A First Look At How ESC23 Is Shaping Up
Whilst May seems like a long time away, we’re finding the season already underway and with few pauses for breath from now until the entry deadline. We already have three names in the hat for Liverpool and National final season begins in earnest with trophy holders Ukraine in a couple of weeks. As I type up this intro on Friday evening the winning song of Eurovision 2023 could be being released amongst the Eesti Laul filler. Okay, I’m not risking much by not tuning in live but still, there’s some crumbs of news, announcements or rumours most days now meaning that it’s time for a first real overview of season and what we can expect heading into the new year.
The Ukraine Situation
Before a song was heard anywhere, reigning champions Ukraine were already hovering around the 2/1 range to go back to back. There's plenty of examples where the reigning champions are found at a shorter price at an equivalent time than their winning entry with 'Brividi' the latest example of this sort of recency bias. Of course, Ukraine can't be categorised along with past examples and whilst one of the strongest countries at any time, 2/1 wasn't and isn’t really the odds of them finding a winning song, it's the odds on public (and jury) support remaining at similar levels and how much of last year's diaspora will remain. I touched on this in last years review and how relatively small groups in the voter base determine each countries points given but the key takeaway for me is this; even if the percentage of people voting for Ukraine for 'non song reasons' in each country falls from a hypothetical 20% of total voters to 10% , that's still a huge score in the making. In other words, Ukraine probably received the majority of their 12 televote points from each country by a significant margin. That, coupled with the fact many of us betting last year were burned or otherwise missed out on potential winnings by Kalush's success explains the short price, as does a contest liable to focus on Ukraine.
Trying to estimate how much support for Ukraine will remain this year could prove even more of a wormhole than last year.
One positive to the whole scenario from the betting perspective is that Vidbir is first up this year and their song reveals were part of the reason for pushing this first preview back a couple of days. With near double the number of YouTube views of her closest chaser, a close similarity to recent Ukrainian efforts and the most on the nose message Jerry Heil is the clear frontrunner and standout participant. Whilst in regular times a low top 10 would probably be the limit, If selected, Ukraine will remain well within the conversation heading deeper into the season with a solid bar set.
The Chasing Pack
Taking the exchanges and highstreet betting together Sweden, Italy and our hosts The UK are being treated as the closest competition before a note is sung. The UK being in single figures at some bookies is of course absurd, particularly with the short Ukraine odds, and a price in the 20s would be a generous starting point. Yes, a corner may have been turned and the BBC should find Eurovision an easier sell to prospective talent this year given hosting and Sam’s work but let’s not overreact. Italy are Italy and with San Remo always capable of throwing up something in the running with the San Remo field revealed tomorrow. Of the three, Sweden give us more early talking points having revealed the Melodifestivalen lineup. We’ll have a full preview up in the new year but Loreen enters as the headline name and Sweden backers’ main interest. Whilst her previous comeback effort did not go to plan, ‘Statements’ was the right kind of failure- a risk taking one- compared to the lazy efforts of other former winners.
Self generated hype form the Greek and Norwegian camps sees them follow in the early betting along with Spain following their success last year. The streamlined MGP now featuring jury voting in the final is a positive step for Norway whilst Spain seem to have found a new spring in their step through Benidorm Fest.
Two countries still reasonably fancied but taking a tumble compared to recent starting positions are France and Australia. Whilst the latter's ditch of the Australia Decides in the last year before participation is discussed again could be a sign of intent, the now pretty irrefutable public vote drag has seen optimism fall. The Netherlands have seen some action too on the market leading us onto the next point of discussion...
The Internal Selections
I think it's fair to say we've had two promising selections so far and one very 'meh' announcement.
Unfortunately for Cyprus, Andrew Lambrou is the odd one out having been plucked from the annual also-rans in Australia and it seems the island nation is on the downward end of the bell curve of results. Expectations of something in the Hovig/Sandro range of genre and quality are fair.
Israel got the season started in promising style by ditching their overly long and complex national final/x factor system in favour of domestic star Noa Kirel and a healthy financial warchest. I don't mind admitting to being one of the takers of the early 200/1 at a couple of the sportsbooks as my first involvement of the year and they're probably still some of the best/only marginal value at this stage when you consider their company and who's shorter at current odds.
Away from Jeangru's second attempt, The Netherlands have been solid for a while and their effort this year marries their most successful modern era results in combining a Duncan Laurence co-written song in a duet format. We'll have to wait and see how close this ends up to a 'Calm After The Acrade' of sorts and re-treading past results doesn't always come off but still, Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper is a pairing I'll be keeping an eye on in the coming months.
The Departed
From going all out to win, to no hope meme providers and withdrawing again Bulgaria have had an interesting few years to say the least. Montenegro and North Macedonia bounce between varying degrees of low but the missing trident weakens the Balkan voting bloc considerably which neatly brings us to the final discussion point…
The Voting Changes
Most of the changes at Eurovision- and particularly the best ones- come about through necessity rather than innovation and once again we had reached the stage where the voting needed to be tweaked.
The main difference concerns the semi finals where juries have been removed meaning qualification is down to the televote alone. It’s a positive step in reducing the vote swapping epidemic and in theory should make the semi finals more predictable with just one side of the equation to crack. Those with in-built support such as Poland, Romania, Lithuania and others are a key beneficiary here whilst the more isolated countries find themselves up against it slightly. I say let’s see how we get on with this for a couple of years and see what trends emerge. On paper, this change shouldn’t have a direct impact on the top end of the final scoreboard where most attention will be focused. The extra points on offer from the rest of world push up the televote share of the points but there’s the potential for the jury vote (which remains for the final) to become more extreme too should fewer jury bait entries a.) participate at all or b.) get left in the semis. It will be worth returning to this theory when we have the full set of songs and how the balance feels.
I’ll be back next with the Ukrainian and Albanian song reviews before we begin the weekly odds reviews in January. Also coming up next month national final coverage proper will begin with full previews of Melodifestivalen, San Remo, Benidorm Fest and MGP. Until then I’ll be dipping in and out on twitter @escbetting for anything of note. Take care and let the games begin…