Warm off the press: a look at the 2012 split results
Bonjour! I hope you remember me after the week or so I didn’t manage to post (I had to actually prioritise study over Eurovision for the first time, and it was very traumatic). Now I am free as a bird – a bird with a bachelor degree, that is. Insert Applause Here. Anyway, that means it’s back to business, and the business of the week was the release of the 2012 split results, at long last. As usual, the splits showed some very interesting inconsistencies, as well as some very boring, very expected placements. For those of you who haven’t checked them out, and for those of you who have but want to/are being forced to again, here are the results for the semis and the final, accompanied by a little analysis. Enjoy (even if you’re one of the people being forced to read this. In that case I COMMAND you to enjoy).
Semi final 1
| Rank | Jury vote | Televote |
| 1 | Albania | Russia |
| 2 | Moldova | Romania |
| 3 | Greece | Albania |
| 4 | Cyprus | Ireland |
| 5 | Romania | Greece |
| 6 | Denmark | Cyprus |
| 7 | Hungary | Moldova |
| 8 | Russia | Iceland |
| 9 | Israel | Denmark |
| 10 | Ireland | Switzerland |
| 11 | Iceland | Hungary |
| 12 | Finland | Finland |
| 13 | Switzerland | San Marino |
| 14 | San Marino | Montenegro |
| 15 | Belgium | Latvia |
| 16 | Montenegro | Israel |
| 17 | Austria | Austria |
| 18 | Latvia | Belgium |
- After the first semi it was revealed that one country only made the final thanks to the juries, and another only because of the televoters. We all thought those two countries were Albania and Russia, when in fact Rona and the grannies topped the jury and televoter lists respectively, and ranked decently vice versa. It seems to me that it was Hungary and Iceland who were lucky to make it. If things had been a little bit different, Israel and Switzerland may have advanced instead.
- Only two countries were ranked on the same level – Finland and Austria. Amazingly, neither party disliked San Marino enough to place them last. I guess the juries found some musical integrity in The Social Network Song (presumably outside of ‘so you wanna make love with me?’ Actually, outside of all the lyrics).
- I was surprised to see Moldova and Greece ranked higher by the juries than the televoters. I guess the days of over-the-hill, fuddy duddy jurors are gone. Either that, or they’re all sleazy old men who really wanted Eleftheria’s aphrodisiac.
- If the televotes here prove anything, it’s that the public aren’t that interested in sexy sex. Neither Iris’ see-through dress (unintentional, I’m sure) or Trackshittaz’ pole dancers made them want to pick up their phones. Then again, they did vote the grannies first, and they are hot stuff.
Semi final 2
| Rank | Jury vote | Televote |
| 1 | Sweden | Sweden |
| 2 | Serbia | Serbia |
| 3 | Ukraine | Lithuania |
| 4 | Estonia | Turkey |
| 5 | Malta | Estonia |
| 6 | Bosnia & Herzegovina | Norway |
| 7 | Croatia | Bosnia & Herzegovina |
| 8 | Georgia | Macedonia |
| 9 | Macedonia | Bulgaria |
| 10 | Lithuania | Netherlands |
| 11 | Belarus | Malta |
| 12 | Portugal | Belarus |
| 13 | Turkey | Portugal |
| 14 | Slovenia | Croatia |
| 15 | Slovakia | Slovakia |
| 16 | Netherlands | Slovenia |
| 17 | Bulgaria | Ukraine |
| 18 | Norway | Georgia |
- There were a few countries that the Js and Ts completely disagreed on, which allowed a few low-rankers to squeeze in to the final. The juries favoured Croatia (yay!) and Georgia (hmm…) over eventual qualifiers Turkey and Norway, which I suppose is understandable – Love Me Back and Stay were very much fan-geared entries. It was thanks to the viewers at home that Norway advanced.
- As for those peeps at home, well, they would have preferred to see Bulgaria and the Netherlands in the final over Malta, and, unbelievably, Ukraine. That has to be a teensy victory for two countries who kind of suck at Eurovision (don’t be offended. The same could’ve been said about Germany a few years ago).
- Speaking of Ukraine, does anyone else find it strange that Be My Guest rated so low with the televoters and so highly with the juries? You’d think it would have been the other way round. I know what I said earlier about the juries being hip and cool these days (unlike myself, since I just used the term ‘hip and cool’) but this still strikes me as odd.
