On Saturday 13th May, millions of people tuned in from around the world to watch the Grand Final of Eurovision 2023. British viewers were particularly keen to see how their host entrant Mae Muller would fare, especially given Sam Ryder‘s success in Eurovision 2022. Unfortunately, she would finish in 25th place, only one ahead of last placing Germany.
It’s a truth almost universally acknowledged among Eurofans that there is a ‘host country curse’, namely that the country to win Eurovision will go on to perform poorly in next year’s contest when they are hosting. However, is that really the case? If it is the case, why might that be? To find out, we’ll be looking at the times a host country performed well, the times they didn’t and exploring the reasons why.
The Myth of the Host Country Curse
First and foremost, it’s important to acknowledge that Eurovision has been going since 1956 and therefore there will be many examples to prove and disprove the notion of a host curse. Indeed, if you look at the full range of results from 1956-2023, the host country has achieved nearly every possible place you can! However, it is certainly interesting to compare the times a host did well to when it didn’t. The pie chart below shows the time a host country placed in the top 5, the top 10 or placed in the bottom 5:
Believers in a host country curse may well be surprised to see that host countries were three times more likely to be in the top 5 than the bottom. Additionally, with the exception of 1958 hosts the Netherlands, who placed 9th out of nine countries, more host countries placed in a respectable top 10 than in the bottom.
However, diving deeper into these statistics yielded even more interesting results: the last time a host country placed in the top 5 was in 2016, with Sweden and their entry ‘If I Were Sorry’ by Frans. Elsewhere, the division of top 5 results was more or less evenly split between the 1960s, 70s and 90s. Therefore, while host countries have a greater track record of doing well, this has not been the case for a long time.
There could be a number of reasons for this. Firstly, older editions of the contest had fewer participants, meaning not only were host countries statistically more likely to do well but they would also be remembered by voters when everyone had performed. Further skewing the results is the fact that, of the four times the United Kingdom has hosted on behalf of another country, they placed in the top 5 three of those times. Not to mention Ireland‘s string of successive wins in the 90s!
The Truth of the Host Country Curse
While statistically a country was more likely to perform well as host, this has been less likely to be the case in recent years. As mentioned before, 2016 was the last time a host country placed in the top 5. Since 2017, with the exception of Italy in 2022 (who placed sixth with Mahmood and Blanco and their song ‘Brividi’), the host country has placed in the bottom 5 in every contest.
So why might this be? As mentioned previously, there are many more competitors in Eurovision these days, making it statistically more likely a host country would perform poorly. Additionally, as Adrian Kavanagh pointed out in his blog on the same topic in 2016, there may also be “a (subconscious) desire amongst the Eurovision voters not to award another victory to a country so soon after they have won the contest”, making it perhaps unlikely we will get a stream of victories from one country anytime soon, a la Ireland in the 1990s.
Fundamentally, as Eurovision has evolved over the years, it has become more of a spectacle and as such the financial demands of hosting the contest are greater. Many people attribute the so-called ‘host country curse’ to delegations simply not wanting to host the contest repeatedly and therefore sending a song less likely to win. Kavanagh refers to this as the “My Lovely Horse scenario”, in reference to an episode of Irish comedy show Father Ted where the song ‘My Lovely Horse’ is deliberately chosen to represent Ireland to prevent them from winning again. While we have yet to see a strategy as explicit as this from a host country, it is still accepted by fans of the contest as being the most likely reason for a host country curse.
However, in addition to the financial pressures of hosting, countries are also under a different kind of pressure: namely, the pressure of putting on a great show! This was particularly apparent this year as many viewers praised the slick production of the BBC’s hosting but ultimately felt that ‘I Wrote a Song’ did not stand out compared to other entries. Perhaps the real reason for the host country curse in recent years is because delegations spend less time prioritising their entry and more time on getting the production right. The fact that ‘Brividi’ is the only host song since 2016 to place highly would seem to support this, given that Italy’s entries are selected from Sanremo, a huge song contest in its own right. It could be that because Italy did not select their entry specifically with Eurovision in mind this paradoxically gave them more opportunity to do well.
Overall, while the notion of a host country curse has not always been founded in fact, it has started to emerge as a trend in recent years. However, is this necessarily a bad thing if it is in favour of getting a slick, well-run contest each year? Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal preference. Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
