Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest

The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is selected by a positional voting system. The most recent system was implemented in the 2023 contest, and sees each participating country award two sets of 12, 10, 8–1 points to their ten favourite songs: one set from their professional jury and the other from televoting, with only televoting used in the semi-finals, and both jury and televoting in the final.

Overview

Small, demographically-balanced juries made up of ordinary people had been used to rank the entries, but after the widespread use of telephone voting in 1998 the contest organizers resorted to juries only in the event of a televoting malfunctions. In 2003, Eircom's telephone polling system malfunctioned. Irish broadcaster RTÉ did not receive the polling results from Eircom in time, and substituted votes by a panel of judges. Between 1997 and 2003 (the first years of televoting), lines were opened to the public for only five minutes after the performance and recap of the final song. Between 2004 and 2006, the lines were opened for ten minutes, and from 2007 to 2009, they were opened for fifteen minutes. In 2010, viewers were allowed to vote during the performances, but this was rescinded for the 2012 contest. Since the 2004 contest, the presenters will start the televoting window with the phrase "Europe, start voting now!". This invitation also applies to Australia from 2015 to 2023 ("Europe and Australia, start voting now!"), and to the non-participating countries from 2023 onwards ("Europe, Australia, and the rest of the world, start voting now!"). At the end of the voting period, the presenters will invite viewers and the audience to stop with a ten-second final countdown along with the phrase "Europe, stop voting now!". The United Kingdom is not able to vote via SMS or the smartphone app due to legislation implemented after the 2007 British premium-rate phone-in scandal.

The BBC contacted regional juries by telephone to choose the 1956 winners, and the European Broadcasting Union (producers of the contest) later began contacting international juries by telephone. This method continued to be used until 1993. The following year saw the first satellite link-up to juries.

To announce the votes, the contest's presenters connect by satellite to each country in turn and inviting a spokesperson to read the country's votes in French or English. The presenters originally repeated the votes in both languages, but since 2004 the votes have been translated due to time constraints. To offset increased voting time required by a larger number of participating countries, since 2006 only countries' 8-, 10-, and 12-point scores were read aloud; one- to seven-point votes were added automatically to the scoreboard while each country's spokesperson was introduced. The scoreboard displays the number of points each country has received and, since 2008, a progress bar indicating the number of countries which have voted. Since 2016, only the 12-point score is read aloud due to the new voting system, meaning that the nine scoring countries were added automatically to the scoreboard (1-8 and 10 points). In addition, the televoting points were combined and the presenters announced them in order, starting from the country with the lowest score and ending with the country with the highest score from the televoting. Beginning with the 2019 contest, the televoting points are announced by the presenters based on the juries' rankings in reverse order.