- Congratulations to Sweden, who won the jury vote, and Sweden, who won the televote. I did NOT see that coming.
The final
| Rank | Jury vote | Televote |
| 1 | Sweden | Sweden |
| 2 | Serbia | Russia |
| 3 | Albania | Serbia |
| 4 | Italy | Turkey |
| 5 | Spain | Azerbaijan |
| 6 | Estonia | Germany |
| 7 | Ukraine | Romania |
| 8 | Azerbaijan | Albania |
| 9 | Moldova | Greece |
| 10 | Germany | Ireland |
| 11 | Russia | Macedonia |
| 12 | Cyprus | Estonia |
| 13 | France | Moldova |
| 14 | Lithuania | Lithuania |
| 15 | Bosnia & Herzegovina | Cyprus |
| 16 | Malta | Bosnia & Herzegovina |
| 17 | Macedonia | Italy |
| 18 | Greece | Spain |
| 19 | Iceland | Iceland |
| 20 | Romania | Ukraine |
| 21 | Denmark | United Kingdom |
| 22 | Turkey | Hungary |
| 23 | Hungary | Denmark |
| 24 | Norway | Norway |
| 25 | Ireland | Malta |
| 26 | United Kingdom | France |
- The differences between the jury top 10 and the televote top 10 are much more drastic here. The people at home got their gold, silver and bronze preferences just as they wanted, but it was the juries who got their way for the most part. 8 of their top picks made the final top 10.
- If you were in any doubt over Sweden’s victory, here is proof that it was deserved. Unlike in 2011, when Italy topped the jury vote, the decision was unanimous in 2012. Apparently Loreen choking on her fake snow during the jury final didn’t affect the marks they gave her. For all we know, it made her voice huskier and they liked it.
- It was well and truly a public success for Turkey. Can may have come out with 7th place and been ranked 4th with the viewers, but the juries were not impressed by his stripes or sailboats. Or his song, come to think of it.
- Again, Ukraine’s placement confuses me, as does the UK’s. We could put Engelbert’s higher placing with the public down to his widespread fanbase, but I still don’t get why he was placed last with the juries.
- Italy and Spain were saved by the juries, and in Spain’s case, I thank them for it. Muchas gracias! I can’t help but wonder if the televoters are a bit dead inside not to have been moved by Pastora Soler’s performance, but I suppose I’m biased. And very emotional during the Eurovision season.
- Lithuania, Iceland and Norway were the only countries (besides Sweden) to be ranked equally, in 14th, 19th and 24th places. Unfortunately, due to the disparity between the lowest-placed songs, this still meant a last place for Norway.
- Some of the major differences: Italy (J 4th/T 17th), Spain (J 5th/T 18th), Ukraine (J 7th/T 20th), France (J 13th/T 26th), Greece (J 18th/T 9th), Romania (J 20th/T 7th) and Ireland (J 25th/T 10th). Turkey made the biggest jump, as mentioned, from 22nd place to 4th.
The release of the splits was really the final stepping stone to the 2013 contest, which is now hovering between Malmö and Stockholm (I suspect the capital will prevail…though I did say that last year too). Developments are already underway, which is understandable given there’s less than a year to go. In the meantime, we have JESC to look forward to, so long as it isn’t cancelled due to low participation numbers – but more on that later.
Until next time…
Jaz x
eurovisionbyjaz.com 
10 Responses to “Warm off the press: a look at the 2012 split results”
Hi Jaz, con gratulations for your degree 😀 I really hope JESC 2012 won’t get cancelled, I’m starting to like the Russian entry and I have high expectations in Ukraine xD About the results, it’s kind of late to comment on that, but I was also shocked Ukraine did so well with the jury and not so well with the televoting. I tend to think juries = boring ballads lovers and televoters =catchy stuff lovers, but then then the televoters put Albania 3rd in the semi so…And boooo the jury ruined it for Switzerland 😥 but they had Željko 2nd in the final so I forgive them….a bit 😛
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Merci for the congrats =]
If JESC gets cancelled it will be terrible!! Especially since it’s the 10th anniversary. Eurovision keeps getting bigger and Junior is shrinking. Technically there needs to be 11 countries so the points can go out as usual, so let’s cross our fingers for a few more confirmations.
