2009: News: Jury Vote would have moved UK from 5th to 3rd place

Chiara from Malta would have leapt from 22nd to 13th, had only the Jury Votes counted. Photo © EBU

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has revealed the results of the National Juries' votes in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest - and as expected, there are some very big differences between the views of music industry professionals voting on the juries, and the European public who picked up their phones to vote.

This year saw the introduction of a brand new method of scoring for the Eurovision Song Contest. In recent years, many countries - particularly those in Western Europe - had complained about 'block voting' that seemed to be occurring between neighbouring countries.

So the EBU this year decided ask each country to put forward a 'jury' of 5 music industry professionals. These jurors would then listen to the songs several times before deciding who to vote for - with the end jury result accounting for half of the final total (in much the same way as on Strictly Come Dancing, where the experts' votes and the public phone votes each count for 50% of the final total).

We already know that the combined phone vote and jury vote (as shown in the broadcast of the Eurovision on Saturday night) resulted in a runaway victory for Norway. But what would have happened to the final results if telephone votes had been ignored? Below is the winner's table for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, based solely on the votes of the Professional Juries.

Final Positions - Jury Votes Only

1. Norway (312 points) - Combined jury and phone votes: 387 points (1st)

2. Iceland (260 points) - Combined: 218 points (2nd)

3. United Kingdom (223 points) - Combined: 173 points (5th)

4. France (164 points) - Combined: 107 points (8th)

5. Estonia (124 points) - Combined: 129 points (6th)

6. Denmark (120 points) - Combined: 74 points (13th)

7. Turkey (114 points) - Combined: 177 points (4th)

8. Azerbaijan (112 points) - Combined: 207 points (3rd)

9. Israel (107 points) - Combined: 53 points (16th)

10. Greece (93 points) - Combined: 120 points (7th)

11. Moldova (93 points) - Combined: 69 points (14th)

12. Bosnia & Herzegovina (90 points) - Combined: 106 points (9th)

13. Malta (87 points) - Combined: 31 points (22nd)

14. Germany (73 points) - Combined: 35 points (20th)

15. Armenia (71 points) - Combined: 92 points (10th)

16. Ukraine (68 points) - Combined: 76 points (12th)

17. Russia (67 points) - Combined: 91 points (11th)

18. Portugal (64 points) - Combined: 57 points (15th)

19. Croatia (58 points) - Combined: 45 points (18th)

20. Lithuania (31 points) - Combined: 23 points (24th)

21. Romania (31 points) - Combined: 40 points (19th)

22. Sweden (27 points) - Combined: 33 points (21st)

23. Albania (26 points) - Combined: 48 points (17th)

24. Finland (12 points) - Combined: 22 points (25th)

25. Spain (9 points) - Combined: 23 points (23rd)

So how do we analyse these results? Well, any country that did significantly better in the Jury Votes Only list has benefitted from the new voting system created for this year - countries in this category include the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Israel, Moldova, Germany and Malta.

Conversely, the countries that benefitted the most from phone voting are: Azerbaijan, Turkey, Greece, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Armenia and Ukraine.

You might want to look at our EuroHistory voting map to see exactly which countries voted for who - it might help you to decide if 'block voting' is indeed still rife, or if this year's contest was fairer.

Still, only 51 weeks til the next one! Roll on Norway 2010!

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