Eurovision 2022 Review
It's took me a while to get to this review but I am here.... now. Part of the delay is due to being busy with non Eurovision concerns but the end of the season always takes a lot out of me and its hard to pull myself back into it all. Anyway, some time helps gather the perspective a little too.
So in the end, Ukraine won because of the war and 2s, 1.7, 1.33 was indeed printing money. It makes sense, too much sense which is the problem most of us had. No one discounted a Ukraine win but until the moment that monster televote score was announced there were reasons why they wouldn't. Anyway, I'll circle back to that first line because anyone who argues otherwise is a fool or being deliberately misleading. To claim that Ukraine were one of the favourites to win even before because they were top 5 in the odds is ridiculous. 1- that was on the back of a drift that would have kept going. 2- Odds at that stage have less to do with winning assessments and more on price probabilities. 3- Australia were also a favourite around that stage for one of hundreds of examples that odds at that stage don't correlate much and 4- the chance of a war of some sort was priced in to an extent. Most people know all of this anyway but we do need to double down and say it again.
As for a winning song, in ten years time throw the chorus into a montage of Eurovision winners and you'd say “alright fair enough”. There have been worse songs this century to get the trophy but that doesn't change the fact this probably got 4x more points from both the jury and the televote than it would have last year. Obviously there's no question if Alina Pash or last year's entry could have won as well and instead the question has to go further. It's interesting to think what would have happened with Wellboy or Roxolana for example. Kalush were suitably ethnic and angsty but we're talking about a result boosted a hell of a lot that won comfortably. Could Ukraine have sent 'Intention' and won? Would Georgia have won with 'Lock Me In' had they been invaded in the same manner and received the same media coverage instead? These are genuine questions and whilst Kalush winning is a reputational blow the damage could have been worse for the brand.
What the win does show is how sensitive the televote is to an extent I genuinely didn't think was possible and underestimated. Looking back, there have always been signs of this in the diaspora voting we see. Using a common example, Lithuania's televote haul in the UK shows this. The most generous estimate puts Lithuanians around 2% of the Eurovision viewership yet this is enough for a pretty much guaranteed 8+ points and you'll get similar pictures across many other examples. Just 5% of viewers in each country setting out to vote for Ukraine was probably enough to get that 400+ figure. Having a quick pass-thru of the results presents some interesting results and it took pretty exceptional cases in each country for something to pip Ukraine, such as Armenia voting for Stefan Airapetjan or Moldova's ode to Romania coming top there. Other times even that wasn't enough with Greece settling for 10 from the Cypriot televote.
What can be done about this, or even should anything be done? Despite being equally silly, a televote first place is less of an issue than a jury 4th- and yeah we'll get to that soon. If the public decides they want to spam vote in a song contest because a country is going through a horrible time then whatever I guess. Translating viewers to voters is something that needs to be improved to get a more representative result but that needs a lot of thought before anything is proposed.
On to the juries where it all really starts to smell with the EBU’s fateful findings on the integrity of the results. Stepping in now is something but these trades seen in semi 2 have been going on and growing and no one can be surprised by the suspects. Some of these alliances date back more than a decade and by alliances I mean the unnatural ones. Moldova-Romania, Greece-Cyprus, Sweden-Norway, the inverse with the twisted pair of Armenia-Azerbaijan, these are frustrating and silly but also whatever, in the grand scheme of things they don't matter all too much and again the televote would just reflect this anyway. Those that are clearly based on kickbacks and reciprocal voting from countries with no natural connection to each other are a huge issue. Like everyone, I want this stamped out although I don't want to see 7 countries thrown out all of a sudden. The EBU has turned a blind eye for too long for that and also have their own inconsistencies. They can start by not essentially making up results themselves in terms of these jury replacement scores and the San Marino televote. I'd imagine a final warning is on for every broadcaster but the real changes are obvious however; get more than 5 people on a jury which also aids them in proving these fixed results are beyond coincidence. I'm not a huge fan of the idea of centrally selecting themselves but that is something worth considering if broadcasters can not be trusted.
