The Eurovision Song Contest 2018 In Numbers And Facts.
It has been several months since Israel won the Eurovision Song Contest. Since then, there has been much speculation as to how and where it will be staged next year. September 1st marked the beginning of the 2019 season, as any song released now, could be a potential entrant or winner. With this in mind, Eurovoxx has been trawling through some of the numbers, and figures of this year's contest. Just for fun, the team have brought a quirky article with some random facts, and figures of the numbers of Eurovision 2018. Read below, and hopefully there will be something new that you didn't know about this years contest.
This year was Eurovision's 63rd Contest- It was held in the Altice Arena Lisbon.
The 2018 song contest was the first time that there were 4 female presenters. They were Filomena Cautela, Sílvia Alberto, Daniela Ruah and Catarina Furtado
Netta's Song, "Toy" was the contests 66th winner- Despite there only being 63 contests, in 1969, four countries won the competition with the UK, France, Netherlands, and Spain all being declared winners.
Of all available points that Netta could have received, she won 10.6% of all potential votes, which is 5% less than Salvador Sobral achieved the year before.
The juries awarded Israel a total of 5 'douze points', whilst the televoters gave Netta a total of 8 of the maximum votes.
2 countries achieved their best ever Eurovision placings this year, both the Czech Republic (6th place) and Cyprus (2nd place) did this.
There are also a total of 2 countries, Ukraine, and Australia that keep their 100% qualification record for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Whilst this year marked the first time that 3 countries failed to qualify. They were Russia, Romania, and Azerbaijan.
The 2018 contest saw a joint record of 43 songs compete, a figure that was duplicated back in 2008, and 2011. Only 42 countries performed last year.
Norway's Alexander Rybak with his entry, "That's How To Write A Song" had the honour of being the contests 1500 ever entry.
Alexander showed us how to write a song, as well as being the 1500 song performed,
This years contest meant that 1523 Songs have been sung in total since it's beginnings back in 1956.
6 is the number of duo's that were present at this years contest- they consisted of France, Spain, Poland, San Marino, Italy and Switzerland
67 was the age of the oldest contestant at Eurovision this year. At the time Sanja Ilić from Serbia had this honour.
On the opposite age spectrum Amaia Romero from Spain was this years youngest contestant at the age of 19. Ari Ólafsson was also 19, however he turned 20 nearly two weeks after the final.
16 was the number of Female Solo artists this year. Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Greece, Cyprus, United Kingdom, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Latvia, Finland, Estonia, Belgium, Croatia, Israel, Malta
There were 7 groups or arstists that featured other singers this year. The countries that did this was Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, FYR Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia.
Females outnumbered the males at the 2018 contest. This years competition contained only 14 solo male artists. They were Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Montenegro, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Ukraine.
There was only one 0 or should we say "Nil Point" this year. The televoters did not give Iceland a single point, when Ari performed in the first semi final. He did score 15 points from the Jury's however.
There were 13 songs sung this year that contained no English. They were Portugal, Albania, Spain, Armenia, Estonia, Montenegro, France, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia. This has been the highest amount since 2013.
Whilst 30 songs were sung in English or contained English lyrics this year. They were Austria, Azerbaijan, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, FYR Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Ukraine, United Kingdom.
Sanja Ilić and Amaia Romerro were the oldest and youngest participants.
The English song was the winners choice again this year. Since 2000, 17, of the 19 winning songs, have been sung in English with the exception of 2007 (Serbia) and 2017 (Portugal). It has to be noted 2016 entry from Ukraine, contained English and Crimean Tatar.
2018 saw 2 former Eurovision winners sing on the stage, both Portugal's Salvador Sobral from 2017 reprised his winning song, whilst Norway's Alexander Rybak tried winning for a second time after his first time back in 2009.
186 million viewers tuned into the contest this year.
Germany recorded the most viewers for the show with 8,210,000 tuning into the contest.
21 points Sweden scored with the public televote. Other than the failed qualification in 2010, this is the lowest public vote given to Sweden since televoting was slowly introduced in 1997.
20 million has been the figure given that the host broadcaster RTP had spent on this years contest.
4 is the number of millions that RTP had a loss in recorded revenue by hosting the competition. Other countries have also recorded losses by hosting the show.
