France are struggling to make an impact in the Eurovision Song Contest of late. Since Patricia Kaas snuck into the top ten in 2009, they have entered a televoting favourite that was screwed over by the juries, a bookmakers' favourite that was largely ignored, a...

It's easy to think of Finland as one of the more successful Eurovision participants in recent years because of the huge impact of Lordi's victory in 2006, but you have to go back as far as 1989 before you find another top ten result for the Nordic nation. As such, the...

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as we're supposed to refer to them in a Eurovision context, have a patchy history in our beloved competition. They've never reached the top ten on the scoreboard - indeed, the left-hand side is fairly unknown territory for...

Estonia has struggled throughout most of the last decade, but in the last six years, the country has at least managed to qualify for the final more often than not. Two top ten finishes within the last ten years isn't a great record, but many countries still dream...

Last year's host, Denmark, is one of those rather unstable countries. On the one hand, the country recently won twice within 15 years. On the other hand, there have been bottom-5 placements and failures to qualify at all. After a few years with mostly good results,...

2015 marks the return of the Czech Republic after sitting out for the last five years, and there are many things to be learned from this return - for example, the importance of context. One could say that the Czech effort for the 2015 has the potential to give the...

For ESC fans of a certain age, Cyprus probably still feels like one of the "newer" participating countries, having made its debut as late as 1981. However, this year's 60th edition of the Eurovision Song contest will feature the 32nd entry from the island in the...