It’s never too late to discuss le results! I guess we can’t predict what the juries/televoters will do anymore. I still think the juries are less likely to vote for crap/novelty entries. They had Latvia last in the first semi (although they had San Marino only slightly lower than the televoters did, so maybe I’m wrong…).
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oh its triple J for sure (which is my cup of tea 🙂 )
that is a very good way of looking at eurovision voting..otherwise i guess you get too bogged down in all the politics of different nations which takes the fun out.
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I am not a Triple J fan, but I respect your right to be one!!
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It is very interesting to see how different the jury and televoting was in some places..and quite perplexing to be honest. I would have liked to see Israel and Switzerland make it to the final (I cant help but like the quirky Israel 🙂 ). I dont get why ukraine did so well with the jury but I have to say some of the other songs i liked that didnt place that well the jury did like (Italy and Spain!)..I am still not sure which god iceland offended tho..seems the only explanation.
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Israel was really not my cup of tea, but I did predict it to qualify. Wrongly, obviously. It sounds very Triple J to me.
Thank god the juries liked Spain! I can’t believe the televoters didn’t get all emotional and vote in droves for Pastora. Well, I can, but I can’t.
Where Iceland (and Norway) are concerned, it may have been a case of other songs appealing more, rather than Never Forget and Stay appealing less. That’s what I like to think, anyway!
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Hi! I’ve been a fan of your blog for the past few months, although this is the first time I’ve commented. First, congratulations on your degree! Now, onto the good stuff, the results! For all of the finals under the 50-50 system, I’ve calculated the average difference between the jury places and the televote places. This year was actually the year with the second highest amount of disagreement between the jurors and televoters, just behind last year (the average difference for 2011 was 6.92 places, this year it was 6.38). I also did the semi-finals since 2010, and this year’s semis were both smack dab in the middle of the years (2010 was most even, 2011 had the most disagreement). Personally, I think the Icelandic and Ukrainian results from the semi-finals were strange. So was Italy’s result in the final. However, I really appreciate the televotes sending the Netherlands through, seeing as it was my favorite song. Anyway, I think that this comment is way to long as it is, so I’ll just end it off by saying, it’s going to be Stockholm.Thanks for running a great blog! Greetings from the States!
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Thanks for such a nice (and long) comment.
I’m very impressed by your number-crunching! The entry fields have been so diverse the last few years, and IMO so high quality that I guess it’s understandable that opinions have differed so much. But I wonder what it is that has set the jury so far apart from the televoters recently? They may be “music industry professionals”, but they’re still just people like the rest of us, with their own taste…hmm. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t allow their personal taste to cloud their judgement, even if they are specifically supposed to awards points based on musicality, intengrity, originality etc.
It is looking a lot like Stockholm 2013. My only worry with that is that the venue for their bid is their new arena (I don’t even think it’s complete yet) which is scheduled to host a soccer tournament a very short time after the contest. I have to wonder if the stage could be dismantled in time.
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I think you’re absolutely right about juries being influenced by personal preference. Just look at how they had Georgia qualifying this year. Or how they put Greece, that outdated, seen it before rip-off of other, better songs, in the same place that the televoters put Albania. It seems pretty unlikely that “Aphrodisiac” was a song with the same amount of “musical merit” as “Suus.” And yes, I’m wondering how they’ll do the stage if they choose Stockholm. Maybe they’ll just move the contest back a week to give them more flexibility. I just can’t see them having Melodifestivalen in Friends Arena and then moving the ESC down to Malmö and their little 14,000 seat arena.
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I liked Aphrodisiac, but I LOVE Suus. Rona’s performance got me all emotional =’] Greece looked rather tacky next to it. Still, if the juries had put Greece on top, above Albania, I would have been more surprised. It does seem strange that they placed Greece higher than the public though, it being a fanwank entry and all…
Moving the dates makes sense. Plus that would mean there’s even less of a wait for us! I get the feeling SVT will do pretty much whatever it takes to make their contest epic. I don’t think they’d let it take place anywhere other than in the brand spanking new arena with a gajillion seats. If it is Stockholm, of course, which we all suspect it will be.
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