9 is the number of artists who have appeared on the Eurovision stage before. They were:
Australia- Jessica Mauboy sang "Sea of Flags" as part of the 2014 interval act in Copenhagen
Slovenia- Lea Sirk had been a backing singer for Slovenia back in 2014 and 2016
United Kingdom- SuRie too had been a backing singer, however she appeared for Belgium in 2015 and 2017.
The Netherlands- Waylon was part of "The Common Linnets" that came second back in 2014 with the song, "Calm After The Storm".
Russia- Yulia Samoylova was Russia's 2016 entrant but was forced to withdraw after her legal inability to enter Ukraine.
Austria- Cesar Sampson was also a backing singer, and sang on stage for Bulgaria in 2016, and 2017.
Bulgaria- Vladdi Mihailov who was one fifth of the 2018 group "Equinox" also was a backing singer for Bulgaria in 2017.
Norway- Having already won the contest back in 2009 with the song, "Fairytale", Alexander Rybak was back this year, showing Europe, "That's How You Write A Song".
8 was the total number of songs that were changed for the competition. They were either revamped, or modified due to song length. They were:
Albania - The original was cut down from 4.31 to around three minutes.
Azerbaijan - This Song was revamped.
Belarus- The original song was sung in Russian, but was then translated into English, then revamped.
Czech Republic- "Lie To Me" had to change it's lyrics due to some offensive swear words.
France- "Mercy" was cut from the original 3:58 to 3 minutes for the show.
Italy- "Non Me Avete Fatto Niente" was also cut slightly from its original 3:28 to 3 minutes.
United Kingdom- This song was revamped.
65,000 was the cost in Euro's for Estonia's Eurovision performance. It was one expensive projection dress.
Estonia had one expensive dress this year
On the reverse side, Moldova spent the least on staging in 2018. Moldova only spent 5000 Euros.
1 million Euro's was the reported amount that France Télévisions spent on Eurovision 2018. That covered the cost of being in the "Big 5", salaries, travel expenses, and staging.
It was reported that that BBC had only a budget of £300,000 for the United Kingdom's participation at this years contest.
0 is the amount of money that Netta received from winning the Eurovision from the EBU. Instead the winner goes into the Eurovision hall of fame, receives a glass trophy, and generally kick starts a music career all around the continent.
When Saara Aalto performed at this year's Eurovision, her outfit consisted of a staggering 11,000 crystals.
This year marked Saara Aalto's 4th attempt to represent Finland at Eurovision. She was a backing vocalist in 2008, then in 2011, and 2016 she tried again, coming second on both occasions.
2018 marked the 1st year that Finland selected an artist internally. All other years, a national final was held.
2018 also saw the 5th consecutive year that saw an automatic qualifier come last. 2018 (Portugal), 2017 (Spain), 2016 (Germany), 2015 (Austria and Germany), 2014 (France)
This year marked 15 years since Ukraine sent a male soloist to the competition. Melovin was the first since Olexandr back in 2003.
The number 8 also seems to be a lucky number for Israel. Out of their four wins, three of them have been in a year ending with 8 (1978, 1998, and 2018).
Melovin was the first male soloist to represent the Ukraine in 15 years.
As well as being Albania's best Eurovision result since 2012, this year also marked the 1st time an Albanian male has qualified for the Grand Final.
Despite "Love" being the most common theme sung at the contest. The word "Love" only appears in 1 song title. That is Australia's Jessica Mauboy, "We Got Love".
2:38 was this years shortest song , sung by Portugal's Laura Pascoal feat Isaura with the song "O Jardim".
90 million was the number of record breaking views that Netta's winning Eurovision song has been seen on YouTube.
43 was the number of countries that awarded points to Cyprus in the public televote. This doesn't happen often.
4 was the number of Nordic nations that qualified for the grand final. This has been the most since 2014.
2018 also marked the first time that a semi final winner has finished in the bottom half of the final. Norway was 1st in their semi final, and 15th in the grand final.
This year there were 3 singers of Albanian descent. They were Ermal Meta, Eugent Bushpepa, and Eleni.
There we go 50 random facts, and numbers. Here is to the 2019 season, and another 50 random figures!!!!!
