A visualisation of every ranking and point scored in the 66th Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final, which took place on Saturday 14th May 2022 in Turin, Italy.
Working through pretty tough hangovers, I’ve visualised these in the best way that I could think to do - taking some inspiration from the @eurovisionario Twitter feed. The results are presented ascending order of total points. It couldn’t have been done without some expert data scraping by my friend, Danielle Kelly. Thank you!
You’ll see that 6 countries’ rankings are missing. During the final broadcast, the EBU released a statement that said that during the second semi-final show on 11 May 2022, six national juries were found to have irregular voting patterns. As a result, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino have no detailed ranking information, although I have animated the rankings where they were deemed to have given points (for example, 1 point equals a ranking of 10). The six countries were given substitute aggregated jury results for the second semi-final and the grand final based on countries with similar voting patterns, as determined by the pots that the countries were put into for the semi-final allocation draw in January. Three juries’ results were announced by the Executive Supervisor of the Contest, Martin Österdahl.
The run-up to the Contest was mainly dominated by Ukraine being the runaway favourites. Kalush Orchestra had actually finished second in Vidbir 2022, the Ukrainian selection competition. The winner, Alina Pash was excluded from representing Ukraine because falsified travel records suggested she had travelled to Crimea or Russia, which was against Vidbir rules. Kalush Orchestra took up the mantel of representing Ukraine, having come second in Vidbir and receiving the highest public vote (49.7%, compared to Pash’s 25.1%).
The season had started with Italy and ‘Brividi’ being seen as likely winners by many fans and their Spotify streaming statistics seemed to support the idea. Optimism was high also in the United Kingdom for the first time in many years and internally selected ‘Space Man’ by Essex born Sam Ryder reached second in the odds as the final approached.
A rejuvenated Spanish selection process called ‘Benidorm Fest’ had a controversial ending, with the winner ‘SloMo’ by Chanel receiving only 3.97% of the public vote, 13.8% of the demoscopic jury but got enough from the juries to get to Turin. RTVE acknowledged the disappointment fans felt and pledged to improve Benidorm Fest.
Kalush Orchestra made the Contest having received special dispensation from restrictions on travel following the Russian invasion of the country in February (Russia were banned from Eurovision shortly after).
On the night, remarkably for British fans, the UK topped the jury vote, with another pre-Contest favourite, Sweden coming second. Spain came third and Ukraine 4th. Portugal’s wonderful ‘Saudade, saudade’ provided them with a top 5 finish from the juries. Both Spain and the UK received 8 twelve points.
The televote result was once again the story of the night though. Although it was expected to be large, a lot of pre-Contest discussion focussed on whether the juries would give Ukraine enough for to achieve victory. Ukraine’s televote dropped only 29 points from the maximum possible, accruing 439 points - the highest televote score ever. If the juries had not given Ukraine anything, it would have still finished 3rd, one point above Sweden.
Spain and the UK are celebrating their best result since 1995 and 1998 respectively, with both sets of fans eagerly anticipating continued success - unlike last year’s top performers France and Switzerland who had a dismal night. France finished one from the bottom with 17 points, whilst Switzerland, many of whom didn’t see qualifying for the final received 78 points from the juries, but nothing from the public vote. We know how that feels here in the UK!
Enjoy!