Voting systems

Year	Points	Voting system
1956	(10–1) × 2	Two jurors per country rated each song on a scale of 1 to 10 points.
1957–1961	10–1	Ten-member juries distributed 10 points among their favourite songs.
1962	3–1	Ten-member juries awarded points to their three favourite songs.
1963	5–1	Twenty-member juries awarded points to their five favourite songs.
1964–1966	5, 3, 1 / 6, 3 / 9	Ten-member juries distributed 9 points in three possible ways. If all their votes went to one single song, it got all the 9 points, if they went to two songs, they got 6 and 3 points, and if they went to three or more, the top three got 5, 3 and 1 points. No jury ever gave 9 points to a single song, but Belgium used the 6-3 system in 1965.
1967–1969	10–1	Ten-member juries distributed 10 points among their favourite songs.
1970		Ten-member juries distributed 10 points among their favourite songs. A tie-breaking round was available.
1971–1973	10–2	Two-member juries (one aged over 25 and the other under 25, with at least 10 years between their ages) rated songs between 1 and 5 points.
1974	10–1	Ten-member juries distributed 10 points among their favourite songs.
1975–1996	12, 10, 8–1	All countries had at least eleven jury members (raised to sixteen in 1988) that would award points to their top ten songs. From 1975 to 1979, the scores were announced in the order in which the songs performed, while the ascending format of going from 1-8 points, 10 points and finally 12 points, was introduced in 1980.
1997		Twenty countries had jury members and five countries used televote to decide which songs would get points.
1998–2000		All countries should use telephone voting to decide which songs would receive points. In exceptional circumstances (e.g. weak telephone system) where televoting was not possible at all, a jury was used.
2001–2002		Every broadcaster was free to make a choice between the full televoting system and the mixed 50/50 system to decide which songs would receive points. In exceptional circumstances where televoting was not possible, only a jury was used.
2003		All countries should use telephone/SMS voting to decide which songs would receive points. In exceptional circumstances where televoting was not possible at all, only a jury was used.
2004–2008; 2009 (semi-finals)		All countries use televoting and/or SMS-voting to decide which songs would receive points. Back-up juries are used by each country (with eight members) in the event of a televoting failure.
2009 (final); 2010–2012		All countries use televoting and/or SMS-voting (50%) and five-member juries (50%), apart from San Marino which was 100% jury due to country size. This is so called jury–televote 50/50. In the event of a televoting failure, only a jury is used by that country; in the event of a jury failure, only televoting is used by that country. The two parts of the vote were combined by awarding 12, 10, 8–1 points to the top ten in each discipline, then combining the scores. Where two songs were tied, the televote score took precedence.
2013–2015		The same as in 2009–12, except jury and televote are combined differently. The jurors and televoting each rank all the competing entries, rather than just their top ten. The scores are then added together and in the event of a tie, the televote score takes precedence.
2016–2017	(12, 10, 8–1) × 2	The jury and the televote each award an independent set of points. First the jury points are announced and then the televoting points are calculated together before being added to the jury points, effectively doubling the points which can be awarded in total.
2018–2022		The same as in 2016–17, but the points from a country's jury are now calculated using an exponential weight model that gives more weight to higher-ranked songs and lessens the impact of one juror placing a song much lower in their rankings.
2023	12, 10, 8–1 (semi-finals) (12, 10, 8–1) × 2 (final)	In the semi-finals, only the televote is used to decide which songs would receive points. Juries are used by each country as a back-up in the event that the televoting cannot deliver a valid result. In the final, the jury and the televote each award an independent set of points. If the jury of a country cannot deliver a valid result, the televoting result of that country is used in its place. If the televoting cannot deliver a valid result, an aggregated result is used, and in case that too fails, the jury result is used. In all three shows, online votes from viewers in non-participating countries are aggregated and awarded as one set of points.

The most-used voting system (other than the current one) was last used for the 1974 contest. This system was used from 1957 to 1961 and from 1967 to 1969. Ten jurors in each country each cast one vote for their favourite song. In 1969 this resulted in a four-way tie for first place (between the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Spain), with no tie-breaking procedure. A second round of voting in the event of a tie was introduced to this system the following year.

From 1962 to 1966, a voting system similar to the current one was used. In 1962, each country awarded its top three 1, 2 and 3 points; in 1963 the top five were awarded 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 points, and from 1964 to 1966, each country usually awarded its top three 1, 3 and 5 points. With the latter system, a country could choose to give points to two countries instead of three (giving 3 to one and 6 to the other); in 1965, Belgium awarded the United Kingdom 6 points and Italy 3. Although it was possible to give one country 9 points, this never occurred.

The 1971, 1972, and 1973 contests saw the jurors "in vision" for the first time. Each country was represented by two jurors: one older than 25 and one younger, with at least 10 years' difference in their ages. Each juror gave a minimum of 1 point and a maximum of 5 points to each song. In 1974 the previous system of ten jurors was used, and the following year the current system was introduced. Spokespeople were next seen on screen in 1994 with a satellite link to the venue.

The 2004 contest had its first semi-final, with a slight change in voting: countries which did not qualify from the semifinal would be allowed to cast votes in the final. This resulted in Ukraine's Ruslana finishing first, with a record 280 points. If the voting had been conducted as it had been from 1956 to 2003 (when only finalist countries could vote), Serbia and Montenegro's Željko Joksimović would have won the contest with 190 points: a 15-point lead over Ruslana, who would have scored 175 points. To date, non-qualifying countries are still allowed to vote in the final. In 2006, Serbia and Montenegro were able to vote in the semi-final and the final despite their non-participation due to a scandal in the selection process (which resulted in Macedonia entering the final instead of Poland).

With the introduction of two semi-finals in 2008, a new method of selecting finalists was created. The top nine songs (ranked by televote) qualified, along with one song selected by the back-up juries. This method, in most cases, meant that the tenth song in the televoting failed to qualify; this attracted some criticism, especially from Macedonia (who had placed 10th in the televote in both years). In 2010, the 2009 final system was used, with a combination of televoting and jury votes from each country also used to select the semi-finalists. Each participating country had a national jury, consisting of five music industry professionals appointed by national broadcasters.

