As the EU elections begin around the continent, the European Broadcasting Union last night provided some voting drama of its own with the announcement – as already suspected by many fans – that the substitute jury result it calculated for Belarus in the grand final was completely wrong and has been revised. The result: Changes to the final scoreboard, with Sweden replacing Norway in the top five, and North Macedonia denied its rightful moment in the spotlight as the jury winner.

We have questions.

• How come this was allowed to happen in the first place, considering it was screamingly obvious to everyone watching on Saturday night that something weird was going on when the Belarusian votes went almost exclusively to countries at the bottom end of the scoreboard?

• At the very least, did the fact that Belarus’s 12 points went to a country that otherwise received no points from any other jury not raise any alerts, given that the entire point of the aggregated vote is that it reflects how other countries voted?

• What’s the point of the juries voting 24 hours before the public, on a completely different set of performances, if that time isn’t used to verify their results correctly?

• Is the idea of devising an artificial aggregated result to replace a disqualified jury really the best one anyway? Surely it’d be possible to either find a new set of people in Belarus to vote in the final, or to simply use an alternative jury – a representative sample from various parts of the continent, people from a non-participating country, former Eurovision winners, whatever. Anything seems preferable to adding points to the scoreboard that are literally made up.

• Since we now also know that multiple jurors messed up their individual rankings by putting their favourite song in last place and vice versa – and not for the first time – isn’t it time the EBU and Digame introduced more checks and balances, from on-site scrutineers to manual confirmations when the results are submitted by each country? How hard is it to get this right?

• How will this affect the betting markets? At time of writing, Betfair are digging in their heels when it comes to paying out on the revised results – which is understandable since, in theory, it also requires them to demand money back from those who won it e.g. on Norway finishing in the top five. However, the argument they’re using is that, under their terms and conditions, more than 72 hours have passed since the original result so the affected markets can’t be resettled. Since we all knew there was something fishy about the Belarusian jury result the instant it was announced, how come it’s taken the EBU so long to fess up?

• And perhaps most concerningly of all… what if this happens again, but next time the identity of the winner changes?

What a mess. It’s not quite enough to ruin the aftertaste of a fun and dramatic Eurovision grand final, but for the sake of the contest’s integrity, it really needs to be something that is never repeated.

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The winner of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest is “Arcade” by Duncan Laurence from the Netherlands – ending a 44-year wait for the country dating back to Teach-In and “Ding-A-Dong” in 1975.

In an incredibly exciting results presentation, Sweden won the jury vote narrowly ahead of surprise package North Macedonia, while Norway was the clear winner in the televote – a disparity that opened the door for the Netherlands to take a consensus overall victory.

We’ll be back tomorrow with more analysis and insight from inside and outside the Tel Aviv bubble, but until then, congratulations to the Netherlands! Here’s your ESC 2019 winner one more time:

Title image and video from eurovision.tv

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Happy Eurovision Day! Tonight the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 will be held in Tel Aviv, Israel.

We are slowly reaching the climax of another long season. We’ve seen favourites rise, then watched as some of them fell – and now it’s just a few short hours until we will know the host country of ESC 2020.

Over the last six months or so, we have encountered some classic national final entries that we are still remembering and voting for in our SongHunt final – don’t forget to vote for your favourite here! – but tonight it’s the successful entries from 26 countries that will finally compete for the Eurovision crown. And we all wonder: Who will hold the trophy at the end of the show?

It’s time for our team’s predictions!

The format is simple: Each of the escgo! team members (Martin, Felix and Shi) has 100 points to distribute across the entries depending on how likely they consider them to be tonight’s winner.

And here’s what they think:

Country	Martin	Felix	Shi	TEAM POINTS	VICTORY CHANCE in %
1. Malta	0	0	0	0	0%
2. Albania	0	0	0	0	0%
3. Czech Republic	0	5	0	5	1.67%
4. Germany	0	0	0	0	0%
5. Russia	0	5	0	5	1.67%
6. Denmark	0	0	0	0	0%
7. San Marino	0	0	0	0	0%
8. North Macedonia	0	5	0	5	1.67%
9. Sweden	5	5	10	20	6.67%
10. Slovenia	0	5	0	5	1.67%
11. Cyprus	0	0	0	0	0%
12. Netherlands	45	15	40	100	33.3%
13. Greece	0	5	0	5	1.67%
14. Israel	0	0	0	0	0%
15. Norway	0	20	0	20	6.67%
16. United Kingdom	0	0	0	0	0%
17. Iceland	0	0	0	0	0%
18. Estonia	0	0	0	0	0%
19. Belarus	0	0	0	0	0%
20. Azerbaijan	0	0	5	5	1.67%
21. France	0	0	5	5	1.67%
22. Italy	0	25	0	25	8.33%
23. Serbia	0	0	0	0	0%
24. Switzerland	10	5	15	30	10%
25. Australia	40	5	25	70	23.3%
26. Spain	0	0	0	0	0%

