Despite their claim that the competition is fair and puts rules in place to implement this, such as at home viewers not being able to vote for their own country, the statistics would suggest that there is a level of favouritism present in the game.
Countries that border each other or have connections historically, linguistically or culturally tend to form alliances. Indeed, the UK and Ireland typically vote for each other as well as France and Germany. Scandinavian countries often vote for each other and share their votes between them.
The countries with alliances tend to win the most as well. Ireland and Sweden have each won seven times with both of their allies winning at least three times each.
There is also the big five to take into consideration. These are the five countries who, via their broadcasters, “make the biggest financial contribution towards the organisation of the Contest” (Eurovision website).
These countries include France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom and, lo and behold, each of these countries appear on the leaderboard for the most wins in the contest, with France and the UK both winning five times, Italy winning three times, and Germany and Spain each winning twice.
There has long been a debate about language playing a part in who wins Eurovision. Indeed, the big five who appear on the Eurovision leaderboard are also the five most spoken languages in Europe (aside from Russia, currently banned from the competition). Many viewers maintain the stigma that if a country wants to win Eurovision, they must perform in English.
Although 53% of Eurovision wins have been in a non-English language, songs performed in English still have the highest percentage of wins with 46%, followed by French with 21%, coincidentally two of the most spoken languages in Europe and the official language of three countries with five Eurovision wins each.
Currently at the top of the leaderboard is Sweden with seven wins. Their four most recent wins were performed in English. They share this top spot with Ireland. All seven of their wins were performed in English.
So even though performing in English doesn’t guarantee you the win by any means, the statistics would suggest that it can help.
With all this considered it still can be anyone’s game. Winners of the last ten years include Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland all of which do not have any notable alliances or power over the competition.
So, the secret to winning Eurovision: have a good song, have a good performance, but it may also help to have a couple of allies and a popular language, as well as a financial foot in the door of the competition.