Highest scores

The Russian entry at the 2015 contest, "A Million Voices" by Polina Gagarina, became the first song to get over 300 points without winning the contest (and the only one during the era when each country delivered only one set of points); with a new voting system introduced in 2016, Australia became the first country to get over 500 points without winning the contest. In 2017, Bulgaria became the first non-winning country to score above 600 points, as well as Portugal becoming the first country to get over 750 points – winning the contest as a result of this with the song "Amar pelos dois" by Salvador Sobral. As the number of voting countries and the voting systems have varied, it may be more relevant to compare what percentage of all points awarded in the competition that each song received (computed from the published scoreboards).

Since the introduction of the 2016 voting system, the Swedish entry at the 2022 contest, "Hold Me Closer" by Cornelia Jakobs, currently holds the record for receiving the highest percentage of maximum points from the juries, receiving 222 out of 240 points (92.50%) in the second semi-final. "Stefania" by Kalush Orchestra, winner of that year's contest for Ukraine, currently holds the record for receiving the highest percentage of maximum points from the televoting, receiving 439 out of 468 points (93.80%) in the final.

Top five winners by percentage of all votes

This table shows top five winning songs by the percentage from the all votes cast.

Year	Country	Artist	Song	Points	Percentage of all points cast	Percentage of maximum possible points
1964	Italy	Gigliola Cinquetti	"Non ho l'età"	49	34.03%	65.33%
1957	Netherlands	Corry Brokken	"Net als toen"	31	31.00%	34.44%
1967	United Kingdom	Sandie Shaw	"Puppet on a String"	47	27.65%	29.38%
1962	France	Isabelle Aubret	"Un premier amour"	26	27.08%	57.78%
1958	France	André Claveau	"Dors, mon amour"	27	27.00%	30.00%

Top five winners by percentage of the maximum possible score

This table shows top five winning songs by the percentage from the maximum possible score a song can achieve.

Contest	Country	Artist	Song	Points	Percentage of all points cast	Percentage of maximum possible points
1973	Luxembourg	Anne-Marie David	"Tu te reconnaîtras"	129	14.05%	80.63%
1976	United Kingdom	Brotherhood of Man	"Save Your Kisses for Me"	164	15.71%	80.39%
1982	Germany	Nicole	"Ein bißchen Frieden"	161	15.42%	78.92%
1997	United Kingdom	Katrina and the Waves	"Love Shine a Light"	227	15.66%	78.82%
2009	Norway	Alexander Rybak	"Fairytale"	387	15.89%	78.66%

Top ten participants by number of points

This table shows top ten participating songs (both winning and non-winning) by the number of points received.

Contest	Country	Artist	Song	Points	Percentage of all points cast	Percentage of maximum possible points
2017	Portugal	Salvador Sobral	"Amar pelos dois"	758	15.56%	77.03%
2022	Ukraine	Kalush Orchestra	"Stefania"	631	13.6%	67.41%
2017	Bulgaria	Kristian Kostov	"Beautiful Mess"	615	12.62%	62.50%
2023	Sweden	Loreen	"Tattoo"	583	13.40%	66.55%
2016	Ukraine	Jamala	"1944"	534	10.96%	54.27%
2018	Israel	Netta	"Toy"	529	10.61%	52.48%
2023	Finland	Käärijä	"Cha Cha Cha"	526	12.09%	60.05%
2021	Italy	Måneskin	"Zitti e buoni"	524	11.58%	57.46%
2016	Australia	Dami Im	"Sound of Silence"	511	10.48%	51.93%
2021	France	Barbara Pravi	"Voilà"	499	11.03%	54.71%

Under the 2013–15 voting system, Portugal would have received 17.12% of points in the 2017 contest.

Top ten participants by number of jury points

Contest	Country	Artist	Song	Jury points	Total points	Percentage of points from jury voting	Percentage of maximum possible points from jury voting
2017	Portugal	Salvador Sobral	"Amar pelos dois"	382	758	50.4%	77.64%
2023	Sweden	Loreen	"Tattoo"	340	583	58.32%	78.70%
2016	Australia	Dami Im	"Sound of Silence"	320	511	62.62%	65.04%
2022	United Kingdom	Sam Ryder	"Space Man"	283	466	60.72%	60.47%
2017	Bulgaria	Kristian Kostov	"Beautiful Mess"	278	615	45.2%	56.50%
2018	Austria	Cesár Sampson	"Nobody But You"	271	342	79.24%	53.77%
2021	Switzerland	Gjon's Tears	"Tout l'Univers"	267	432	61.8%	58.55%
2022	Sweden	Cornelia Jakobs	"Hold Me Closer"	258	438	58.90%	55.13%
2018	Sweden	Benjamin Ingrosso	"Dance You Off"	253	274	92.34%	50.20%
2021	France	Barbara Pravi	"Voilà"	248	499	49.7%	54.39%

