Festival Da Canςao 2022 has come and gone but the fun doesn’t end here! As always the lovely people at Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) have published a full split of how the points were allocated in the semi-finals and final, allowing deeper insight into exactly how Portugal voted. I’m a strong believer in public broadcast media being transparent, so this is as always very much appreciated. So thank you, if any of you end up reading this.
And The Festival Da Canςao Winner Is
Before we dive head first into data, obviously I want to give a massive congratulations to Maro for winning Festival Da Canςao this year! I look forward writing out my thoughts on Saudade, Saudade as well as the rest of the Eurovision 2022 line-up in due course. Just waiting on you Azerbaijan and Armenia! So something to look forward to in the days ahead.
Semi Final Format
In the semi-finals the format of the contest is pretty self-explanatory so don’t worry too much if you didn’t follow along with the contest. Simply ten songs compete per semi-final which are ranked by juries and televoters Eurovision Song Contest style (1-8, 10, 12). The two scores are added together and any ties are broken by the jury.
Festival Da Canςao 2022: Semi Final One
Eventual Festival Da Canςao winner Maro also won semi-final one. However unlike in the final they did not win the maximum available points. Instead Os Quatro & Meia actually won the televote in this semi. Jurors and televoters only disagreed on one of the five qualifiers, with the jury pushing their second place, Diana Castro through over televote fifth place Fado Bicha.
Festival Da Canςao 2022: Semi Final Two
In the second semi-final televoters and juries disagreed with each other in a more noticeable manner. Milhanas won the semi, getting top points from the juries, whilst the televote winner Inês Homem de Melo took second place. Jurors and televoters alike agreed that Jonas should qualify to the final, however the tie-breaking rules ultimately eliminated Pontas Soltas from the final. Giving the juries their tie-breaking power ultimately saved jury third place, Pepporoni Passion from an early dismissal.
Grand Final Format Differences
The Grand Final had much about the same format as the semis with one major difference – the jury results were presented by region (instead of as a whole). Each region would award points (1-8, 10, 2) before being summed together and re-ranked (1-8, 10, 12). This was added to a ranked televote to produce the final results (juries once again breaking any potential tie).
Festival Da Canςao 2022: Grand Final Results
Saudade, Saudade sweeps the board in the grand final, finishing with the maximum number of points. We knew this though, what is interesting is how these results are different to the semi-finals and also whether the change to the jury rules played a role. This is where the fun number crunching begins folks!
Changes From Semi Results
The most noteworthy point, in my opinion at least, when breaking-down these songs by their semi-finals is simply how much better songs from semi-final one did in the final. The top four songs in the final all came from semi-final one, whilst the bottom three all came from semi-final two. This is quite the split considering only five songs from each semi-final qualified.
Another striking difference in the Festival Da Canςao results is the order the countries finished in in their semi-finals is really not reflected in the final results. Whilst sure semi-final winners Maro and Milhanas topped their groups in both shows the other songs are in more scrambled positions. Os Quator & Meia switch places with Diana Castro, whilst Inês Homem de Melo drop behind both Pongo & Tristany and Aurea. Which begs the question – ‘why did this happen?’
Increased Competition For Songs Favoured By One Demographic?
Inês Homem de Melo received strong televote support in the semi-final but were close to the bottom of the juries’ picks of the qualifiers. In the grand final as the jurors more heavily favoured other songs, Fome de Viagem’s jury vote plummeted further. This phenomena seemingly happened to Os Quatro & Meia as well, in regards to their jury vote, but to a lesser extent (as the songs from semi-final two don’t seem to have dented the semi-final one results much). There is a chance that Inês Homem de Melo also took away some of their televote support and that helped Maro win both groups in the final.
What About Regional Split Juries?
Of course the format change could also explain some of these changes, as well as the number of televotes cast. Let’s start off with the juries and see if there are any interesting changes to be found there.
Why Might Regional Juries Vote Differently?
Just like Eurovision itself, Festival Da Canςao aims to celebrate different cultures and styles of music. As a result it really wouldn’t be surprising if a regional jury voted more highly for a song that reflects its regional heritage than other regions, as well they’d “get it”. But did we see any of that reflected in the voting patterns or was it an unnecessary step? One way to get a taste of this is to measure the standard deviation to see just how different the spreads of votes were for each song.
Most of these standard deviations are fairly similar to each other, with the most noticeably high spread of votes going to FF. A one point from Lisbon and a twelve points from Aljento is indeed literally the furthest extremes you can have. From what I can gather, FF originally hails from Brazil though. This means it is probably unlikely strong regional biases played a role here. Instead the variation is probably more likely to reflect individual tastes of jurors. In this sense the regional splits seem to have made little difference to the results.
Viewers, Viewers, Viewers
According to the lovely bloggers over at ESC Voix, Festival Da Canςao’s grand-final achieved roughly 90,000 viewers more than its semi-finals. In other words new viewers made up around 14% of the audience in the final. Now of course not everyone will end up voting but it could substantially swing the results if there was a major disagreement. If the initial viewer base for example comprised of invested (albeit potentially very causal) Eurovision fans, then the average TV viewer joining just because it is the prime time television slot may well vote very differently.
Did This Cause The Changes?
Well largely I’d argue the televote results are fairly consistent with what you would expect. The most notable change is of course Maro going above Os Quatro & Meia. Whether or not it was new voters who caused this change or simply Amanhã voters choosing songs from semi-two over it, is difficult to tell. This could be responsible for Pongo & Tristany leapfrogging Milhanas in the final.
Whatever The Reason A Formidable Victory
Having won the grand final with the maximum points, Saudade, Saudade has set itself up well in Festival Da Canςao for Eurovision. The question remains though, will you be voting for it?
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