So what do we expect? Here’s how the team explains their choices:

Shi:
With both juries and televote having many options this year, this could be a jury/tele disagreement or a Jamala-type win.
Netherlands is one of my personal favorites, but I’m still not convinced by the performance where the televote is concerned. However, it stands out also for its genre among the favorites which could help and a “Heroes” sort of win seems to me like the most likely result. Australia looks set to have a big televote impact, so it should be considered as an alternative if its televote score is big enough, and Switzerland can be the one that wins neither but ends up high in both votes.

Felix:
I have had an increasingly strong feeling for Italy throughout the last weeks, and our own chat agrees, as Italy won the ChatVote 2019. I don‘t expect Australia to end up as high as many people think. Instead, Norway might be the surprise of the night. A victory for the Netherlands wouldn‘t be a big surprise, but I can just as well see it around lower top ten only. All in all, I expect a close race in which many things can happen.

Martin:
I appear to broadly agree with Shi, albeit with different weightings. I can easily imagine the Netherlands winning the jury vote and Australia the televote, with Duncan taking the victory in the end because the juries turn their noses up at popera-on-sticks. In terms of the other contenders, I haven’t especially believed in Switzerland all season long, but it was pretty effective in the semi-final and the running order appears to have cemented its “Fuego”-esque late-stage momentum as far as the producers are concerned. It still doesn’t feel like it can actually win (although ESC 2020 in Switzerland would be a fairly amazing turnaround in fortunes) but it’d be foolish of me not to have Luca somewhere in my prediction. And then there’s the obligatory “might just win by default” entry from Sweden, like always.

What do you think will happen tonight? Do you agree or disagree with our views? Let us know in the comments, on social media or in our chat. However you watch the show tonight, we hope you have a great Eurovision day, and may the best song win!

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The qualifiers from the second semi-final of ESC 2019 are Denmark, Sweden, Malta, Russia, Albania, the Netherlands and North Macedonia (all of whom drew slots in the first half of the final) and Switzerland, Norway and Azerbaijan (who landed in the second half).

In terms of the escgo! team’s predictions, this means Martin and Shi both got 8/10 correct, while Felix scored 6/10.

A few hours after the semi-final ended, the EBU revealed the producer-determined running order for the grand final, which looks like this:

We’ll have our first chance to see the songs in this running order at Friday afternoon’s first rehearsal of the grand final – stay tuned to escgo! here and on Twitter for Shi’s live insights from the press centre!

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The second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 is just a few hours away, and so it’s time for us in the escgo! team to predict the ten qualifiers for the grand final on Saturday!

Two days ago, Martin got 8/10 right while Shi and Felix each managed 7/10. And let’s be honest, we were all caught off guard by Serhat. But where will we be right and wrong tonight?

You can see the choices of Shi, Martin and Felix in the table below – followed by a brief summary of their views!

Country	Martin	Felix	Shi	TEAM
1. Armenia	Q		Q	66.7 %
2. Ireland				0 %
3. Moldova		Q		33.3 %
4. Switzerland	Q		Q	66.7 %
5. Latvia		Q		33.3 %
6. Romania				0 %
7. Denmark	Q		Q	66.7 %
8. Sweden	Q	Q	Q	100 %
9. Austria		Q	Q	66.7 %
10. Croatia	Q	Q		66.7 %
11. Malta	Q		Q	66.7 %
12. Lithuania				0 %
13. Russia	Q	Q	Q	100 %
14. Albania				0 %
15. Norway	Q	Q		66.7 %
16. Netherlands	Q	Q	Q	100 %
17. North Macedonia		Q	Q	66.7 %
18. Azerbaijan	Q	Q	Q	100 %

Shi:
Much like semi 1 last year, I have more songs I would have wanted to see in the final than spots. While I feel fairly confident about most of my choices, I was still down to three choices for the last qualifier. Norway feels like it won’t do well with juries and the televise has enough to rank above it, Romania is, well, Romania. They can miss out as we know, but they need to try very hard to not be in contention, and Armenia, which is like Romania plus a possible strong jury appeal. I went with the jury getting this one in. Also: my main prediction for tonight is 10 points separating 6 and 14.

