Italy has won the 16th annual edition of ChatVote, the traditional event held by escgo! and the #esc chatroom to find our favourite song ahead of each year’s Eurovision Song Contest!

Of course, this year there is no Eurovision Song Contest, but that didn’t stop us from gathering in the chat for two semi-finals of viewing and voting fun, followed by voting on “our” grand final. And the verdict could hardly have been clearer: Following on from Mahmood’s victory in 2019, Italy defended its title, with Diodato’s “Fai rumore” taking first place by an overwhelming margin.

Azerbaijan and Bulgaria took second and third place, but in reality they were never really in with a chance of victory – more than half of our voters had Italy in their top three, and Diodato’s lead quickly became insurmountable. Meanwhile, at the other end of the scoreboard, the wooden spoon went to Spain.

You can see the final scoreboard in full below:

Reflecting the unusual circumstances this year, it was a stripped-back edition of ChatVote with just the “jury” votes, like it used to be – but we’ll hopefully be back to the full version of the show next year to accompany an actual Eurovision Song Contest!

We can now also reveal the full results of the semi-finals, which were as follows:

First semi-final: 1. Azerbaijan, 2. Israel, 3. Belgium, 4. Norway, 5= Lithuania, North Macedonia and Croatia, 8= Ireland, Russia and Malta || 11= Romania and Slovenia, 13. Sweden, 14= Cyprus and Ukraine, 16. Australia, 17. Belarus

Second semi-final: 1. Bulgaria, 2. Denmark, 3. Switzerland, 4. Serbia, 5= Finland and Iceland 7= Greece and Portugal, 9. Albania, 10. Armenia || 11th= Poland and Moldova, 13th. Estonia, 14th= Georgia and Latvia, 16th. Czech Republic, 17th= San Marino and Austria

This is normally where we would end the article by wondering what this meant in terms of Italy’s chances for success at the real ESC. Sadly, we can’t do that this year – but we can certainly celebrate the landslide winner by watching it one more time. A huge thank you to all the chatters who voted and supported the event this year!