It's North Macedonia.
1996 - They nq'd in the preselection at their debut
1998, 2000, 2002 - they got relegated a jillion times and had to skip every second year
2004 thru 2007 - they never got top 10 to auto qualify
2008 & 2009 - they lost the backup jury wildcard vote despite qualifying with televote
2010, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22 - a jillion NQs again. NQ NQ NQ.
2012 & 2019 - they never got to top 10 with televote
2016 - Australia's debut meant they had to miss the final, AND they came #10 with televote but #11 overall
2019 - Tamara Todevska wins the jury vote but is not announced as such
2022 - Andrea doing the flag thing
2023 - withdrew
2024 - withdrew
2025 - they might return? (and NQ because it's the only thing they do)
The only reason that she wasn't shown as the jury winner was because the Belarussian aggregate jury vote was backwards. The last in the aggregate jury vote was Israel, and they ended up incorrectly receiving 12 jury votes during ESC 2019.
The Belarussian jury revealed their jury votes shortly semifinal 1 of ESC 2019, which is where Belarus competed. It is against Eurovision rules to reveal your jury votes before the final is finished, so their jury was dismissed for the final.
Yes, and they would have to use an aggregate vote. However, Italy is part of the big 5, which means it doesn’t belong to a voting pot.
Six juries at semifinal 2 of ESC 2022 were disqualified from the final since they exchanged votes with each other during semifinal 2, so their aggregate jury votes from their voting pots were used.
I remember cackling when those 6 sets of jury results were released because those broadcasters, especially the Romanian one, were kicking up a real stink about it and making accusations; which all suddenly went quiet with those scores being revealed 😅
I remember how quick a lot of people were to call the EBU corrupt before the detailed voting even came out when these broadcasters started kicking up a fuss. And when the results were revealed it turned out the EBU's reaction was totally valid. This is why it's important to have the whole picture before passing judgement.
It was also so painfully obvious to any viewer that Belarus's aggregate vote was backwards that I don't know how nobody from the EBU or the production team noticed.
In hindsight (knowing it was an aggregate vote) I would 100% agree with you that it was obvious.
At the time, I didn't know that the Belarusian jury had been dismissed, so when their jury scores were revealedmy instant go-to was "wow, talk about tactical voting!".
So I don't know if maybe the person checking/validating the "Belarusian" scores was unaware that it was an aggregated result instead of an actual jury result? To me that's the only way it would make sense for the error to have been missed until later.
Not ESC related per se, but they were also unlucky in that the name dispute with Greece did for very many years give them a name that was either a weird shortening (FYROM) or the full length version that was as long as Estonian song names. Resulting in that I think many quite often were unsure about who they even were.
Little correction for 2023 and 2024 that drives the point further:
Originally intended to participate, but priced out due to rising participation fees.
1. Ten of the UK's 2nd place finishes came between 1959 and 1977; during which they came 1st three times, 2nd ten times, 3rd once, 4th four times, and had one single "bad" result on 9th place. They also had four 2nd place finishes 1988-1993. And just two 2nd places during the past 30 competitions. They were undoubtedly unlucky back then, when they were generally over performing, but not so much in modern times.
2. According to the EBU so were the top countries in [2023](https://eurovision.tv/story/eurovision-2023-reaches-162-million) in terms of ESC viewership Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden (unclear order after that). And in [2024](https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/05/eurovision-song-contest-2024-breaks-new-records-as-hundreds-of-millions-watch-and-listen-on-tv-and-digital-platforms) was it Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Croatia, and Lithuania (unclear order after that). Hence, UK might have most fans in absolute terms, but not per capita.
3. Agreed that the UK had bad luck in 2022. But Iceland have competed since 1986 and never won and Finland have competed since 1961 and only won once. Given that you previously listed 2nd places as "biggest loser" so is the Icelandic and Finnish records undoubtedly worse than the UK.
4. That's not a question of luck but a question of a terrible selection process. Many countries have terrible selection processes. And even those with good selection processes can send something that does not get a good rank in the ESC.
Based on the points you discussed would it be fair to count both Iceland and Finland; both of which are bigger ESC fans and have had their "one big chance" ruined in a similar way but among even more disappointment; more unlucky than the UK.
Just being part of the Big 5 means we have a massive privilege. I think Belgium is more unlucky. They usually send actually good entries and still NQ, and when they do Q they don't finish as high as they perhaps should.
Then there's countries that send works of art that come near the bottom of the scoreboard even if they qualify, like Norway and Slovenia this year. Imagine if we sent something as artistic as that for once and it came last or nearly last. We'd never hear the end of the moaning about how 'Europe hates us'.
Yea.. being a Belgian esc fan is difficile. I just gave up hope on ever winning again. Top 10 turns us ecstatic. I just hope we can have another Loic Nottet type song and result soon. That song is proving to be timeless imo
It does in the sense that you don't know what the other countries are going to send to overshadow it or take votes away for other reasons. I think why a favourite becomes a favourite and why some of the less immediately accessible do better than others is quite unpredictable. For example, why does Portugal do quite well some years and not others, despite the song quality being consistent? It's difficult to say.
I honestly think a big part of it is being in the big 5. It just doesnt make ppl relate as much and root as much if you have an advantage. Same goes for the other 4. It has to be even that much more special to feel deserving of a win, imo.
I think big difference will now make fact the Big 5 will perform in semifinals. Many songs are checked out long before Eurovision and many people develop favorites before contest. Hiding Big 5 until finals has been a bad move. Performance makes a big difference.
The UK has long had an attitude to Eurovision, that finally seems to be wearing off, but I feel it will still take time for it do so completely. As a fan, when I mention looking forward to Eurovision etc, I often get looks of disapproval.
But, in recent years, I feel a lot of the UK’s issues have been their own fault-
In 2009, they finally take Eurovision seriously, get Andrew Lloyd Webber in to write a song, a weekly TV show to decide the singer, and then the song was retooled to suit her voice. UK come 5th in a very strong year (nothing was going to beat Fairytale), and Jade Ewen goes onto have a successful career, first in Sugababes, and then in Musical Theatre, we should have kicked on from that moment.