Martin:
The way Kate Miller-Heidke changed up her vocals in the last part of the song to make it more interesting; the creepy floating dead dad heads behind Joci Pápai that made the whole thing a bit “eww”; ZENA having an amazing personality on stage; Tulia not having any personality at all. What do these things have in common? I didn’t anticipate any of them because (I guess) I wasn’t paying enough attention in the run-up to semi 1. Still, rather than learn from this insight, I’m going to stick with my prejudices when it comes to semi 2. So I expect North Macedonia to fuck things up like they always do, and Croatia to milk the cheese vote like nobody’s business. Go on – prove me wrong.

Felix:
I made one daring decision, and that is leaving Switzerland out of my qualifiers, and having Latvia instead. Why would I have a strong song as NQ and a weak one as Q, you might wonder? Easy, I think that presentation and effective use of the stage is playing a big role, and Switzerland sadly does a whole lot of counterproductive things with the staging. Latvia sells their song much better. Well, for the Swiss and many German Luca Hänni fans, I certainly hope I’m wrong, as I’d love to see the guy in the final. The rest is obvious I think.

Will we be right or completely wrong? There’s only a few hours left until we find out – so whatever you’re doing and whomever you’re watching the show with, enjoy the evening and may the best songs qualify!

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The first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 is just a few hours away, and so it’s time for us in the escgo! team to predict the ten qualifiers for the grand final on Saturday.

You can see the choices of Shi, Martin and Felix in the table below – followed by a brief summary of their views!

Country	Martin	Felix	Shi	TEAM
1. Cyprus	Q	Q	Q	100 %
2. Montenegro				0 %
3. Finland				0 %
4. Poland	Q	Q	Q	100 %
5. Slovenia	Q			33.3 %
6. Czech Republic	Q	Q	Q	100 %
7. Hungary	Q	Q	Q	100 %
8. Belarus				0 %
9. Serbia	Q	Q	Q	100 %
10. Belgium				0 %
11. Georgia		Q	Q	66.7 %
12. Australia	Q	Q	Q	100 %
13. Iceland	Q	Q	Q	100 %
14. Estonia	Q	Q	Q	100 %
15. Portugal				0 %
16. Greece	Q	Q	Q	100 %
17. San Marino				33.3 %

Shi:

I am the least certain about Estonia and Georgia: Victor isn’t a great singer and the song is painfully generic, but his charisma and the song’s sanity come in the right place and time in the draw. Georgia is my wishful thinking entry and my test case of how far can a great staging of a difficult song can take you. And all in all, it might be considered the weaker semi, but it is shaping us to at least bring a diverse selection of songs into the final. I can live with that.

Martin:

Wackiest semi-final ever? Well, the first one in 2012 gives it a run for its money – Valentina Monetta, Trackshittaz, Rambo Amadeus and the Babushki, anyone? – but the back-to-back combo of “Zero Gravity” and “Hatrið mun sigra”, even separated by a break, should be one of the more memorable sections we’ve had in an ESC show. As for qualification, I’m in that annoying position of having more qualifiers in the first half. We know that’s not impossible now, but it still seems highly improbable. And within that, I’m not especially confident about Poland or Slovenia (I’ve even bet against the latter to qualify, albeit it’s money I’d be delighted to lose). Still, I feel like it’s a strong year for Central Europe, so I’m sticking with my gut instinct.

Felix:

I thought this prediction was quite easy. It doesn’t really match my personal preferences, but I think this is what the wider audience and the juries will go for. I was a bit hesitating about Poland, and nearly would have picked Belgium instead, but the staging of the latter looks so wrong that it’s ruining the slightest chance for qualification. Australia is a sure qualifier for anything other than the song, Serbia knows how to sell dullness, and the Czech Republic is the first captivating song in the running order. These three feel like the safest predictions, the last place will probably go to Belarus.

Will we be right or completely wrong? There’s only a few hours left until we find out – so whatever you’re doing and whomever you’re watching the show with, enjoy the evening and may the best songs qualify!

There were a few surprises along the way, but tonight Europe (and Australia) selected its ten qualifiers from the first semi-final of ESC 2019!

Here are the lucky ten and the halves of the final they drew at the press conference afterwards:

FIRST HALF
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Greece
San Marino
Slovenia

SECOND HALF
Australia
Belarus
Estonia
Iceland
Serbia

And for the record, in terms of the escgo! team’s predictions, Martin got 8/10, Felix got 7/10 and Shi got 7/10.

Now let’s see what the second semi-final brings!

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