Eurovision 2023 Season Review
So congratulations first to Sweden and particularly Loreen for her piece of history. It's sad in a way that 'controversy' around the method of victory is overshadowing what has been a very strong year for the contest after a cancelled year, a further covid affected edition and Ukraine's far more problematic victory for the contest last year.
A historic win for a chart worthy and internationally accessible pop song in a host city and broadcaster throwing their entire weight behind the contest should be a cause for celebration: televote favourite or not: we do not have a bad winner and objectively 'Tattoo' is an above average trophy holder- if not quite absolute top tier.
Amazing credit has to go to Kaarijaa, not only for his huge televote but in managing to make the Eurovision fandom dissapointed with a Loreen win: that's some going. 'Stefania' doesn't count so Kaarijaa- you are the most popular Eurovision entry of the modern era. In this game you have to be able to separate emotion and reason, but now that the fog of war has gone with the built up red on Finland, I can enjoy his entry much more. I expect to see him back over the years in the manner of Verka Serduchka and to a lesser extent Eleni Foureira as immensely popular runner ups.
Our top 4 overall was a vintage one with the huge talent that is Noa Kirel and Italy doing their thing excellently like usual. That brings us onto one of the massive take-aways from the year: Don't underestimate the draw. The second Israel found themselves away from any other powerhouse performance I went in for them sizeably and the same when Italy found themselves with great treatment in the first half. I had both well on my radar before but their slots gave the added belief to seriously pile in and separate them from the other chasers.
Whilst semi 2 to the final was a big step up in quality, the devastating effect on Austria of having to open and Australia in losing the main thing that won it the semi (fight me) in the pimp slot can still be seen. The reverse where Norway lost the burden of starting the show was also very present. Juries need to exist in one way or another, (we'll come onto that shortly) but my long held, never going to happen, priority would be the fully random draw: producers should not have an influence over results in a song contest. End of. It's useful in adding security to us betting folk, but it doesn't sit right.
Before we get to the juries, I'd also hope an easy improvement for next year would be better treatment and access for the fans and fan media who help to make Eurovision more than just the one week in a year. Allow second rehearsal access and publish these clips. Stop faffing about with TikTok exclusives and make it easier to follow the contest. I'd cautiously hope SVT will be more on top of these issues although many of the problems with Eurovision becoming less of an open contest and more of a heavily managed show begin with the Swedes.
On to the juries and it's a fair discussion to have if we are getting the 'correct' or most agreeable results. Personally, this year isn't the strongest example for voting change and either way one entry is hard done by. Loreen not being a single country's preffered winner is problematic but do we really want, let's face it, a bit of a novelty song to smash the field into oblivion either? I'm not sure that's the sort of precedent we want to set. Compromise is better and it just happens that this year was a clash between two ultimate extremes and no solution could satisfy everyone.
That said, throughout the run up to this contest I have tweeted on many occasions how #JuriesExist and whilst this should almost certainly remain the case in some way that is less a proclamation of support for them, but an acknowledgement of fact. The issues are many:
1. Jurors haven't really levelled the playing field in terms of non-song based diaspora and bloc voting. A far more serious accusation against the juries remains that they allowed Ukraine to win last year rather than stopping Finland this.
2. Jurors display their own such biases with Australia yet again the most blatant example. Again, fight me Aussies.
3. Subjectively, jury winners would have nuked the popularity of the contest, particularly the run from Australia '16 through to Switzerland '21. Portugal '17 aside, the only entry which the televote agreed on, you do have to question who is crowning the better winners all things considered.
Through that stretch however, the system did work in providing us a good compromise.
Potential solutions.
Eliminating the juries and setting the televote completely free as in the semis this year isn't a good idea. The only counterpoint to that would be a 'good in theory, probably unworkable in practice solution' of a weighted televote taking in historical voting patterns. I.e. A vote for Albania from Italy is worth far less than a vote for Estonia let's say. Each country would start with a theoretical handicap in each other country based upon the past 20 years of voting data. This would obviously need to be weighted again vs average voting patterns to avoid penalising countries who have simply been good over that period such as Sweden and Italy. This would likely prove far too much work to formulate and extremely controversial with many broadcasters kicking up an almighty stink but it's one idea I keep in the back of my head which in theory could provide "fair" results that also sit better with the public.
The practical solution where jurors are retained is below:
Have jurors rank entries more in line with how televoters vote, whilst retaining the critical eye. For example have them score each entry against each criteria robustly rather than just list them as points to consider. Give an exact score out of 10 in each category. This would allow the likes of 'Cha Cha Cha' or even Croatia's entry to score well across some aspects and then be rightly called out in others.
