Statistical analysis unveils the hidden patterns in Eurovision voting

Voting for the Eurovision Song Contest has been scrutinised by statistics experts at UCL and Imperial College London, who have found that musical talent is unlikely to be the only element that wins scores - but that the contest is not 'stitched up' at the UK's expense. The analysis of voting patterns over the past two decades suggests that widespread support for certain countries' acts is, however, not driven by prejudice, as the media periodically suggests, but by positive loyalties based on culture, geography, history and migration. But these effects are relatively small - and the team found no evidence to support Sir Terry Wogan's criticism that the contest is marred by blatant bias and discrimination. Dr Gianluca Baio (UCL Statistical Science) said: "Migration seems to be an interesting explanation for some of the patterns that we see in the data. For example, Turkey seems to be scored highly by German voters, possibly due to the large number of Turkish people who have migrated to Germany, and potentially tele-vote from there. But our analysis found no convincing evidence of negative bias or discrimination against anyone - no country really has any enemies." Dr Baio and co-author Dr Marta Blangiardo (Imperial College London) analysed how countries have given points to each other since Eurovision introduced tele-voting in 1998. In the study, published in the Journal of Applied Statistics , Dr Baio and Dr Blangiardo use computer analysis to reveal clusters of countries with similar voting behaviours, identifying the probability of each country belonging to a particular voting bloc in any particular year.