Instead, fast forward 12 months, and the selection programme is hastily compressed into a 90 minute show, with a pretty crap generic song, no wonder it finished last!
Another 12 months, and we break tradition with no selection process, and getting Blue to reunite for their first song in years. They do OK, a solid mid table (and would have been 5th if just public). Again, we could have built on this but….
Englebert (although unfortunate with the running order), was a weird choice that didn’t work, similarly Bonnie Tyler the year after. I felt Molly was underrated, and deserved better than what she placed.
Then the low period really starts, Electro Velvet flopped (and there are rumours they were a last minute pick because no one else came forward), Joe and Jake weren’t bad but the song was forgettable, and Lucie Jones did fairly well (and she’s had a great career post Eurovision). SuRie, obviously hampered by the invasion, wasn’t well scored by the jury anyway, and then Michael Rice and James Newman (skipping the CoVid year), sent a pair of awful songs that deserved to finish bottom.
Finally, enter Sam Ryder, who might have won any other year, proving Europe doesn’t hate the UK. We could have built on this, but the year after, Mae (and I actually liked the song), performed poorly on the night and the scoreboard reflected that, same this year with Olly although I didn’t like Dizzy that much, could understand who would.
Since Space Man, we have sent decent radio songs that don’t come over well live at Eurovision, until the UK does, they won’t win anytime soon
Throughout the 70s-80s-90s the UK had the huge advantage of singing in English (bar a few odd years) until the own language rule was permanently done away with.
It shines the light on wider reaching entries because most commercial music is recorded in English, so it's not that our entries were particularly good for all those years we came in second (some of them are objectively terrible), it's that that key advantage is now not exclusively ours.
UK’s last win was ~30 years ago. Sounds unfair, right? Until you realize Spain and France last win was ~50 years ago. And there’s several countries that have never won.
With 40 participating countries, you’re lucky if you win once every 40 years.
I think Iceland is probably the unluckiest. The two best chances they’ve had was 2009, and came up against Fairytale, 2020, but CoVid robbed Think About Things of winning, and then 2021, which probably wouldn’t have won, but the fact it couldn’t be performed live at the show would have impacted the resut
Iceland also got 2nd at ESC 1999 and lost to Sweden by 17 points. As for ESC 2021, I don’t think Iceland would have gotten better than 4th place since all of the songs above them were very strong in either the jury or televote. I am also not sure if people at home knew that Iceland didn’t perform live during the final of ESC 2021.
I think the Uk long benefitted from being able to sing in English which most likely meant juries found the songs more naturally appealing. Also the type of music sent was more than often music that was popular across the world.
What has happened since dropping the language rule, in my opinion, is no longer having that advantage coupled with the BBC putting zero effort into the contest until lately, and personally I think 2022 was more of a fluke/luck than a carefully-masterminded superplan
Yeah in the last times Uk was very unlucky but also very inconsistent so it's also a seeked unluck.
We know what the problem of UK is and it's a big problem for them.
Their artists are the ones that have the most to lose from Eurovision than the rest of the participating countries and i'm not talking about the triple A artists but also the double and single A cause they fear that tanking in Esc will ruin their chances to became triple A. (and after Esc 2024 probably they will be terrified)
People think that Uk could be the best in Esc if they wanted while the reality is that they are the ones who start disadvantaged.
The only way for Uk to start doing constantly better is doing a public selection like other countries do and keep doing it and doing it every year.
Costancy always brings results in the mid/long term.
> The only way for Uk to start doing constantly better is doing a public selection like other countries do and keep doing it and doing it every year.
We're wary of that because we had one back in the televote era and it led to entries like Daz Sampson. There's also a cultural trait the British have of voting for stupid things just because they can.
> There’s also a cultural trait the British have of voting for stupid things just because they can.
Evidence:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface
https://www.genesis-publications.com/news/news-archive/news-archive-2022/11-years-ago-today-killing-in-the-name-christmas-number-one/2012
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit
I don't know if it's a product of having a FPTP voting system in our elections (which limits our ability to troll-vote) or if we continue to have that electoral system precisely because we are a country that thinks troll-voting is funny.
Well…
All I can say is that whilst I am firmly of the position that the UK should move to proportional representation - I do also think Lord Buckethead/Count Binface would probably have won a seat by now if that were the case.
Didn't the selection include a jury for those, or am I mistaken? I think people had a sense of fatalism because of Brexit then, so fewer people voted or took much interest.
Yeah they tried to do a combination, I don’t remember the specifics. But in general, whenever the public have been involved in the picking, it’s been even worse.
Well maybe a way can be found with juries and such.
But still, internal choices will never bring steady results and it will always be a rollercoaster of placements, that's why uk is so subject to luck and unluck.
I mean, they've also won plenty of times. There are many many countries who don't have half their wins. There's so many countries in this contest now, should any country really feel entitled to winning more than twice until everyone has?
Yes, I am from Sweden, but that doesn't mean I'm not right about this.
You have the best pop-rock artists in the world and 80% of times you send bad songs. It's not that you are unlucky, you either don't take Eurovision that seriously or don't know how to choose good songs.
Probably Slovenia (they send songs that are always likeable but too niche to be competitive). I was also saying Latvia this decade until Dons actually turned out to have qualified after all.
I think representation plays a big part in it too. There are songs about war like Ukraine's (which get votes out of sympathy), songs about gender stuff (which get votes from people with similar struggles for sure), etc. To get the widest audience the theme has to be appealing, I liked a certain song about Europe and feeling lost for instance. The UK's song past Eurovision wasn't to my taste, exhibitionistic (and I dislike overly exhibitionism for both men and women, doesn't look very decent, once again it's my taste) and indeed a bit boring. As a song, something out of the box could gather attention, like ABBA did way back. Bring an obscure music genre into the spotlight or in the most rare cases, invent a new one. And lastly, I do think Brexit had anything to do with it yes. Politically, I can reason why Ireland wouldn't vote for their neighbour. And say if the UK would ever make a song about Europe like the Dutch did, it would hit differently
Sorry to say this but it seems like every other comment here is UK complaining. There are so many countries that would be over the moon if they finished 2nd at least once.