Top ten participants by number of televoting points

Contest	Country	Artist	Song	Televote points	Total points	Percentage of points from televoting	Percentage of maximum possible points from televoting
2022	Ukraine	Kalush Orchestra	"Stefania"	439	631	69.57%	93.80%
2023	Finland	Käärijä	"Cha Cha Cha"	376	526	71.48%	84.68%
2017	Portugal	Salvador Sobral	"Amar pelos dois"	376	758	49.6%	76.42%
2016	Russia	Sergey Lazarev	"You Are the Only One"	361	491	73.52%	73.37%
2017	Bulgaria	Kristian Kostov	"Beautiful Mess"	337	615	54.8%	68.50%
2016	Ukraine	Jamala	"1944"	323	534	60.49%	65.65%
2021	Italy	Måneskin	"Zitti e buoni"	318	524	60.69%	69.74%
2018	Israel	Netta	"Toy"	317	529	59.92%	62.90%
2006	Finland	Lordi	"Hard Rock Hallelujah"	292	292	100.00%	69.52%
2019	Norway	Keiino	"Spirit in the Sky"	291	331	87.92%	60.63%

Tie-breakers

A tie-break procedure was implemented after the 1969 contest, in which France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom tied for first place. With no tie-breaking system in place at the time, all four countries were declared joint winners; in protest, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Portugal did not participate the following year.

In 1991, the tie-break procedure was implemented when Sweden and France both had 146 points at the end of the voting. At the time, there was no televoting system, and the tie-break rule was slightly different; the first tie-break rule at the time concerned the number of 12 points each country had received. Both Sweden and France had received the maximum 12 points four times; when the number of 10-point scores was counted, Sweden, represented by Carola with "Fångad av en stormvind", claimed its third victory since it received five 10-point scores against France's two. The French entry, "Le Dernier qui a parlé..." performed by Amina, finished second with the smallest-ever losing margin.

The current tie-break procedure was implemented in the 2016 contest. In the procedure, sometimes known as a countback, if two (or more) countries tie, the song receiving more points from the televote is the winner. If the songs received the same number of televote points, the song that received at least one televote point from the greatest number of countries is the winner. If there is still a tie, a second tie-breaker counts the number of countries who assigned twelve televote points to each entry in the tie. Tie-breaks continue with ten points, eight points, and so on until the tie is resolved. If the tie cannot be resolved after the number of countries which assigned one point to the song is equal, the song performed earlier in the running order is declared the winner. The tie-break procedure originally applied only to first place ties or to determine a semi-final qualifier, but since 2008 has been applied to all places.

Overview of tie-breaking rules

Year	Use	Description
1956–1969	—	No tie-breaking rules were in place.
1970–1988	Only to determine the winner.	The jury decided the winner through a simple vote for their favourite.
1989–2000		The winner of a tie is the country that received more 12 points, then 10 points. If the tie cannot be broken in this way, all tied countries are winners.
2001–2002	To determine the winner and the qualifiers for the following year.	The winner of a tie is the country that received more 12 points, then 10 points, all the way down to 1. If the tie cannot be broken in this way, all tied countries are winners.
2003	Only to determine the winner.	The winner of a tie is the country that received points from more countries, then the country that received more 12 points, then 10 points, all the way down to 1. If the tie cannot be broken in this way, all tied countries are winners.
2004–2006	To determine the winner and the 10th qualifier from the semi-final.
2007		The winner of a tie is the country that received points from more countries, then the country that received more 12 points, then 10 points, all the way down to 1. If the tie cannot be broken in this way, the country that performed earlier wins the tie.
2008–2015	Used for all ties.
2016–present		The winner of a tie is the country that received more points from the televoting, then the country that received points from more countries in the televoting, then the country that received more 12 points in the televoting, then 10 points, all the way down to 1. If the tie cannot be broken in this way, the country that performed earlier wins the tie.

Scoring no points

Countries that received no points in the grand final jury voting, and the number of times for each

As each participating country casts a series of preference votes, under the current scoring system it is rare that a song fails to receive any points at all; such a result means that the song failed to make the top ten most popular songs in any country.