Furthermore, the use of juries at all needs to be questioned with them showing just as many if not more of those political biases than the televote. Their introduction as I see it was to reduce that but at the top end what would have changed? There's several winner swaps but a western benefit of +1 the net difference. The semi finals present the issue with dropping them altogether with mediocre entries from some countries much more vulnerable than from others.
The unnecessary crack down on fan press and distancing the event from the community further is something the EBU should also be criticised for and I'm not really in that category. Again we've seen a bit of a free for all in the past and a balance is needed but what did closing first rehearsals really achieve apart from TikTok clicks and why ban monetised streams? If the EBU's ultimate goal is growth, the mainstream press are always going to turn up in the last days and leave the contest alone on the whole for the next year.
You do also wonder when Eurovision will return to 'normal'. We've had the massive downer of a cancelled year, a covid impacted edition, one overshadowed by war and the most extreme political voting ever. Next year will likely be more of the same with any Ukrainian involvement and the next months of behind the scenes wrangling will not be pretty. Really think I'll be sticking my head in the sand until FiK begins and see where we stand then. Hosting in a peaceful Ukraine sounds a nice dream but Ukraine should be peaceful now for that to happen, not let's wait and see. I like the quirk of the winner hosting but no organisation in their right mind would even begin to think of holding an international event there for the foreseeable. Second place should be offered it and so on and it be up to them how much to involve UA:PBC/Suspline beyond inviting Kalush to perform as winners. That's my take anyway.
Results
The outright goes down as around +15% for the year which is obviously disappointing although better than a red of course.
In an ironic twist, part of that was due to having stakes on Alina Pash early with sportsbooks that fortunately I was unable to back out of. Normally more of a top up to any winnings but came in handy this year. Of course, had she just remained the entrant we'd all have been a lot better off and that's something that will annoy me for some time, more than Kalush's actual victory. Another part was getting some live in the early results but way too many of us were probably doing the same for the 2+ to last. The UK and Sweden were good E/W earners to compensate for some of the UKR red although Italy being overtook by Spain wasn't ideal. Still, it was much better Spain than anyone else breaking into the top 4. I should say I pretty much stopped backing anyone straight up on the exchange after the first rehearsals, save for Spain, playing it much safer than intended and avoided actively laying Ukraine.
Other market results were on a similar level if not better than usual to make sure a fair return was made overall.
The UK provided some good wins in top big 5 after rehearsals, as well as top 10 and the jury win.
As well as The UK, it was another country I initially didn't rate that ended up being a big earner in the side markets: Serbia. Many of us pointed this out but top Balkan was available from 6s to odds against until the final day when it finally pipped Greece for favouritism. That along with top 10, Q (which lead to a bit of a sweat) and semi top 3 were good wins.
Poland top 10, Latvia qualification/top Baltic and Belgium NQ were poor misses. The combination of trading the Czech Q for a green and Cyprus Q to a red evened out pretty much.
It would have been better for Romania to miss out but nothing is lost on that, the main importance in the semis was on Croatia, Ireland, Montenegro and Georgia all to fall short.
I'm still not sure in the net value of trying to get the borderliners (as priced by the market) right and prefer to stick to the 1.3 type shots more. I was burned on the two I did stick my head out on (Lat, Bel) but then was close in going for Lithuania and really taking on San Marino which would have both won.
Anything semi 2 related needs a little asterix against it but there's another lesson in there on remembering that something being better than expected and appreciated in the bubble does not negate all the months of stats placing them at the very bottom. *Cough* Irelandsanmarino *Cough*.
Overall, side market performance was very strong but that's not to ignore what happened with Ukraine or just brush it aside as there's always something to learn even in the extraordinary circumstances.
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks for some awards and perhaps a look at what went wrong for Italy in particular as ‘Brividi’ makes an interesting case study.