The ChatVote, previously also known as “#esc verdict” and by other names, has a long history dating back to its origins in our heritage chatroom #eurosong. In its current format, the record book for the #esc ChatVote goes back to 2005, our first season as an independent chat community. Here’s an overview of all the results since then!

ChatVote 2023
Austria took ChatVote victory for the first time with “Who The Hell Is Edgar?” by Teya & Salena. The format of the event saw another tweak this year: our chatter “juries” voted on all 37 participating songs, with the top ten qualifying for the live “Supervote” during the chat event. That explains why the scoreboard below is skewed towards the higher scorers! The jury side of things was incredibly close, as just two points separated the top three countries – Italy, Finland and Austria – with Sweden and the United Kingdom also lurking nearby. In the end, the Supervote decided it for the Austrian duo, with Marco Mengoni and Käärijä occupying the remaining positions on the podium.

ChatVote 2022
For the third time in the space of four years, the ChatVote was won by Italy. And their success didn’t just begin in the final: Like in ChatVote 2021, all Big Five entries once again had to compete in the semi-finals alongside all the other countries. In the end, “Brividi” by Mahmood & Blanco scored a total of  210 points, followed by “Hold Me Closer” (Sweden, 199 points) and “De diepte” (Netherlands, 154 points). 13 points was once again the result of the lowest scorer, this time Cyprus.

ChatVote 2021
The Eurovision Song Contest returned triumphantly after a one-year break, and our ChatVote also returned to a bigger format with a few changes. Most notably, we decided that there’s no “big five” rule in ChatVote – the automatic finalists had to fight their way through the semi-finals too! This time, the “televote” component – rewarding those chatters who attend the live final event – took the form of a “supervote” with a weighting of 5x that of a regular jury. “Russian Woman” by Manizha was leading at the end of the 25 regular juries, and third place in the supervote was enough to secure her overall victory. Russia scored a total of 171 points, ahead of Fyr & Flamme from Denmark in second place (152 points) and eventual ESC winners Måneskin from Italy in third place (150 points). Meanwhile, the Czech Republic propped up the table, with Benny Cristo’s “Omaga” receiving a total of 13 points in last place.

ChatVote 2020
Before we even had the chance to hold our annual ChatVote, the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled in response to the coronavirus pandemic. We decided we couldn’t break our consecutive run of events, so we held our ChatVote nevertheless – though we allowed ourselves a more scaled-back, jury-only format this time. Italy triumphed for the second year in succession, with Diodato’s “Fai rumore” taking first place by an overwhelming margin. Azerbaijan (Efendi’s “Cleopatra”) and Bulgaria (“Tears Getting Sober” by Victoria) took second and third place respectively, but they were never really in with a chance of victory – more than half of our voters had Italy in their top three, and Diodato’s lead quickly became insurmountable. Meanwhile, at the other end of the scoreboard, the wooden spoon went to Spain.

ChatVote 2019
The 2019 edition of ChatVote was won by Mahmood from Italy and his song “Soldi”, which went on to be the runner-up at the contest proper. Indeed, the top end of the table ended up being fairly mainstream this year, with “Arcade” from the Netherlands and “She Got Me” from Switzerland taking the other podium positions. And for all ChatVote is about preferences not predictions, our chatters managed to be remarkably prescient when it came to the unprecedented success of Tamara from North Macedonia too. Meanwhile, just like in the real contest, it was mainly the automatic finalists that populated the bottom of our scoreboard.

ChatVote 2018
The 2018 edition of our ChatVote was won by Albania and “Mall” by Eugent Bushpepa. The ultimate winner of ESC 2018, Israel, narrowly won our jury vote but with just a handful of top marks, so it was perhaps no surprise to see it fall behind in the televote where chatters vote en masse for their favourites. Instead, Albania (which had finished a close second in the jury vote anyway) and Hungary benefited from huge support from the chatters in attendance on the night to take first and second place respectively, with Belgium some way back in third place. Meanwhile, San Marino and its robots finished last, but would probably have been quite content just to be in the final.

ChatVote2017
The #esc ChatVote became a teenager with its 13th annual edition, won by the Portuguese entry “Amar pelos dois” by Salvador Sobral. He triumphed thanks to a strong performance in the “televoting” part of the event, which was repeated following its successful launch in 2016. Portugal scored 225 points in the end, followed by Koit Toome & Laura from Estonia in second place (197 points) and jury winner Blanche from Belgium in third place (186 points). Meanwhile, Australia propped up the final table, receiving 17 points in last place – and poor Lithuania set a new record low by failing to receive a single vote in the semi-final poll.