The first zero points in Eurovision were scored in 1962, under a new voting system. When a country finishes with a score of zero, it is often referred to in English-language media as nul points /ˌnjuːl ˈpwæ̃/ or nil points /ˌnɪl ˈpɔɪnts/, albeit incorrectly. Grammatical French for "no points" is pas de points, zéro point or aucun point, but none of these phrases are used in the contest; before the voting overhaul in 2016, no-point scores were not announced by the presenters. Following the change in the voting system, a country receiving no points from the public televote is simply announced as receiving "zero points".

Before 2016

Zero points in finals

Contest	Country	Artist	Song
1962	Belgium	Fud Leclerc	"Ton nom"
	Spain	Víctor Balaguer	"Llámame"
	Austria	Eleonore Schwarz	"Nur in der Wiener Luft"
	Netherlands	De Spelbrekers	"Katinka"
1963	Netherlands	Annie Palmen	"Een speeldoos"
	Norway	Anita Thallaug	"Solhverv"
	Finland	Laila Halme	"Muistojeni laulu"
	Sweden	Monica Zetterlund	"En gång i Stockholm"
1964	Germany	Nora Nova	"Man gewöhnt sich so schnell an das Schöne"
	Portugal	António Calvário	"Oração"
	Yugoslavia	Sabahudin Kurt	"Život je sklopio krug"
	Switzerland	Anita Traversi	"I miei pensieri"
1965	Spain	Conchita Bautista	"¡Qué bueno, qué bueno!"
	Germany	Ulla Wiesner	"Paradies, wo bist du?"
	Belgium	Lize Marke	"Als het weer lente is"
	Finland	Viktor Klimenko	"Aurinko laskee länteen"
1966	Monaco	Tereza Kesovija	"Bien plus fort"
	Italy	Domenico Modugno	"Dio, come ti amo"
1967	Switzerland	Géraldine	"Quel cœur vas-tu briser?"
1970	Luxembourg	David Alexandre Winter	"Je suis tombé du ciel"
1978	Norway	Jahn Teigen	"Mil etter mil"
1981	Norway	Finn Kalvik	"Aldri i livet"
1982	Finland	Kojo	"Nuku pommiin"
1983	Spain	Remedios Amaya	"¿Quién maneja mi barca?"
	Turkey	Çetin Alp and The Short Waves	"Opera"
1987	Turkey	Seyyal Taner and Grup Locomotif	"Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne"
1988	Austria	Wilfried	"Lisa Mona Lisa"
1989	Iceland	Daníel Ágúst	"Það sem enginn sér"
1991	Austria	Thomas Forstner	"Venedig im Regen"
1994	Lithuania	Ovidijus Vyšniauskas	"Lopšinė mylimai"
1997	Norway	Tor Endresen	"San Francisco"
	Portugal	Célia Lawson	"Antes do adeus"
1998	Switzerland	Gunvor	"Lass ihn"
2003	United Kingdom	Jemini	"Cry Baby"
2015	Austria (host)	The Makemakes	"I Am Yours"
	Germany	Ann Sophie	"Black Smoke"

The first time a host nation ever finished with nul points was in the 2015 final, when Austria's "I Am Yours" by The Makemakes scored zero. In 2003, following the UK's first zero score, an online poll was held by OGAE UK to gauge public opinion about each zero-point entry's worthiness of the score. Spain's "¿Quién maneja mi barca?" (1983) won the poll as the song that least deserved a zero, and Austria's "Lisa Mona Lisa" (1988) was the song most deserving of a zero.

In 2012, although it scored in the combined voting, France's "Echo (You and I)" by Anggun would have received no points if televoting alone had been used. In that year's first semi-final, although Belgium's "Would You?" by Iris received two points in the televoting-only hypothetical results from the Albanian jury (since Albania did not use televoting); Belgium would have received no official points from televoting alone. In his book, Nul Points, comic writer Tim Moore interviews several of these performers about how their Eurovision score affected their careers.

Since the creation of a single semi-final in 2004 and expansion to two semi-finals in 2008, more than thirty countries vote each night – even countries which have been eliminated or have already qualified. No points are rarer; it requires a song to place less than tenth in every country in jury voting and televote.

Semi-finals

Zero points in semi-finals

Contest	Country	Artist	Song
2004	Switzerland	Piero and the MusicStars	"Celebrate"
2009	Czech Republic	Gypsy.cz	"Aven Romale"

2016 onwards

With the introduction of the 2016 voting system in semi-finals and finals, scoring no points in either the jury vote or televote is possible. An overall "nul points" were scored only once in the 2021 final.

