Created 70 years ago to unite Europe through music, the Eurovision Song Contest has since become the most watched non-sporting event in the world, with approximately 166 million viewers annually. Over time, however, the competition has been marked by controversies related to block voting, that is, the tendency of some countries to support each other.
The contest has been overshadowed by allegations of favoritism between countries with geographical or cultural affinities, according to The Conversation Such practices have been criticized since the 2000s. In 2008, BBC commentator Terry Wogan publicly stated that “it’s not a music contest anymore“, accusing the Eastern European countries of voting among themselves.
However, the suspicions are much older. In 1968, Spain’s victory over British favorite Cliff Richard was later blamed on alleged intervention by the Franco regime, an allegation repeated in an Irish TV investigation.
Scandal of 2022. Six jurors eliminated
At the Eurovision 2022 final in Turin, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced the cancellation of the votes of six juries in the second semi-final: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino due to non-compliant voting patterns
The EBU replaced their votes with an aggregate score, calculated on the basis of countries with “similar voting profileThe decision was confirmed by the Independent Voting Monitor, but the TV stations involved denied the allegations, and online speculation immediately surfaced about a possible cover-up.
What the statistical analysis shows
A team of researchers from the University of Stirling reanalyzed the situation using advanced statistical methods. The results are hard to ignore:
The six juries awarded 251 points between them, just 7 points below the absolute maximum possible (258). If the votes had been distributed randomly, the odds of this outcome occurring would have been less than 1 in 10,000.
The researchers used a special statistical method (Bradley–Terry) to check whether the six countries voted correctly or if they agreed with each other. As a result of the calculations, they discovered an indicator called “strength of collusion”, which in this case had a value of 0.262.
In short, this number shows how much these countries favored their friends in the group, compared to what would have happened if they had voted independently.
The probability of such a result occurring by chance, without any agreement between the juries, is 1 in 58,000. In other words, the chances that the votes were natural are almost non-existent.
The bottom line: the votes of the six countries cannot be explained by luck or coincidence
At Eurovision, each jury awards points from 12 to 1 for their favorite songs. The researchers looked at how the six countries voted and compared it to how they would have voted if there was no influence between them.
To do this, they used a statistical analysis program and entered all the votes from the semi-final: 18 plays and 21 juries. The result was a very complex analysis with hundreds of calculations that made it clear that the votes of the six countries could not be explained by luck or coincidence.
The effects of the scandal
After 2022, the EBU eliminated the jury vote from the semi-finals for three editions (2023–2025). Paradoxically, this made the juries weigh even more in the final, where their vote is more concentrated than that of the public.
In 2026, the system was changed again: the juries were reintroduced in the semi-finals: the number of members increased from 5 to 7, and the composition is more diverse, to reduce the risk of coordinated voting
This year’s favourite, Finland, hopes the new rules will curb controversial practices that have damaged the contest’s reputation and turned Eurovision into a case study for statisticians.
We remind you that Alexandra Căpitănescu, Romania’s representative at Eurovision 2026, qualified for the final of the contest.