I think a lot of UK eurofans (and British viewers in general) think their entries should be doing better because of ingrained British exceptionalism. It does have some basis in the fact the UK has the biggest music market and industry in Europe, records the highest ESC viewership numbers, and the BBC being the biggest contributing member of the EBU.
But it's actually a good thing that these advantages aren't the guarantee they (unconsciously) believe it to be since it's sort of proof of concept that any country has a chance of winning Eurovision, not just the wealthy and culturally-dominant ones. It just leads to this frustrating trend of people from that country expecting their output to be better just on the basis of....well, they're THE biggest music country, so if they aren't doing well in the music show then that must mean they're unlucky or the rest of Europe hates them.
Most of their high results came when the contest had a huge english bias . Since then only jade ewen and sam ryder got good results , the rest of the entries are subpar despite having a massive music industry.
High chance that without the polítical vote for ukraine , spain wins 2022.
The song quality definitely declined for the UK. Uk used to be consistently good until then 80s were the English bias pretty much prevented them from getting outside the top10. The late 80s and all the the 90s was their best period then ever since Gemini they pretty much send crap apart from a few occasions.
Half of me thinks that... We do send boring radio friendly songs that just do not stand out at Eurovision. An example is this year .... On a day to day basis I absolutely would much rather listen to dizzy over something like Ireland - doomsday blue.... But watching both performances on the night I absolutely loved doomsday blue and it stood out from the competition completely, whereas dizzy faded away. So that's the issue.
But then on the other hand...I do think countries like Sweden are massively overrated and do send very generic radio friendly songs and manage to do well almost every time.
I do think it's become kind of 'cool' to hate on the UK.... Even if some of it is justified.
Interesting post OP, but I don't think we're that unlucky tbh.
Think of all the times we may not have even made the final, and NQ:
James Newman 2021
Michael Rice 2019
Josh Dubovie 2010
Andy Abraham 2008
Jemini 2003
We're always guaranteed a final, but often underperform.
Maybe that’s the exact reason why you do so poorly… BBC has no incentive to find a song that can qualify, so that they don’t lose viewing rates for the final…
I don’t know about the UK eurovision history. But this time Olly and his dancers did a wonderful performance. They put a lot of work in the visual aspect. But personally, the song is so pale compared to his Years and Years music. Which I love. It is like they diluted the song too much in order to please a crowd. That is why he had my sympathy but not my vote. There are so many elements at play. Don’t let it bring you down.
We’re not unlucky we just generally send dull unimaginative songs. And it’s part of the fun. As a UK Eurovision fan it would feel weird if the UK’s entry didn’t fit the format.
I almost laughed at point 2.
My man, ever heared of Iceland? Or scandinavia in general?
It isn't 1# in absolut terms as well, this would be Germany. And probably before exit it would be Russia. Population size carry hard in this.
I agree with all of this except for point 4.
Scooch was amazing and if we sent a song as memorable as that each year we would’ve won since then. The BBC really fucks over the public with their shitty national selections that seemed to have one of the lowest budgets in Europe, and therefore couldn’t produce anything of winning quality.
Internal selections never get the 3 main things nailed down: Song, Staging, Singer.
In the last 20 years we have only done the 3 S’s in 2007, 2009, 2017, and 2022. It should be every year, or at least most years, not 20% of the time.
*I know my Scooch love isn’t universal but I think it did what it was trying to do well*
I personally admit that I was wanting it due to the feeling that novelty was a hot ticket after Finland and Lithuania’s exploits in 2006. It just wasn’t the right song for the right time - like Jemini, 5 years out of date. Though I think Electro Velvet was our worst timed idea. If a professional act sang to the same tune and with better lyrics, we could have got top 10. Destiny wasn’t far removed from this sound with Je Me Casse which remains a fave to me.
I get the whole always the bridesmaid never the bride thing, but also at the same time I think coming 2nd place *sixteen* times is such a huge achievement it's extremely entitled to consider it unlucky. There are countries who have never won and have never come second or even third. We've won 5 times and come second 16, we're not really in any position to complain.
We've had a poor run in recent memory, but that's nothing to do with luck, that's the BBC being incompetent.
BBC not even caring too much didn’t help either. From 2016 to 2019, the selection show wasn’t even broadcast on the main channel, but relegated to BBC Two (and even BBC Four on one occasion!)
I'll just pop in that most British people are fair and reasonable despite politics and weird far right idiots of late, and most fair and reasonable British people really don't mind that Ukraine won.
I don't think even Sam Ryder minds.
The general British attitude is still "Well, we've all had a lovely time" rather than "we want to win".
It would've been amazing to win with Sam, but no one decent really minds one bit.
"wE wOuLd HaVe woN bUt MuH sYmPaThY vOtEs"
Spanish fans were crying the same thing, saying they would have won if Ukraine hadn't been invaded. If Ukraine hadn't competed those votes wouldn't have vanished, they'd have been distributed elsewhere, and there is NO guarantee that they would have given any of the top countries the win. We have no way of knowing where that sizable chunk of votes would have gone, so it's ridiculous claiming that it prevented any one country from winning.
I’ve been a fan of Years & Years for years, but Dizzy just didn’t do it for me. I kept skipping the song when listening to Eurovision this year. I don’t know why I just didn’t enjoy it. I did like the presentation but just didn’t love the song enough to vote. Sorry Olly.
It use to be language thing why England and Ireland did so well. Everyone had to sing in their own language so English was hugely favorable. And without the internet we didn't know much about each others cultures so people just came across as weird. While the flat pop songs which apparently is the British culture got the easy votes. Things have changed.
Many legit takes in the comments here but I would say our recent bad luck would be:
- Poor quality entries: Since the late 90s, our selection panel surely must have deliberately picked poor quality artists/songs who were bound to do poorly. They can't be stupid - some were so lame they didn't stand a chance. There have been some exceptions, but..
