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Eurovision Song Contest 2016 countdown: one song a day

Eurovision Song Contest 2016 countdown: one song a day

Good afternoon, folks! Today’s statistical map looks at something that is a passionate cause of mine, and something to which I dedicate a fair bit of analysis every year. It is language diversity at the Eurovision, or rather, the lack thereof. Every year, I analyse the number of songs in languages other than English, and every year the statistics grow more disheartening for those of us who love linguistic diversity. 

Last year, we had 6 songs entirely or almost entirely in a language other than English (15% of all songs). This year, we’re down to just 3 out of 43 songs completely in another language. That’s just under 7% and is quite frankly, lame. If we put together all the songs with at least a substantial part of the lyrics in another language than English - thus, disregarding Bulgaria’s promise of “10% Bulgarian” - it’s just 7/43 songs (16%), down from the previous all-time low of 17.5% in 2015, and much reduced compared to 21% in 2014 and 44% in 2013. It is becoming evident that delegations think English is necessary for a good placing at Eurovision - if you do the maths, as I did, it most certainly is not.

Eurovision 2016 - Czech Republic

Good afternoon, folks! It’s come to that time of year when the last national finals have taken place - the time to begin the Eurosong blog for another year, our 4th year of providing a bunch of original Eurovision maps, odds and statistics here! I’m starting off this year in the traditional way, by looking at the gender of performers- something that has been particularly commented upon so far at this year’s contest.

I have noticed some intriguing circular trends at the Eurovision with regards to the continuous shift between contests where female soloists or all-female duos/bands comprise the majority, and where the ratio of male to female performers is closer to parity - a lot of it has to do with jumping on the bandwagon due to previous winners, but that is something I shall explore in future posts. In this one, let’s focus attention instead on trends this year:

◿ Mixed groups are so last year, or so it seems! Last year there were ten mixed-gender groups, a lot of whom were duets. It was the biggest number of such groups in the past ten years, with duos such as Norway, Estonia and Slovenia getting a lot of fan attention. This year could not be more different - there are only two groups of mixed gender and no true duet. 

◿ Near-perfect geographical splits. The UK, Russia, Ireland, the Netherlands, half of the Nordic countries, and nearly all of NE Europe including all the Baltics opted for male soloists or all-male groups. Compare that to the Balkans, where only one nation opted to send all-male participants, or central Europe, which almost solidly chose female soloists. Nations where German is an official language (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and because of its minute German speaking community, Belgium) all went for female soloists - which took me as surprise because of their higher-than-average inclination to send male soloists over the past 10 years.

◿ One small curiosity: out of last year’s top ten, only 3 countries decided to send the same gender performer(s) as the previous year - Sweden, Israel and Serbia. 8 of the 12 non-qualifiers taking part again this year also decided to send different gendered performers to the contest.