From 2023, only televoting is used to determine the results of the semi-finals. Since this introduction, "nul points" were scored twice in the second semi-final of the 2023 contest.

In finals

Zero points from juries and televoting

Contest	Country	Artist	Song
2021	United Kingdom	James Newman	"Embers"

Zero points from juries

Contest	Country	Artist	Song
2017	Spain	Manel Navarro	"Do It for Your Lover"
2019	Israel (host)	Kobi Marimi	"Home"
2021	United Kingdom	James Newman	"Embers"
2022	Germany	Malik Harris	"Rockstars"

Zero points from televoting

Contest	Country	Artist	Song
2016	Czech Republic	Gabriela Gunčíková	"I Stand"
2017	Austria	Nathan Trent	"Running on Air"
2019	Germany	S!sters	"Sister"
2021	United Kingdom	James Newman	"Embers"
Spain	Blas Cantó	"Voy a quedarme"
Germany	Jendrik	"I Don't Feel Hate"
Netherlands (host)	Jeangu Macrooy	"Birth of a New Age"
2022	Switzerland	Marius Bear	"Boys Do Cry"

In semi-finals

Zero points from juries

Contest	Country	Artist	Song
2017	San Marino	Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson	"Spirit of the Night"

Zero points from televoting

Contest	Country	Artist	Song
2017	Malta	Claudia Faniello	"Breathlessly"
2018	Iceland	Ari Ólafsson	"Our Choice"
2019	Austria	Paenda	"Limits"
2021	Czech Republic	Benny Cristo	"Omaga"
2022	Azerbaijan	Nadir Rustamli	"Fade to Black"
2023	Romania	Theodor Andrei	"D.G.T. (Off and On)"
	San Marino	Piqued Jacks	"Like an Animal"

Junior Eurovision

No entry in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest has ever received nul points; between 2005 and 2015 and in 2020, each contestant began with 12 points to prevent such a result. However, there has not been a situation that the 12 points received in the beginning would have remained as the sole points. The closest to that was Croatia in 2014 which ended up with 13 points after receiving a single point from San Marino. On 15 October 2012, it was announced by the EBU that for the first time in the contest's history, a new "Kids Jury" was being introduced into the voting system. The jury consists of members aged between 10 and 15, and representing each of the participating countries. A spokesperson from the jury would then announce the points 1–8, 10 and the maximum 12 as decided upon by the jury members. In 2016, the Kids Jury was removed, and instead each country awarded 1–8, 10 and 12 points from both adult and kid's juries, also eliminating televoting from the contest. An expert panel were also present at the 2016 contest, with each of the panelists being able to award 1–8, 10 and 12 points themselves. Since the 2017 contest, viewers worldwide have been allowed to vote online.

In 2018, Portugal and Wales received no points in the jury voting. In 2019, Portugal once again received no points in the jury voting.

Regional bloc voting

Although statistical analysis of the results from 2001 to 2005 suggests regional bloc voting, it is debatable how much in each case is due to ethnic diaspora voting, a sense of ethnic kinship, political alliances or a tendency for culturally-close countries to have similar musical tastes. Several countries can be categorised as voting blocs, which regularly award one another high points. The most common examples are Cyprus and Greece, Moldova and Romania, Belarus and Russia and the Nordic countries.

It is still common for countries to award points to their neighbours regularly, even if they are not part of a voting bloc (for example, Finland and Estonia or Germany and Poland, Greece and Albania or Armenia and Russia). Votes may also be based on a diaspora: Greece, Turkey, Poland, Lithuania, Russia and the former Yugoslav countries normally get high scores from Germany or the United Kingdom, Armenia gets votes from France and Belgium, Poland from Ireland, Romania from Spain and Italy, and Albania from Switzerland, Italy and San Marino. Former Eurovision TV director Bjørn Erichsen disagreed with the assertion that regional bloc voting significantly affects the contest's outcome, saying that Russia's first victory in 2008 was only possible with votes from thirty-eight of the participating countries.

In a 2017 study, a new methodology is presented which allows a complete analysis of the competition from 1957 until 2017. The voting patterns change and the previous studies restrained their analysis to a particular time window where the voting scheme is homogeneous and this approach allows the sampling comparison over arbitrary periods consistent with the unbiased assumption of voting patterns. This methodology also allows for a sliding time window to accumulate a degree of collusion over the years producing a weighted network. The previous results are supported and the changes over time provide insight into the collusive behaviours given more or less choice.

See also

• Kids Jury in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest