The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 is over and all the results are known. It’s time to think about the most striking things we find in the 67 point tablesH Release.
Let’s repeat the voting systemthat changed this year. For the first time since 2009, there were differences between how the three different live shows were voted.
In the semi-finals, only the viewers at home voted. It was always about the participants themselves, supported by three of the six countries who were already sure of their place in the final and The new trademark the rest of the world-mood. People with a credit card registered in a non-participating country can participate in decisions online. Their votes were reduced to a range of one point to twelve points.
I voted again in the final Five expert jurors from all 37 countries for along way. This year they determined 49% of the final result. The majority came from telecasts, from all 37 countries as well as separate global voting.
Below we summarize the most striking from the points lists for each stream. You can now find all the points awarded and received from the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 on our website. At the time of publication, no detailed country rankings have been announced, only the top ten.
1 semi-final
In the first semi-final, we can already see the general trend of this year: The audience was very focused. With a total of three, four, seven and ten points collected respectively, Malta, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands and Ireland played anything but an important role. Serbia and Latvia vied for the 10th place, which was decided in favor of Luke Black by just three points.
The higher ranked countries got almost all the points. Käärijä from Finland in particular fulfilled his role as crowd favorite with verve by finishing in the top five in every voting country. In the end, the entire top five in the standings took points from all the other countries.
Other things of note: The Croats broke the normally strong Balkan bloc by ranking Finland above neighboring Serbia, surprising lights from Latvia were particularly appreciated by the general mood and despite a ‘only’ ninth place in the final standings, the Portuguese mimics managed to score two points higher.
2 semi-finals
No zeros in the final this year, but in the second half. Tudor of Romania and Piqued Jacks of San Marino both received Red Lanterns. Reilly from Denmark was spared that fate by loyal friends from Iceland, and Greek candidate Victor Vernicos was only saved from scratch by Cyprus and Armenia.
Georgia and Iceland were the two places closest to the finals, but they were still a good distance away. The difference between the eleventh and tenth places, between Alika from Estonia, was thirty points. Here too we see that all the points are reserved for the top half of the standings and there is a consensus on the favourites. However, only the top two, Australia and Austria, were awarded points by all the other voting countries.
Belgium collected ninety points, but finished only eightH in order. Viewers in every voting country except Romanians placed Gustav in the top ten in the second semi-final. Austria even gave us the 12-point potwhich was returned to Teya & Salena by the Belgian jury in the final.
Remarkably, the highest scores in the second half were less pronounced for close neighbors. The Joker Out boys from Slovenia got the highest scores from Poland, Romania and Spain, while the slightly older guys on Voyager and the lady from Australia picked up Estonia, Iceland and Albania.
Final: Professional juries
From the grand finale we can compare viewers’ views with the professional jury’s score. This year the Belgian Professional Jury consisted of Alex Callier (musician and Belgian entering ESF 2021, Hooverphonic), Laura Groeseneken (singer, ESF 2018, Sennek), Laura Govaerts (DJ at MNM), Sam Jaspers (Founder of Ultratop and Music consultant) and Lester Williams (guitarist). In the Netherlands, Samia Hafsawy and Jeroen Keijk of De Vegte, Siamke de Voogd, Rob Dekaye and Frocke were voted as experts.
The experts collectively chose Sweden. Lauren received the highest scores out of 15 out of 36 juries, with an average of 9.4 points per country., with a maximum of twelve. She scored nearly twice as many points as Noa Kirill of Israel, who finished one point ahead of Italy’s Marco Mengoni. The Germans were awarded only three points and thus ended up dismal in the jury’s vote.
Remarkably, the juries were regularly sympathetic to the neighbours. The Latvian jury chose Italy for Estonia, San Marino and Austria. The Scandinavian experts were especially fond of each other. For example, the top three in the Danish jury consisted of Finland, Norway and Sweden.
On the contrary, the neighbors also let her down regularly. Gustav took only four points from the Netherlands and none from France or Germany. Slovenia did not give anything to Serbia and the Greek arbitration committee had only four points for Cyprus. This is the lowest score for Greece relative to Cyprus since 1983.
Final: TV
Disagreements with general points were again stark. At the top, Finland garnered 376 points from televised broadcasts, or 10.2 points per country. By comparison, the Kalush Orchestra’s record score was 11.2 audience points per country.
Eventual winner Sweden lagged behind by an average of 6.5 points per country and had no higher score than any country. This is the first time since the introduction of telecasting in 1997 that the final winner has not been voted favorite by the public in any country. Also remarkable is that Lorraine received no points at all from only one voting country: neighboring Finland. On the contrary, the Swedes gave Cha cha cha highest score.
Norwegian candidate Alessandra benefited the most from the telecast, getting 216 points to just 52 from the jury. TVORCHI from Ukraine, Let 3 from Croatia and Blanka from Poland also fared better at home. Conversely, juries were swooning over Alika from Estonia, Voyager from Australia, Teya & Salena from Austria, Blanca Paloma from Spain (who finished last on TV) and our very own Gustav.
In the final, our country had to settle for 12th place among spectators at home. But in the final rating, the seventh place, previously awarded by professional juries, remained untouched. It is also remarkable that despite the eighth place in the second semi-final, Belgium outperformed all those countries in the final. All the other countries that advanced on Thursday night eventually got stranded below ours.
This also immediately shows that the audience in all countries clearly thought that the first semi-final was the best. With its eighth place, Poland had the highest place among all countries from the second half in the telecast into the final. Finally, we notice a strange downward trend in Australia and Austria. The two countries placed first and second in the semi-finals, but only finished 20th and 22nd in Saturday night’s public vote.
the rest of the world
Finally, we look separately at International Voices. It is not currently known how many countries voted. The chance of there being much transparency about this is slim. We just got the top 10 out of the vote.
In the end, the global dots didn’t affect the butter packet. In the first semi-final it made no difference to the standings. In the second they took Kelmendis from tenth to ninth. Brunet of Armenia eventually did the best by climbing from 15th to 14th place in the final standings thanks to eight points in the final.
Otherwise it was RotWindicates that the gentlemen of The Busker of Malta gave one of their three points and were also solely responsible for Forty percent of all audience points are Spanish, or two out of five. Finally, in both the first and final semi-finals, the global electorate selected favorites not Sweden or Finland, but Israel.
All results for the 67th Eurovision Song Contest can be found below