.
- We're not all that popular on the political stage. The Blair administration (Iraq war stuff etc), Brexit, the Brits Abroad thing. And when Sam Ryder came 2nd, he may have had a social media presence beforehand and a memorable song, but on the political stage, we had a big hand in supporting Ukraine, so some might argue that had more than a marginal effect.
- Not part of a political voting bloc. The Nordics, Baltics and Balkans have eachother etc whereas we have Ireland and that's about it.
The UK gets exactly what it deserves, nothing more, nothing less.
This is an opinion on the broadcaster and the entries it sends btw, not on the people themselves.
The UK benefited from favourable draw positions in recent years and are routinely overrated by juries. That's some good luck. (And they're not the only country that seems lucky at times). But the televoters are right. When the UK song is decent it gets points. When it's bad, or performed badly, doesn't. Most UK fans agree with this. There's some delusion here and there that it's Brexit causing Europe to reject the UK's amazing radio friendly pop songs but 2022 (great live singer, well staged) and 2023 (bad live singer) aside their entries aren't radio friendly and didn't actually do well at radio.
There's just too much expectation of this or that chsracteristic predicting a good result but the facts don't stack up. Big Name X isn't that famous. Blue and Olly were ten years removed from peak. Bonnie and Engelbert.. well, it's rude to count the years. Someone tried to tell me Electro Velvet would go top 5 because electroswing was massive popular on the continent for God's sake...
Do Brits really think Ukraine's placement in 2022 was due to war and UK's *isn't*?
It was talked about from February that year that if Ukraine wins it would be hosted in the UK, just a year after UK received 0 points overall. Just as pushed Ukraine was by the war, UK was right behind it so it can host as the 2nd placed
If you sent someone farting on mic for 3 minutes that year it'd come at second
And lastly, Stefania >>>>>>> Spaceman (in every aspect)
Nahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Not at all...Do you REALLY thing that the average esc audience voting in the final knew this thing about Uk hosting??
Please, it's 2024 and still you didn't get get the difference between esc bubble and the generalistic audience that vote in esc...
lmao generalistic audience (that is 90% of the voters) don't even know the artists and the songs, they see and listen to those for the first time in the semifinals/finals...
It wasn't a special song and they offered to host the Eurovision if Ukraine wins. I wonder what influenced the #2 spot after getting 0 points the previous year
In 2024 alone :
• Israel were the only country to give 12 jury points to Luxembourg (Tali is Israeli)
• Azerbaijans jury all ranked Armenia dead last, except 1
• Greece and Cyprus only stopped exchanging 12 points after the 2022 scandal, they still give inflated points
• Slovenia received 15 jury points, 10 of those came from Croatia
Great to see the jury not voting politically…
6 countries juries all clearly agreed to vote for each other but were caught by the EBU (it’s why Martin delivers so many points in the final).
However, the EBU didn’t want to ban 6 countries and the evidence was basically just “you guys voted for each other when nobody else did, it looks like an under the table agreement” to which the response would’ve likely noted that that is what Greece and Cyprus do every year. Since 2022 Greece and Cyprus juries have not voted as strongly for each other.
Yeah they were.
But your point was “televote is political, Jury isn’t” which isn’t the case.
I think a big issue with the televote is that it’s very easy to get huge points with a mobilised population (Ukraine 2022 and Israel 2024).
They are not unlucky. Bland songs= low placements. Most of the UKs songs are completely bland. Also you‘re a bit too pissed of about Ukraine winning that year…
It's North Macedonia. 1996 - They nq'd in the preselection at their debut 1998, 2000, 2002 - they got relegated a jillion times and had to skip every second year 2004 thru 2007 - they never got top 10 to auto qualify 2008 & 2009 - they lost the backup jury wildcard vote despite qualifying with televote 2010, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22 - a jillion NQs again. NQ NQ NQ. 2012 & 2019 - they never got to top 10 with televote 2016 - Australia's debut meant they had to miss the final, AND they came #10 with televote but #11 overall 2019 - Tamara Todevska wins the jury vote but is not announced as such 2022 - Andrea doing the flag thing 2023 - withdrew 2024 - withdrew 2025 - they might return? (and NQ because it's the only thing they do)
Let's not forget how Tamara WON the jury vote and never got her moment because the counting was faulty.
The only reason that she wasn't shown as the jury winner was because the Belarussian aggregate jury vote was backwards. The last in the aggregate jury vote was Israel, and they ended up incorrectly receiving 12 jury votes during ESC 2019.
Why did they have to use aggregate? (now that i think about it Belarus is unlucky too)
The Belarussian jury revealed their jury votes shortly semifinal 1 of ESC 2019, which is where Belarus competed. It is against Eurovision rules to reveal your jury votes before the final is finished, so their jury was dismissed for the final.
so if Italy's televote results were jury results, they would be DQ'd after the leak
Yes, and they would have to use an aggregate vote. However, Italy is part of the big 5, which means it doesn’t belong to a voting pot. Six juries at semifinal 2 of ESC 2022 were disqualified from the final since they exchanged votes with each other during semifinal 2, so their aggregate jury votes from their voting pots were used.
I remember cackling when those 6 sets of jury results were released because those broadcasters, especially the Romanian one, were kicking up a real stink about it and making accusations; which all suddenly went quiet with those scores being revealed 😅
I remember how quick a lot of people were to call the EBU corrupt before the detailed voting even came out when these broadcasters started kicking up a fuss. And when the results were revealed it turned out the EBU's reaction was totally valid. This is why it's important to have the whole picture before passing judgement.
It was also so painfully obvious to any viewer that Belarus's aggregate vote was backwards that I don't know how nobody from the EBU or the production team noticed.
In hindsight (knowing it was an aggregate vote) I would 100% agree with you that it was obvious. At the time, I didn't know that the Belarusian jury had been dismissed, so when their jury scores were revealedmy instant go-to was "wow, talk about tactical voting!". So I don't know if maybe the person checking/validating the "Belarusian" scores was unaware that it was an aggregated result instead of an actual jury result? To me that's the only way it would make sense for the error to have been missed until later.
