visual display won over the people of Belarus to award them 12 points. CHAKRAS finished in equal second place on 18 points behind eventual winner VAL with 'Da Vidna' who did a Jamala by winning the contest after finishing 2nd in both the public and jury for 20 points in total.
Finland
Erika Vikman - 'Cicciolina'
Finland's national final UMK was decide by a 50% international jury and 50% public vote split.
Erika's song about former Italian porn star and politician 'Cicciolina' was a big fan favourite heading into the contest.
After the jury vote it was in 3rd before going on to win the public vote. Her public vote victory by 5 points wasn't enough to overcome the 18 point deficit to eventual winner Aksel Kankaanranta with 'Looking Back' who was also surprisingly popular with the Finnish public.
Italy
Francesco Gabbani - 'Viceversa'
The hot favourite to win the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest (he finished 6th) came back for another try this year at the Sanremo Music Festival with his song 'Viceversa'.
The festival includes a Superfinal with three acts getting points from an expert jury, a press jury and a public vote, each making up one-third of the overall vote.
Francesco won the public vote and the expert jury but lost the press jury comfortably to finish in 2nd place to Diadato's 'Fai rumore' who only finished 3rd in the public vote.
Portugal
Bárbara Tinoco - 'Passe-Partout'
Another 50% split between a music jury representing each region of Portugal plus 50% for the public.
After the jury, fan favourite Bárbara with her French inspired chanson was in 5th place behind Filipe Sambado in 1st and Elisa in 2nd place.
After Filipe only finished 7th with the public, Bárbara won the televote but needed Elisa to finish 3rd or below to get through. Elisa 'did a Jamala' (see Belarus) and finished 2nd in both the jury and public to book her place at Eurovisoin.
So that's all the public winners who didn't go on to win their national contest.
Were they the right choices or not?
As we said it's always subjective but I would personally swap a couple in - but I won't reveal which ones!
Comments