Eurovision Song Contest 2022: Who are the favourites this year?
Last year’s Eurovision was won by Italy and Moonlight with the song ” Zitti e Buoni “. This means, of course, that this year’s Eurovision will be held in the boot-shaped country, and it will take place in the Pala Alpitour arena in Turin.
In this year’s preview, we take a trip around Europe to assess the favourites for the latest edition of the world’s biggest music contest! We’re also excited to once again experience a Eurovision in all its glory after a couple of years of tough coronavirus restrictions.
So then, who will be crowned the winner this year? And which countries & songs will advance to the final, set to be held on May 14th?
The Favourites: Does the UK stand a chance?
- Italy
The defending champions of the Eurovision contest will be represented by two members of the LGBT community, Mahmood, and Blanco. The pair have a phenomenal vocal harmony, and are currently ranking first in the polls, with Sweden not far behind. They remind me a bit of their 2015 contribution “Il Volo” and they have a pre-secured place in the final.
- Ukraine
Ukraine, in my opinion, would have surely won with their original song by Alina Pash, but they will instead go with the number two song from their national final, which only finished third with the jury. Ukraine have a great reputation in the competition after performing songs like “Sasha Verduschka”, “GO_A: Shum” and more. They are well known for their innovation and are likely to receive plenty of viewer votes as a sign of solidarity.
- Sweden
Swedish Cornelia Jakobs is performing well in the polls as a safe second, and as we mentioned before, they are very close to Italy. Personally, I think Italy has more quality. However, Eurovisionworld’s vote tends to be accurate.
- United Kingdom
Sam Ryder, a well-known TikTok star, will represent the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022 with the song “SPACE MAN”. The UK have not won the Eurovision Song Contest since 1997, and infamously finished with nil points in 2021. A repeat of that is not expected this year, with the UK currently believed to have a strong possibility of doing well in this year’s competition!
Points System at Eurovision
Winning the final requires that contestants favour well with both viewers and juries. Last year’s Italian winner “Måneskin” certainly won with the viewers and came fourth with the juries (where Switzerland and France topped, respectively.) In 2019, Holland’s Duncan came second with the viewers after Norwegian Keiino and finished third with the juries. In 2018, Netta won with the viewers and finished third with the jury, and in 2017, Portugal won with both viewers and juries.
More specifically, the jury’s votes count for 50 percent, and the same goes for the viewers. The jury’s and viewers’ points are then added together, resulting in the overall winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. Jury points, which amount to 1-12 points from each country’s jury, are the first two be announced, followed by the total viewer votes from all 40 countries participating.
The jury ranks all Eurovision songs except the song from the country they represent. The jury’s task is to judge the songs based on both vocals, composition, and originality as well as the general impression. Incidentally, the jury has already given their votes before the three live shows run off the stack. They do it the night before the live show, where a rehearsal of some kind takes place.
The order of reading viewer points is such that the hosts start with the country that got the fewest jury points and end with the country that got the most.
Jury and viewer points may appear to be extremely different. This is due, for example, to the fact that professional jury members must rank all 25 songs. That is, a single jury member has, to a degree, the power to punish songs of competitors. In 2018, however, this changed significantly when the jury members’ ballot paper was made exponentially weighted. There are a total of five jury members per country.
Jury points are simply given by the number of votes. Viewers often tend to vote for the country or countries they love the most. Most of the time, this will be in favour of neighboring countries.
War or Peace?
The Eurovision was created in the 1950s after the ruins of World War II, with the main aim being to unite nations through a celebration of music, friendship, and reconciliation.
Since then, the Eurovision has quickly grown in scope, especially around the turn of the millennium when several Eastern European countries as well as Australia joined to make it the world’s third largest event. That is right, the Eurovision sits only behind the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup in terms of its magnitude, whilst it is several times larger than the yearly Super Bowl event.
Peace messages have on several occasions meant a lot in Eurovision. Among others, German Nicole won in 1982 with “Ein bischen Frieden” and Ukrainian Jamala in 2016 with “1944.” Booing was heard against Russia the year after the annexation of Crimea, and Icelandic Hatari in 2019 had a Palestinian flag with it.
It is likely that we will see viewers of this year’s Eurovision song contest show more love and support to Ukraine. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens.
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