We’ve already covered why Australia actually winning Eurovision would’ve been something of a disaster for the runner-up and the song competition itself and we honestly couldn’t be prouder of Dami Im for her incredible silver finish.
However, we couldn’t help but have our interests piqued by a recent analysis from the clever folks at FiveThirtyEight. According to them, had we competed under last year’s rules, Australia would have come first in this year’s contest.
As FiveThirtyEight‘s Leah Libresco writes, this year saw Eurovision employ a new set of rules in order to create a more exciting broadcast. In previous years, the ultimate winner was pretty much known halfway through the show.
In order to combat this element of predictability, Eurovision made it so that countries still rank one another (via a panel of judges and a public vote), with points awarded accordingly, but awarded points from judges and voters separately.
In previous years, the public vote and the panel decisions were pooled together. The new points system worked and this year’s winner was a battle between favourite Russia, Ukraine, and Australia, with Russia’s public vote not enough to clinch it.
But what’s most interesting about Libresco’s analysis is the fact that had this year’s contest utilised the old rules, Australia would have come first, and as we noted, led to the subsequent screwing-over of the runner-up and public boycotts.
The top five would have gone Australia, Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, and France under the old points system, with the number eight-ranked Poland dropping all the way to 19 and the 12th-ranked Malta dropping out of the top 20 altogether.
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Interestingly and perhaps ironically, what really worked in Australia’s favour was not only Im’s song, which is currently a Top 10 hit across Europe, but the fact that Australia is not in Europe. We know: how the hell does that work?
Well, not being part of Europe means we’re not currently embroiled in any geopolitical intrigue with other European nations, like say, Russia and Ukraine. For example, 21 national panels awarded Russia no points, almost certainly for political reasons.
Meanwhile, only three juries snubbed Australia from their top 10, because what could they possibly have against us? We just sit here in the Pacific keeping to ourselves and not bothering anybody. Yep, we’re pretty great.
