1. Huge Jury and Tele-vote differences
Australia had an imbalance between its jury vote (320) and its tele-vote (191). However, some countries had even larger ones. Third-placed Russia scored just 130 jury points and 361 tele-vote points.
But the weirder imbalances were lower down. Poland scored just SEVEN jury points (leaving them in last place), before racking up a whopping 222 tele-vote points. My favourite, Austria, scored just 31 jury points and 120 tele-vote points.
There were pro-jury imbalances with Malta, Israel, and most shockingly the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic scored 41 jury points, but there were audible gasps from the crowd when it was revealed they scored ZERO tele-vote points.
So what's the upshot of all this? I think that the new voting style will make people more aware of the jury/tele-vote variations. This was a particularly strange voting year: Ukraine won while topping neither the jury vote (2nd to Australia) or tele-vote (2nd to Russia). But there have been variations before, such as Italy winning the tele-vote last year and losing to Sweden. Now that the public is more aware of the jury power, will they over time argue to return to 100% tele-voting? Time will tell.
2. Who were Australia's friends?
Two countries gave Australia 12 points for the tele-vote and the jury. One is pretty easy to guess, the other not so much..
Australia did very well, but its lack of friends meant that it was unable to score 18+ points from many - just five countries. By contrast, Ukraine's friends and its ability to exploit Russian tensions bode it well, scoring it 13 18+ point scores.
By the way, please note that Russian tele-voters gave TEN points to Ukraine! Those tele-voters are very brave....
Russia, on the other hand, had a weird Eurovision. Only its fiercest allies remained loyal for the jury votes. That was enough though to give them eight countries with 18+ points.
Upshot? Winning Eurovision with only a few friends is really hard! Under the current voting system you really need to bank 18+ points from a collection of friend countries, and if you can't do that, things will get difficult.
3. Did performance position affect the results?
Not as much as you would think. Tele-voters seemed reluctant to vote for acts in the first quarter, but otherwise the spread seems quite random.