Increase the size of the juries from 5 to 7 to start with and ensure a better spread of industries represented- this would mean more staging designers or TV people, perhaps even journalists reflecting the visual and story telling of the contest better.
Note these aren't changes to generate a different result, just one that allows different types of entries to be rewarded too that bit more. Changing a system entirely because the fan favourite didn't win one year will just lead to an issue a couple of years down the line.
Anyway, I'm not really saying anything new there and this is a betting blog after all so onto what many of you will be here for...
Results
With the odd notable miss that we'll come onto, it's been an exceptional year both here and for the market in general (eventually). Landing the top 4 in the right order is always going to make a year profitable and finding the two missing placers in Israel and Italy was the icing on the cake to Sweden's long anticipated and backed victory. Like everyone pretty much the Sweden vs Finland mathematical advantage was calculated pretty spot on, even if both did better eventually with their respective target groups.
The qualification markets proved strong and I was able to pick and choose quite well where to get involved. Semi-winner speculation went poorly, but seeing Poland making the top 3 was very welcome. For last place, Germany netted a marginal win. They were always in the running for that but I was focusing on the value elsewhere. In particular, if certain bookmakers continue to offer 500-1 live on the country that comes 21st we'll punish sooner or later... Opposing Armenia proved particularly fruitful with 'Future Lover' an entry I had a particularly good handle on if I do say so myself.
Norway featured in some of my top 10 plays and although I didn't get rich of them at all, they did pretty much as expected all season. The same goes for Ukraine. For all the difficulty and uncertainty we expressed over finding their support level I landed them in 6th correctly just 13 points off in the televote.
The meh calls.
Spain was always an entry I kept an eye on but thankfully without backing. 5 pts in the final televote is usually reserved for something inept and/or anonymous so that does surprise still despite the love or hate nature of the entry.
France ended up right where my initial reaction put them so there is that but 'Evidement' did move it's way up my predictions thanks to it's pre contest showing. In isolation you can dismiss an OGAE poll here or a preview show there but almost every metric had this around the top 3. I'd probably maintain a place would have been possible with a late draw and more impactful staging etc etc and covering and investing some e/w isn't something I regret.
Belgium was a bit of a missed opportunity (in the final), but nothing I opposed directly.
The bad calls.
Austria can feel somewhat unfortunate with the draw as mentioned and came close enough in semi 2 but overall, the televote appeal was overestimated clearly.
Australia's pimp slot was enough to get them the semi and the juries did their usual work placing them in the top 10. Why 2 juries deemed 'Promise' the best entry of the night is beyond me, but it's been duly (further) noted Australia need to be truly inept on every level not to do well on that side of the vote. And no, before anyone does take me up on the fight offer, I actually quite like Promise personally and certainly Voyager are pros but come on lads... Will I need that note on Australia? Probably. A semi win and contest hosted in Sweden is a pretty favourable outcome for them. With non-Europe versions of the contest flopping I’d expect the invitation to be there anyway.
Switzerland failed to turn into the jury bait I expected and yeah there's not much to learn there, just a wrong call with Estonia doing what I had them pegged for.
The rest of the countries range from 'very accurate but insignificant' to pretty fine and within range but don't provide many talking points for this already hugely overlong review.
Overall, landing Israel in the top 3 and Italy in the top 4 and top big 5 pushed this year beyond 2017 as my best yet, in terms of both roi and overall returns. There's an element of fortune in there, but I'm also very pleased with my work in making a heap on 3 out of the top 4.
For those interested the updated order of how accurate/profitable I have been overall is this:
1st 2023
2nd 2017
3rd 2021
4th 2019
5th 2022
6th 2016
7th 2018
Looking Forward
We'll be back for the end of season awards in the next week, followed by a bit of a discussion on where each country should go in the next year, then it's probably radio silence from me until September at the earliest when we gear up for (95%+) Stockholm 2024. I do hope SVT focus on correcting and refining some of the miss-steps of the last decade rather than finding a new headline change and I would also hope to see at least some of the missing Balkan countries return. And yeah that sort of issue should take priority over a reflex voting change. Those are very low expectations- please don't disappoint EBU…
We've also seen two very strong market favourites romp home these last two years but I don't think this will be the “new normal” to borrow an awful phrase. We were a Putin not starting a war away from a fascinating 4 way battle in 2022 and this year was unique in having such a dominant jury song vs such a dominant TV song. There has been more rallying round and international consensus these last two years but we're as likely right now to have an open contest next year or another wipe-out.