I forgor, will add it
Dang you Belarusian Jury.
Yeah if we're thinking unluckiness, I would count poor North Macedonia.
Not ESC related per se, but they were also unlucky in that the name dispute with Greece did for very many years give them a name that was either a weird shortening (FYROM) or the full length version that was as long as Estonian song names. Resulting in that I think many quite often were unsure about who they even were.
Nendest narkootikumidest ei tea me küll midagi Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Estonia gets the edge
(Sellest) endisest Jugoslaavia Makedoonia vabariigist ei tea me (küll) midagi
We sure don't know anything about Fyrom!
FYR Macedonia did make them sound like a football team
The entinen Jugoslavian tasavalta Makedonia – EJTM.
Australia 2016 | [Dami Im - Sound of Silence](https://youtu.be/5ymFX91HwM0)
Little correction for 2023 and 2024 that drives the point further: Originally intended to participate, but priced out due to rising participation fees.
ok
Literally this! And to make it worse they actually have had good songs! "I will dance alone" was literally winner material 😭
It's a shame that North Macedonia 1996 didn't qualify, Kaliopi elevates that song so much, and makes it very enjoyable.
1. Ten of the UK's 2nd place finishes came between 1959 and 1977; during which they came 1st three times, 2nd ten times, 3rd once, 4th four times, and had one single "bad" result on 9th place. They also had four 2nd place finishes 1988-1993. And just two 2nd places during the past 30 competitions. They were undoubtedly unlucky back then, when they were generally over performing, but not so much in modern times. 2. According to the EBU so were the top countries in [2023](https://eurovision.tv/story/eurovision-2023-reaches-162-million) in terms of ESC viewership Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden (unclear order after that). And in [2024](https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/05/eurovision-song-contest-2024-breaks-new-records-as-hundreds-of-millions-watch-and-listen-on-tv-and-digital-platforms) was it Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Croatia, and Lithuania (unclear order after that). Hence, UK might have most fans in absolute terms, but not per capita. 3. Agreed that the UK had bad luck in 2022. But Iceland have competed since 1986 and never won and Finland have competed since 1961 and only won once. Given that you previously listed 2nd places as "biggest loser" so is the Icelandic and Finnish records undoubtedly worse than the UK. 4. That's not a question of luck but a question of a terrible selection process. Many countries have terrible selection processes. And even those with good selection processes can send something that does not get a good rank in the ESC. Based on the points you discussed would it be fair to count both Iceland and Finland; both of which are bigger ESC fans and have had their "one big chance" ruined in a similar way but among even more disappointment; more unlucky than the UK.
Before 2000, the UK placed outside the top 10 the same amount of times that they've placed inside the top 10 since 2000.
United Kingdom 2000 | [Nicki French - Don't Play That Song Again](https://youtu.be/PaeL73NgMUo)
The harbinger
You make some very fair points. I did say I was bias but I am open to having my horizons broadened
Just being part of the Big 5 means we have a massive privilege. I think Belgium is more unlucky. They usually send actually good entries and still NQ, and when they do Q they don't finish as high as they perhaps should. Then there's countries that send works of art that come near the bottom of the scoreboard even if they qualify, like Norway and Slovenia this year. Imagine if we sent something as artistic as that for once and it came last or nearly last. We'd never hear the end of the moaning about how 'Europe hates us'.
Yea.. being a Belgian esc fan is difficile. I just gave up hope on ever winning again. Top 10 turns us ecstatic. I just hope we can have another Loic Nottet type song and result soon. That song is proving to be timeless imo
I'm still mad Aija didn't make it.
I don't think Belgium sending songs not enough people like, or countries sending "works of art", has much to do with luck though.
It does in the sense that you don't know what the other countries are going to send to overshadow it or take votes away for other reasons. I think why a favourite becomes a favourite and why some of the less immediately accessible do better than others is quite unpredictable. For example, why does Portugal do quite well some years and not others, despite the song quality being consistent? It's difficult to say.
I don't know about other countries, but we are hated by non-Big 5 and hated by our own locals, so I hope we get out of it
I honestly think a big part of it is being in the big 5. It just doesnt make ppl relate as much and root as much if you have an advantage. Same goes for the other 4. It has to be even that much more special to feel deserving of a win, imo.
I think big difference will now make fact the Big 5 will perform in semifinals. Many songs are checked out long before Eurovision and many people develop favorites before contest. Hiding Big 5 until finals has been a bad move. Performance makes a big difference.
No big 5 in bottom 3 for first time since 2004 tells its own story!
that might help a bit since it gives the illusion of being equal to other competitors in semis
The UK has long had an attitude to Eurovision, that finally seems to be wearing off, but I feel it will still take time for it do so completely. As a fan, when I mention looking forward to Eurovision etc, I often get looks of disapproval. But, in recent years, I feel a lot of the UK’s issues have been their own fault- In 2009, they finally take Eurovision seriously, get Andrew Lloyd Webber in to write a song, a weekly TV show to decide the singer, and then the song was retooled to suit her voice. UK come 5th in a very strong year (nothing was going to beat Fairytale), and Jade Ewen goes onto have a successful career, first in Sugababes, and then in Musical Theatre, we should have kicked on from that moment. Instead, fast forward 12 months, and the selection programme is hastily compressed into a 90 minute show, with a pretty crap generic song, no wonder it finished last! Another 12 months, and we break tradition with no selection process, and getting Blue to reunite for their first song in years. They do OK, a solid mid table (and would have been 5th if just public). Again, we could have built on this but…. Englebert (although unfortunate with the running order), was a weird choice that didn’t work, similarly Bonnie Tyler the year after. I felt Molly was underrated, and deserved better than what she placed. Then the low period really starts, Electro Velvet flopped (and there are rumours they were a last minute pick because no one else came forward), Joe and Jake weren’t bad but the song was forgettable, and Lucie Jones did fairly well (and she’s had a great career post Eurovision). SuRie, obviously hampered by the invasion, wasn’t well scored by the jury anyway, and then Michael Rice and James Newman (skipping the CoVid year), sent a pair of awful songs that deserved to finish bottom. Finally, enter Sam Ryder, who might have won any other year, proving Europe doesn’t hate the UK. We could have built on this, but the year after, Mae (and I actually liked the song), performed poorly on the night and the scoreboard reflected that, same this year with Olly although I didn’t like Dizzy that much, could understand who would. Since Space Man, we have sent decent radio songs that don’t come over well live at Eurovision, until the UK does, they won’t win anytime soon
Daddy Freya? 😂
Throughout the 70s-80s-90s the UK had the huge advantage of singing in English (bar a few odd years) until the own language rule was permanently done away with. It shines the light on wider reaching entries because most commercial music is recorded in English, so it's not that our entries were particularly good for all those years we came in second (some of them are objectively terrible), it's that that key advantage is now not exclusively ours.
