Italy has won the 15th annual edition of ChatVote, the traditional event held by escgo! and the #esc chatroom to find our favourite song ahead of each year’s Eurovision Song Contest!

In the 2019 edition, “Soldi” by Mahmood received a total of 277 points, ahead of Duncan Laurence from the Netherlands in second place (253 points) and Luca Hänni from Switzerland in third place (217 points). Meanwhile, ESC 2019 host nation Israel propped up the table, receiving just seven points in last place.

As in the last three years, 50% of the total score was determined by “juries” – regular chatters who gave their votes in ESC-style (12-10-8…) – and 50% by “televoting”, which took the form of a live poll that was held in the chat while we watched the 26 songs together during our final viewing party on Saturday night.

Unlike some years, the juries and the live poll delivered relatively similar results. Switzerland enjoyed a strong live poll showing to leapfrog Greece for a podium position, while Iceland slipped from fifth after the juries to ninth overall after meeting with a seriously polarised response from our Saturday chatters – and it was the live voters who rescued the United Kingdom from last place. There was unanimity where it counted, though: Italy was the favourite of the juries and the live poll alike.

As always, the live-streamed scoreboard accompanying the live poll reveal was a fitting conclusion to a fun and exciting night of group participation in the chat – and we’d like to say thanks to everyone who attended and took part throughout the various events of ChatVote 2019!

You can see the final scoreboard here:

We can now also publish the full results of our semi-finals, in which voters were asked to nominate their ten favourite songs in each semi in two live polls after we had previewed the entries in the #esc chat. This gave the following results:

Semi 1:
1. Greece, 2. Slovenia, 3. Hungary, 4. Iceland and San Marino, 6. Belgium, 7. Cyprus, 8. Poland, Czech Republic and Georgia. || 11. Finland and Estonia, 13. Australia, 14. Belarus and Serbia, 16. Portugal, 17. Montenegro.

Semi 2:
1. Netherlands, 2. Switzerland, 3. Sweden, 4. Azerbaijan, 5. Malta and North Macedonia, 7. Russia and Norway, 9. Denmark, 10. Albania. || 11. Armenia, 12. Ireland and Latvia, 14. Romania, 15. Austria, 16. Moldova, Croatia and Lithuania.

For the first time, tonight’s grand final also included a prediction game, with the best guesser getting the prize of a voting boost in next year’s ChatVote. It was a tough fight, but the lucky chatter was Anil, who impressively guessed the top four in the correct order. Congratulations!

So that’s all until 2020 – although there is the small matter of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest for us to enjoy first. And while the #esc ChatVote is very much a preference poll, it can be fun to look back and see how our taste has corresponded to Europe’s over the years. As the ChatVote history shows, Italy’s victory may not necessarily be an omen of success in Tel Aviv next month, but there is a possibility we might have got it “right” – just ask Lena, Loreen or Salvador Sobral! And even the 2018 winner, Eugent Bushpepa from Albania, ended up doing a lot better in ESC than most people would have expected this time last year. So who knows – maybe it’ll be Rome or even Sanremo 2020…

And now it’s time to enjoy the ChatVote 2019 winner one more time. Clap clap!