We had twenty-seven incredible performances tonight, and 40 nations weighing in with scores, and after a year’s worth of preparation (as well as the longest Eurovision show in history), we finally have a winner. Congratulations go out to Sweden with the song “Heroes” by Måns Zelmerlöw. They took the win with 365 points, giving them a margin of 62 points over second-placed Russia. Coming in third was Italy’s Il Volo with 292 points.
Australia came in a respectable 5th place, with 12 points from both Sweden and Austria. It remains to be seen whether they’ll have the chance to top that score in years to come.
Much to the delight of UK fans, they did not go home completely empty-handed. Malta was kind enough to send them a point on the night’s second vote, and Ireland followed suit with another one. San Marino then did them a solid and passed three more, giving them 5 points overall, coming in 24th place overall.
Bringing up the rear tonight, with nul points, were both Germany and host nation Austria, making this the first dual nul-point year since 1997, when Portugal and Norway both took the unfortunate honor. Furthermore, Austria is now the first nation to hit nul-points on home soil. This is Germany’s third empty scoreboard, and their first nul-point score since 1965. This is Austria’s 4th overall, with the most recent being in “Venedig im Regen” 1991.
The longest show in history but for me it fairly flew by – perhaps because my viewing was aided by the consumption of a bottle of wine. I predicted the winner and the top 5 and (I think) 8 of the top 10. I’ll be off down the bookies tomorrow to collect my winnings (£2). Samantha, do you know where I can find a listing of the results (I don’t expect an answer to this as I imagine you are already off partying into the Vienna night). Thanks again to all at ESC Insight for your coverage. All in all a very satisfying ESC with an absence of silly ‘novelty’ songs and two classy songs by any standard (Belgium and Latvia) featuring in the top 6. Perhaps finally Ewan might even see the merits of the Belgium song.
My prediction from yesterday (which can be found on here a few posts back):
01. SWEDEN (gold)
02. BELGIUM (silver)
03. RUSSIA (bronze)
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04. LATVIA (3rd runner-up)
05. AUSTRALIA (4th runner-up)
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06. Estonia
07. Georgia
08. Norway
09. Israel
10. Italy
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11. Slovenia
12. Azerbaijan
13. Austria
14. Romania
And the final result:
01. 365 points: SWEDEN (gold) *exact correct prediction*
02. 303 points: RUSSIA (silver) *predicted in my TOP 3*
03. 292 points: ITALY (bronze) *predicted in my TOP 10*
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04. 217 points: BELGIUM (3rd runner-up) *predicted in my TOP 5*
05. 196 points: AUSTRALIA (4th runner-up) *exact correct prediction*
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06. 186 points: Latvia *predicted in my TOP 10*
07. 106 points: Estonia *exact correct prediction*
08. 102 points: Norway *exact correct prediction*
09. 097 points: Israel *exact correct prediction*
10. 053 points: Serbia
======================
11. 051 points: Georgia *predicted in my TOP 14*
12. 049 points: Azerbaijan *exact correct prediction*
13. 044 points: Montenegro
14. 039 points: Slovenia *predicted in my TOP 14*
And WUNDERFUL news. This year both Greece and Cyprus didn’t give each other 12 points. How…how unpredictable is THAT :-P!!
Is it right that Germany are ranked 26th and Austria 27th ? Both go no points, so should be unplaced. But if there is a tie than the country performing earlier should get the nod, and that was Austria.
Every year, music professionals bang on about singing in your own language, the joys of local culture reflected in the songs, and on and on and on. But when they get the chance to vote in a jury, the same snobbish a-holes choose a Swede singing an average pop song that could have come from anywhere and not in Swedish but in English. In contrast, they completely ignore the countries that do sing in the national language and with a great deal of national colorization. A horrible but sadly typical example from last night is Iceland, whose jury awarded the Italian entry, song in Italian and with a great deal of local charm, a combined 11th place. The Icelandic tele-vote: Italy Douze Points. So stop pretending you like songs in their national languages, music professionals, I for one am not buying it anymore.
@Gert – You predicted Estonia to finish 6th, they finished 7th, so it’s more predicted in the TOP 10 than exact prediction for you.
Well, for the most popular song to finish a distant third is a completely untenable situation for the EBU, who has never been in this situation before. You may not like the Italian song but a great majority of Europeans did. This is the old figure skating scandal all over again: if the most popular performance loose due to some archaic rules that no ordinary person understand, the sport/contest will soon be in deep trouble. I won’t ever bet good money on Eurovision again if some jury whose motives are obscure (and not so obscure, apparently, in Montenegro, Macedonia and Australia where cheating has already been established) what is the effing point? The song that I bet on actually won but I’m shit outta luck. So enjoy your victory Mr. Zelmerlöw and Mr. Björkmann, it might just be of the Pyrrhic kind.
@Shai: You’re absolutely correct. I am sorry for the mistake ;-).
I have something to say about the split results now, because some people on social media were already using terms like “fraud”. Regarding the voting discrepancy of the 100% televote vs. the 100% jury vote for Italy: It is by no means fraud. The Watergate Scandal was real fraud. The jury final always take place a day before the actual (televoting) final. So there is no way juries could have known how massively popular Italy would have been with televoters.
Secondly, if you want it or not, juries also look to hit potential, the impact of the performer and how modern a song is. They are less impacted by a certain running order. So with those arguments, Italy actually did pretty well with the juries with a 6th place.
And lastly, the current rules are clear. For those entries doing very well (TOP 6 with either televote or juries), it doesn’t matter too much if juries need to rank a TOP 27 or a TOP 10. And with the current 50%/50% system (since 2009) sooner or later you would get a winner that doesn’t win both the televote and the jury-final.
Conclusion: Swallow your disappointment like a real man. Be objective and realistic, so you will never be disappointed (I for instance LOVED Netherlands coming 2nd last year and it didn’t feel like a loss). Sweden is the real, one-and-only, official winner. And coming 3rd -bronze- is another wunderful score. Congratulations to both Sweden and Italy!
Well said Gert. Also, Heroes is going by far the best on iTunes. It’s not like the juries picked a song that’s hated by the public.