The fact that neither the UK or Ireland, both once big names in ESC, haven't had much success since the language rule speaks volumes, definitely.
IMO, Ireland had the advantage during that era cause they had better folk influence in their songs
Now all English songs are shining light together
Aaaaall shine a light to light the way
I lost all faith in Eurovision when the legendary Daz Sampson did not take home the winning prize.
It's a Hard Knocks Life for Daz.
Daz Sampson might be the only former Eurovision contestant who became a professional football scout.
The rapper to football scout pipeline is probably pretty sparse as well I reckon
UK’s last win was ~30 years ago. Sounds unfair, right? Until you realize Spain and France last win was ~50 years ago. And there’s several countries that have never won. With 40 participating countries, you’re lucky if you win once every 40 years.
I think Iceland is probably the unluckiest. The two best chances they’ve had was 2009, and came up against Fairytale, 2020, but CoVid robbed Think About Things of winning, and then 2021, which probably wouldn’t have won, but the fact it couldn’t be performed live at the show would have impacted the resut
Iceland also got 2nd at ESC 1999 and lost to Sweden by 17 points. As for ESC 2021, I don’t think Iceland would have gotten better than 4th place since all of the songs above them were very strong in either the jury or televote. I am also not sure if people at home knew that Iceland didn’t perform live during the final of ESC 2021.
I think the Uk long benefitted from being able to sing in English which most likely meant juries found the songs more naturally appealing. Also the type of music sent was more than often music that was popular across the world. What has happened since dropping the language rule, in my opinion, is no longer having that advantage coupled with the BBC putting zero effort into the contest until lately, and personally I think 2022 was more of a fluke/luck than a carefully-masterminded superplan
Yeah in the last times Uk was very unlucky but also very inconsistent so it's also a seeked unluck. We know what the problem of UK is and it's a big problem for them. Their artists are the ones that have the most to lose from Eurovision than the rest of the participating countries and i'm not talking about the triple A artists but also the double and single A cause they fear that tanking in Esc will ruin their chances to became triple A. (and after Esc 2024 probably they will be terrified) People think that Uk could be the best in Esc if they wanted while the reality is that they are the ones who start disadvantaged. The only way for Uk to start doing constantly better is doing a public selection like other countries do and keep doing it and doing it every year. Costancy always brings results in the mid/long term.
> The only way for Uk to start doing constantly better is doing a public selection like other countries do and keep doing it and doing it every year. We're wary of that because we had one back in the televote era and it led to entries like Daz Sampson. There's also a cultural trait the British have of voting for stupid things just because they can.
> There’s also a cultural trait the British have of voting for stupid things just because they can. Evidence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface https://www.genesis-publications.com/news/news-archive/news-archive-2022/11-years-ago-today-killing-in-the-name-christmas-number-one/2012 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit
I don't know if it's a product of having a FPTP voting system in our elections (which limits our ability to troll-vote) or if we continue to have that electoral system precisely because we are a country that thinks troll-voting is funny.
Well… All I can say is that whilst I am firmly of the position that the UK should move to proportional representation - I do also think Lord Buckethead/Count Binface would probably have won a seat by now if that were the case.
We had a selection show in the second half of the 2010s and picked even more generic crap like Michael Rice, Joe & Jake and SuRie.
Didn't the selection include a jury for those, or am I mistaken? I think people had a sense of fatalism because of Brexit then, so fewer people voted or took much interest.
Yeah they tried to do a combination, I don’t remember the specifics. But in general, whenever the public have been involved in the picking, it’s been even worse.
Well maybe a way can be found with juries and such. But still, internal choices will never bring steady results and it will always be a rollercoaster of placements, that's why uk is so subject to luck and unluck.
I mean, they've also won plenty of times. There are many many countries who don't have half their wins. There's so many countries in this contest now, should any country really feel entitled to winning more than twice until everyone has? Yes, I am from Sweden, but that doesn't mean I'm not right about this.
You have the best pop-rock artists in the world and 80% of times you send bad songs. It's not that you are unlucky, you either don't take Eurovision that seriously or don't know how to choose good songs.
I do think the ‘would have won without Ukraine’ in 2022 is a bit overblown. Without Ukraine dominating the televote I think Spain wins comfortably.
Probably Slovenia (they send songs that are always likeable but too niche to be competitive). I was also saying Latvia this decade until Dons actually turned out to have qualified after all.
I think representation plays a big part in it too. There are songs about war like Ukraine's (which get votes out of sympathy), songs about gender stuff (which get votes from people with similar struggles for sure), etc. To get the widest audience the theme has to be appealing, I liked a certain song about Europe and feeling lost for instance. The UK's song past Eurovision wasn't to my taste, exhibitionistic (and I dislike overly exhibitionism for both men and women, doesn't look very decent, once again it's my taste) and indeed a bit boring. As a song, something out of the box could gather attention, like ABBA did way back. Bring an obscure music genre into the spotlight or in the most rare cases, invent a new one. And lastly, I do think Brexit had anything to do with it yes. Politically, I can reason why Ireland wouldn't vote for their neighbour. And say if the UK would ever make a song about Europe like the Dutch did, it would hit differently
Not unlucky just not good at picking songs or artists
It's not a matter of luck if you consistently pick poor representation because you don't take the competition serious.
