Dr Alan Howard

My probability model of Eurovision Song Contest voting is predicting victory for Azerbaijan in tonight’s contest in Oslo. The model has a high success rate but this year the contest is more open than normal with several countries in with a shout. Predictions for the top-10 are: 1. Azerbaijan 1.14 2. Armenia 1.56 3. Israel [...]

No surprise that Norway were run away winners on Saturday night and I would have liked Azerbaijan and the UK to have been 2nd and 3rd. The model correctly predicted the winning entry but, overall, there was a less strong correlation (r2 value 0.46 compared to 0.75 – 0.85) than in previous years between predicted placing and actual ranking. [...]

The first run of our “Eurovisionomics” model for 2009 indicates that Norway are clear favourites to win the Eurovision Song Contest next month in Moscow. The model predicts another disappointment for the UK with a finish in the bottom half of the results table suggested. The model takes into account various factors including performance in [...]

Following Russia’s victory in the Eurovision Song Contest our prediction proved surprisingly correct and was picked up by various media outlets as further evidence of neighbourly voting ruining the contest and the chances of nations like the UK from ever winning again. The Eurovisionomics analysis had looked at those countries who’d received unusually high scores [...]