OGAE SECOND CHANCE CONTEST Statistics and other Useless Information

It couldn't be related to Eurovision without some useless statistics and fascinating facts!

Who has made Second Chance Headlines?

MOST WINS

Sweden has won Second Chance an amazing 12 times! Among those wins, one person (Magnus of Barbados and Alcazar) has been in 3 winning line-ups - in 2001, 2003 and 2005! Sweden's Alcazar are the Johnny Logan of Second Chance with 2 wins in 2003 and 2005!

HIGHEST SCORE

Although any highest score will depend on the total countries taking part, the highest score so far recorded in Second Chance was in 2008 with Sweden's EMPTY ROOM by Sanne Nielson with 268 Points.

LOWEST SCORE

2003 finally saw the first 'null points' in Second Chance. Two Countries shared this dubious honour - Iceland (for 'Eurovisa') and Israel (for 'Lo Rotze Lihyot Kochav'). In 2005, Ireland became the third country to hit zero with 'Dreaming of You' and Poland hit zero too in 2006 with 'How Many People?'. Estonia surprisingly joined the zero-point ranks in 2008 with 'One on One'.

For the record, 5 songs have scored just one point - Spain in 1989 ("Capturado"), Cyprus in 1997 ("Xechnas"), Macedonia in 2000 ("Za Nas"), Malta in 2004 ("24/7") and Ukraine on their Second Chance debut in 2006 ("You Give Me Your Love").

LANGUAGES

As Sweden holds the most titles, its not surprising that most winning songs have been in Swedish (8). Winning songs have also been sung in Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Italian, Turkish, Finnish, Spanish, Slovenian and English. It is somewhat ironic that the first English Language winner did not occur until 2003 and then only thanks to Sweden!

NON NATIONAL FINALISTS

In 1999, a rule was introduced that only songs from televised National Finals would be allowed to take part. Previously, Italy had sent a song in 1998 from the San Remo Festival. Although San Remo was often the basis for Italy's Eurovision selection, in 1998 they did not take part in Eurovision itself. Similarly, from 1989 to 1991, Spain sent songs known to have been entered to their private internal selection for Eurovision.

GUEST JURIES

Guest Juries have long been an integral part of Second Chance. Since 1993, this has enabled OGAE Clubs whose countries did not hold a National Eurovision Selection to also be a part of Second Chance. This was way ahead of its time, when you consider the first time this happened in Eurovision was in 2006 with Serbia and Montenegro. In 1996, Guest Juries substituted for participating countries where no jury existed. In the most part, Guest Juries vote on their own merits and have become an important and decisive part of the voting process. Italy and France have been the staunchest supporters of Guest Jury Status -

NZ – New Zealand, CA – Canada, RW – Rest of the World, LB - Lebanon, all other codes are familiar ESC Nations

SECOND CHANCE BEFORE EUROVISION

Many Eurovision finalists took part in Second Chance before making the ESC itself, some several times! Our list of former "Second Chancers" also includes two ESC winners:

MOST PARTICIPATIONS (as a solo artist or part of a group)

Magnus Carlsson (Sweden) and Evelin Samuel (Estonia) have each taken part in Second Chance four times, both in different guises. Likewise Monica Anghel (Romania), Deen (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Alcazar (Sweden) and Petra (Belgium 2006 as La Sakhra) have all taken part three times. The artists below have all taken part twice each. Of note are the participations of Arja Saijonmaa and Nanne Grönvall, who have each competed twice but for two different countries.

FUTHER INFORMATION (Links)

Spread of UK Votes       Best Country?     National Records   NB - Statistics do not include Retrospective events