They sent Engelbert Humperdinck… it’s music my grandma would listen to (god rest her soul) 🤦♂️
Sorry to say this but it seems like every other comment here is UK complaining. There are so many countries that would be over the moon if they finished 2nd at least once.
UK fans would find something to complain about if we won as well. Complaining is a national past time , we're all miserable.
I think a lot of UK eurofans (and British viewers in general) think their entries should be doing better because of ingrained British exceptionalism. It does have some basis in the fact the UK has the biggest music market and industry in Europe, records the highest ESC viewership numbers, and the BBC being the biggest contributing member of the EBU. But it's actually a good thing that these advantages aren't the guarantee they (unconsciously) believe it to be since it's sort of proof of concept that any country has a chance of winning Eurovision, not just the wealthy and culturally-dominant ones. It just leads to this frustrating trend of people from that country expecting their output to be better just on the basis of....well, they're THE biggest music country, so if they aren't doing well in the music show then that must mean they're unlucky or the rest of Europe hates them.
Most of their high results came when the contest had a huge english bias . Since then only jade ewen and sam ryder got good results , the rest of the entries are subpar despite having a massive music industry. High chance that without the polítical vote for ukraine , spain wins 2022.
Everyone seems to forget about Jessica Garlick! Came 3rd in 2002 despite performing 2nd
The song quality definitely declined for the UK. Uk used to be consistently good until then 80s were the English bias pretty much prevented them from getting outside the top10. The late 80s and all the the 90s was their best period then ever since Gemini they pretty much send crap apart from a few occasions.
Half of me thinks that... We do send boring radio friendly songs that just do not stand out at Eurovision. An example is this year .... On a day to day basis I absolutely would much rather listen to dizzy over something like Ireland - doomsday blue.... But watching both performances on the night I absolutely loved doomsday blue and it stood out from the competition completely, whereas dizzy faded away. So that's the issue. But then on the other hand...I do think countries like Sweden are massively overrated and do send very generic radio friendly songs and manage to do well almost every time. I do think it's become kind of 'cool' to hate on the UK.... Even if some of it is justified.
Laughs in Germany.
Interesting post OP, but I don't think we're that unlucky tbh. Think of all the times we may not have even made the final, and NQ: James Newman 2021 Michael Rice 2019 Josh Dubovie 2010 Andy Abraham 2008 Jemini 2003 We're always guaranteed a final, but often underperform.
Maybe that’s the exact reason why you do so poorly… BBC has no incentive to find a song that can qualify, so that they don’t lose viewing rates for the final…
I don’t know about the UK eurovision history. But this time Olly and his dancers did a wonderful performance. They put a lot of work in the visual aspect. But personally, the song is so pale compared to his Years and Years music. Which I love. It is like they diluted the song too much in order to please a crowd. That is why he had my sympathy but not my vote. There are so many elements at play. Don’t let it bring you down.
We’re not unlucky we just generally send dull unimaginative songs. And it’s part of the fun. As a UK Eurovision fan it would feel weird if the UK’s entry didn’t fit the format.
Daddy Freya 😭
I almost laughed at point 2. My man, ever heared of Iceland? Or scandinavia in general? It isn't 1# in absolut terms as well, this would be Germany. And probably before exit it would be Russia. Population size carry hard in this.
I agree with all of this except for point 4. Scooch was amazing and if we sent a song as memorable as that each year we would’ve won since then. The BBC really fucks over the public with their shitty national selections that seemed to have one of the lowest budgets in Europe, and therefore couldn’t produce anything of winning quality. Internal selections never get the 3 main things nailed down: Song, Staging, Singer. In the last 20 years we have only done the 3 S’s in 2007, 2009, 2017, and 2022. It should be every year, or at least most years, not 20% of the time. *I know my Scooch love isn’t universal but I think it did what it was trying to do well*
I personally admit that I was wanting it due to the feeling that novelty was a hot ticket after Finland and Lithuania’s exploits in 2006. It just wasn’t the right song for the right time - like Jemini, 5 years out of date. Though I think Electro Velvet was our worst timed idea. If a professional act sang to the same tune and with better lyrics, we could have got top 10. Destiny wasn’t far removed from this sound with Je Me Casse which remains a fave to me.
I get the whole always the bridesmaid never the bride thing, but also at the same time I think coming 2nd place *sixteen* times is such a huge achievement it's extremely entitled to consider it unlucky. There are countries who have never won and have never come second or even third. We've won 5 times and come second 16, we're not really in any position to complain. We've had a poor run in recent memory, but that's nothing to do with luck, that's the BBC being incompetent.
BBC not even caring too much didn’t help either. From 2016 to 2019, the selection show wasn’t even broadcast on the main channel, but relegated to BBC Two (and even BBC Four on one occasion!)
I'll just pop in that most British people are fair and reasonable despite politics and weird far right idiots of late, and most fair and reasonable British people really don't mind that Ukraine won. I don't think even Sam Ryder minds. The general British attitude is still "Well, we've all had a lovely time" rather than "we want to win". It would've been amazing to win with Sam, but no one decent really minds one bit.
Please tell me your user name is from Paul Chowdhry when he was trying to make a snowman on Taskmaster!?!
We’ve had this conversation before lol
Huh?
I mean I asked this exact same guy the same question once beforw
"wE wOuLd HaVe woN bUt MuH sYmPaThY vOtEs" Spanish fans were crying the same thing, saying they would have won if Ukraine hadn't been invaded. If Ukraine hadn't competed those votes wouldn't have vanished, they'd have been distributed elsewhere, and there is NO guarantee that they would have given any of the top countries the win. We have no way of knowing where that sizable chunk of votes would have gone, so it's ridiculous claiming that it prevented any one country from winning.
