It’s Eurovision Grand Final Day, which means one thing – we will have a new winner soon! But who still stands a chance of lifting that coveted microphone trophy, now that the running order has been officially released?
What Is The Eurovision 2022 Grand Final Running Order?
Probably the best place to start is by establishing how the running order was made and what the outcome of that process was.
The running order was created by Eurovision producers, with a few randomised elements. First of all, as host nation, Italy’s running order position ‘9’ was drawn from a hat. Every other finalist drew for which half of the final they would preform in. It was then the producers jobs to make the most exciting (and logistically feasible) running order from these restraints.
The Resulting Running Order
Where Have The Bookmakers Favourites Been Placed?
Naturally, when trying to make an exciting show, you don’t want all the big favourites to win clustered together at the start or people may not stick around for the full show. Equally, the European Broadcasting Union will not want to be seen as sabotaging any hopes of a victory from their member broadcasters. So how exactly have they gone about positioning the favourites to win the contest?
The following chart shows the positions of songs with >1% chance of winning according to the bookmakers (in the early hours of Friday morning – yes Eurovision and insomnia go hand in hand). As most of these drew a second-half slot in the running order, they are not particularly split apart. Joint second favourites to win Sweden and the United Kingdom, are sandwiched apart only by Australia, with Poland having to try and find a way to stand out afterwards. Meanwhile, in the first half, Ukraine (the country most likely to win) closes the half, most likely giving viewers an advertisement break to refocus afterwards.
While this clustering of favourites is undesirable both from a show production and ‘fairness’ perspective, it does also have its advantages. Statistically, it is generally thought to be better to be towards the end of your half and by bundling the favourites there, they get these ‘better spots’. Of course they are then even more directly competing with one another but if your song is good enough to win, it should still outshine a favourite a couple of songs down the running order. So arguably, it could potentially be fairer and more exciting, as favourites will have decent spots and have to battle.
But how much does running order even affect results?
Eurovision Winners By Running Order
Mapping out where previous winner’s have sung from in the running order is the easiest way to test out the running order bias hypothesis. However, there are a few important points to consider beforehand:
- Generally over the years, the contest has gotten larger. There were only ten participating songs in 1957, for instance. As a result later running order positions don’t have much statistical data.
- Similarly there have been winner’s who closed the show. In many ways positions like ‘closing’ are more significant than a number.
- 1969 has four winners due to the lack of tie-breaker rules that year, whilst 2020 has no winner due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- Producers started influencing the running order and thus, the statistics since 2016
- Spots with no winners are 02 (which also has the most nil points), 16 and slots with little data, only used since the contest expanded in modern times (25-27)
All that considered, if a spot has a lot of modern winners, it is likely the best bet for success. However, bias for favourites may have skewed that data. Maybe a later spot with a lot of old winners, is truly the better indicator? I’d say this is likely good news for Armenia, Greece, Lithuania and Sweden in particular. On the reverse side of the spectrum, Romania and Belgium get the ‘death spots’. These songs have not had a great deal of hype and most likely will struggle in those running orders.
Spreading Out Styles – Musical Diversity?
Obviously when it comes to musical genres, there are a lot more than simply three. However, when it comes to making a running order, it is important to try and avoid having too many similarly placed songs next to each other. Indeed, it was this very reason that was used to justify producer led running orders over an impartial draw. So how is it doing?
At first glance, not great… Many of these songs have a fair bit of overlap, as they fuse genres e.g. Belgium or France and make a ternary classification like this more problematic. But yeah, the random elements ensured that the second half had a disproportionate quantity of slower songs than the first. From this the producers seem to have done a reasonable job of splitting up the styles but Switzerland, Germany, Azerbaijan, Greece and Poland appear to take the biggest hits to allow for this.
Gender Distribution
Whilst I don’t imagine this has much effect on the overall winner, it is good to see a running order where vocalists of different genders are spread out, as once again it keeps the songs fresh and distinct. 2021 saw a lot of up-tempo songs sung by women in silver dresses at the start of the running order. I am pleased to say there is not that problem this year. We do have a run of vocal heavy ‘jury bait’ male vocalists though (21-23) and that may well hurt one of their chances.
Voting Blocks
A way more significant factor is likely going to be the distribution of countries in the final. Each year the European Broadcasting Union divides up the countries into their semi-finals using a pot based system. This is to split up voting blocks and give everyone a fair shot at making the final. More detail on this system can be found here. Having less people from your pot qualify means that in countries where you have a strong diaspora there are less diaspora votes going to other countries.
Being the only ‘Pot 1’/’Balkan Bloc’ country left in the final, Serbia wins here, as there are no other options for friendly voting within their pot. Another country who may benefit from their bloc’s elimination is Ukraine. Whilst both Azerbaijan and Armenia made the final, they will almost never trade points with each other, leaving Ukraine their only other option, within the pot. Losing out here is the ‘Nordic Bloc’/’Pot 2’ who only lost Denmark in the semi-finals. There vote will likely be more split as a result.
These pots aren’t perfect indicators, particularly due to the Big 5’s voting patterns not being included. Similarly countries that exchange points with the same countries but not each other, find themselves in the same pots. Eurovision voting is complicated!
But bloc voting is only a minor factor anyway, which is unlikely to change the winner, just those further down the leaderboard.
So Who Will Win?
Time is marching on and we will soon have a winner! Tell me who you think will win Eurovision 2022 and see you all on the other side!