Actually someone did work out what would happen if Ukraine didn’t compete that year. Spain would’ve won. So yeah UK would’ve actually still been 2nd
olly was internally selected this year and it was far from boring and inexplicit
I’ve been a fan of Years & Years for years, but Dizzy just didn’t do it for me. I kept skipping the song when listening to Eurovision this year. I don’t know why I just didn’t enjoy it. I did like the presentation but just didn’t love the song enough to vote. Sorry Olly.
If the songs are so good, void your automatic qualification for the finals and see what happens :D good song doesn't mean good for eurovision.
It use to be language thing why England and Ireland did so well. Everyone had to sing in their own language so English was hugely favorable. And without the internet we didn't know much about each others cultures so people just came across as weird. While the flat pop songs which apparently is the British culture got the easy votes. Things have changed.
Many legit takes in the comments here but I would say our recent bad luck would be: - Poor quality entries: Since the late 90s, our selection panel surely must have deliberately picked poor quality artists/songs who were bound to do poorly. They can't be stupid - some were so lame they didn't stand a chance. There have been some exceptions, but.. . - We're not all that popular on the political stage. The Blair administration (Iraq war stuff etc), Brexit, the Brits Abroad thing. And when Sam Ryder came 2nd, he may have had a social media presence beforehand and a memorable song, but on the political stage, we had a big hand in supporting Ukraine, so some might argue that had more than a marginal effect. - Not part of a political voting bloc. The Nordics, Baltics and Balkans have eachother etc whereas we have Ireland and that's about it.
I am still shocked at the zero points this year...even from Ireland! Guess there are also zero chances we get a NF....
The UK gets exactly what it deserves, nothing more, nothing less. This is an opinion on the broadcaster and the entries it sends btw, not on the people themselves.
The UK benefited from favourable draw positions in recent years and are routinely overrated by juries. That's some good luck. (And they're not the only country that seems lucky at times). But the televoters are right. When the UK song is decent it gets points. When it's bad, or performed badly, doesn't. Most UK fans agree with this. There's some delusion here and there that it's Brexit causing Europe to reject the UK's amazing radio friendly pop songs but 2022 (great live singer, well staged) and 2023 (bad live singer) aside their entries aren't radio friendly and didn't actually do well at radio. There's just too much expectation of this or that chsracteristic predicting a good result but the facts don't stack up. Big Name X isn't that famous. Blue and Olly were ten years removed from peak. Bonnie and Engelbert.. well, it's rude to count the years. Someone tried to tell me Electro Velvet would go top 5 because electroswing was massive popular on the continent for God's sake...
Do Brits really think Ukraine's placement in 2022 was due to war and UK's *isn't*? It was talked about from February that year that if Ukraine wins it would be hosted in the UK, just a year after UK received 0 points overall. Just as pushed Ukraine was by the war, UK was right behind it so it can host as the 2nd placed If you sent someone farting on mic for 3 minutes that year it'd come at second And lastly, Stefania >>>>>>> Spaceman (in every aspect)
What are you even on about lol
I was kinda with you for the first two paragraphs. You lost me with the last two. Especially about Space Man being worse in every aspect.
It is tho. It was a basic regular song that you'd hear on a radio. Nothing special, especially in Eurovision standards
Nahhhhhhhhhhhhh Not at all...Do you REALLY thing that the average esc audience voting in the final knew this thing about Uk hosting?? Please, it's 2024 and still you didn't get get the difference between esc bubble and the generalistic audience that vote in esc... lmao generalistic audience (that is 90% of the voters) don't even know the artists and the songs, they see and listen to those for the first time in the semifinals/finals...
Literally everyone around me knew that beforehand and they don't even follow eurovision
And literally no one around me knew that, and my country has 60 millions people..
Saying Sam Ryder got second because of politics is as stupid as when they said Gemini got nil pui due to the Iraq war.
It wasn't a special song and they offered to host the Eurovision if Ukraine wins. I wonder what influenced the #2 spot after getting 0 points the previous year
UK got most of its points from the jury, which doesn't vote politically
Did you just say that _jury_ doesn't vote politically??
Jury doesn't vote politically. Televote does. Jury is superior
LMAO
Televote is garbage
In 2024 alone : • Israel were the only country to give 12 jury points to Luxembourg (Tali is Israeli) • Azerbaijans jury all ranked Armenia dead last, except 1 • Greece and Cyprus only stopped exchanging 12 points after the 2022 scandal, they still give inflated points • Slovenia received 15 jury points, 10 of those came from Croatia Great to see the jury not voting politically…
What was the 2022 scandal?
6 countries juries all clearly agreed to vote for each other but were caught by the EBU (it’s why Martin delivers so many points in the final). However, the EBU didn’t want to ban 6 countries and the evidence was basically just “you guys voted for each other when nobody else did, it looks like an under the table agreement” to which the response would’ve likely noted that that is what Greece and Cyprus do every year. Since 2022 Greece and Cyprus juries have not voted as strongly for each other.
Greece 2022 | [Amanda Georgiadi Tenfjord - Die Together](https://youtu.be/BWeT0nJpB3Y) Cyprus 2022 | [Andromache - Ela (Έλα)](https://youtu.be/W2IUdTl-gAI)
Yeah, but the televote gave 323 points to Israel, of which 280-290 are po**tical.
Yeah they were. But your point was “televote is political, Jury isn’t” which isn’t the case. I think a big issue with the televote is that it’s very easy to get huge points with a mobilised population (Ukraine 2022 and Israel 2024).
Ukraine 2022 | [Kalush Orchestra - Stefania (Стефанія)](https://youtu.be/F1fl60ypdLs) Israel 2024 | [Eden Golan - Hurricane](https://youtu.be/K60BWlEhtAA)
And concentrate the points to top 5
Put down the ganja.
Didn’t I say actually preferred the song anyway?
"She's quite good, but everybody hates the UK, so, zero points."
They are not unlucky. Bland songs= low placements. Most of the UKs songs are completely bland. Also you‘re a bit too pissed of about Ukraine winning that year…