ChatVote 2016
The change in the ESC vote presentation format was reflected in the ChatVote, with the introduction of a fast-paced five-minute “televoting” poll as part of the final event in the #esc chat to accompany the traditional juries. In another new development, the scoreboard was streamed live via YouTube, culminating in a live graphical presentation of the decisive televotes at the climax of the show. The eventual ESC 2016 winner, Jamala from Ukraine, was also leading the ChatVote after the jury phase, but the televoters swung the decision in favour of Justs from Latvia, whose “Heartbeat” took the #esc crown with a total of 305 points. Zoë from Austria and Poli Genova from Bulgaria completed the podium positions as the good old ChatVote took a big step forward in terms of excitement and entertainment.

ChatVote 2015
Slovenia won the #esc ChatVote 2015, the 11th edition of the traditional event – and the first under this website’s new name of escgo! “Here For You” by Maraaya took victory with 151 points following a head-to-head battle with “A Monster Like Me” from Norway, which ended up in second place with 138 points. The podium was completed by Estonia, which was the only other country to finish in three figures points-wise. At the other end of the table, Uzari & Maimuna from Belarus finished in last place with just 14 points.

ChatVote 2014
Israel won the ChatVote 2014, with Mei Finegold’s “Same Heart” taking victory ahead of the early bookmakers’ favourite Armenia (Aram Mp3) and the United Kingdom (Molly Smitten-Downes). The Netherlands, who would eventually go on to finish 2nd at ESC itself, took 4th place in our vote. At the other end of the table, Moldova finished in last place, and didn’t exactly do much better when the contest was held in Copenhagen!

ChatVote 2013
Norway won the ChatVote 2013. Margaret Berger’s “I Feed You My Love” took victory ahead of eventual ESC champion Denmark (Emmelie de Forest) and the surprise package of the competition, Hungary, whose “Kedvesem” finished third. Ireland and Ryan Dolan landed in last place after being overtaken by Spain right at the end of the voting. Notable casualties at the semi-final stage included Russia and Georgia. And for the first time, three “preview nights” were held in the chat with joint viewings of the semi-finals and the final!

ChatVote 2012
Sweden won the ChatVote 2012. For the second time in just a few years (after 2010), the ChatVote winner was later crowned the actual winner of the Eurovision Song Contest! Loreen’s “Euphoria”, which turned out to be one of the biggest chart hits in Eurovision history, scored a total of 150 points in our own voting. Italy came 2nd with 122 points, while Norway finished 3rd with exactly 100 points. Last place went to Belarus, which collected 4 points.

ChatVote 2011
Hungary won the ChatVote 2011. Kati Wolf’s Eurovision entry “What About My Dreams?” scored a total of 155 points. 115 points went to Estonia (2nd) and Bosnia & Herzegovina (3rd), with the ESC tie rule applying. San Marino came last in the final with a total of 4 points. The least voted-for entries in the semifinals were Lithuania in semi 1 (2 mentions) and Moldova in semi 2 (4 mentions). Both songs managed to reach the real ESC final, ending up higher than the ChatVote winner, Hungary (22nd).

ChatVote 2010
Germany won the ChatVote 2010 with Lena’s song “Satellite”, which was also the real winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, breaking with a long assumed law of nature that our winner is doomed for the real show. We also picked the 2nd place right, with Turkey (Manga) scoring 67 points in a tie with Israel (Harel Skaat, 3rd). We even managed to predict the placing of the United Kingdom correctly – 25th and last. The show took place on 16th May after semi-finals were held for the first time.

ChatVote 2009
Bosnia & Herzegovina won the ChatVote 2009 with the song “Bistra Voda”, sung by the band Regina. It’s the second time in a row that the country won our annual poll. The dramatic ballad reached a final score of 131 points. The winning song of the Eurovision Song Contest, Norway’s “Fairytale” by Alexander Rybak, came 2nd with 108 points, while France came 3rd with “Et s’il fallait le faire” sung by Patricia Kaas. No country had to suffer a final score of 0 points. Last place was taken by the Czech Republic with “Aven Romale” (3 points). The contest took place on 30th April in the #esc chatroom. 32 chatters took part in the annual event. The show was hosted by “PhilipKirkorov” and “AllaPugacheva” and began at 21:00 CET. The final standings were revealed at 22:44.

ChatVote 2008
Bosnia & Herzegovina won the ChatVote 2008 with the song “Pokušaj”, sung by Laka. The song reached a final score of 124 points. Sweden came second with “Hero” (76 points), third was Norway (69 points). Last place was shared by the Czech Republic (“Have Some Fun”), Montenegro (“Zauvijek volim te”), Estonia (“Leto svet”) and Croatia (“Romanca”) with 0 points each. The contest took place on 3rd May, as always in the #esc chatroom. Some juries announced their points in a YouTube video. The show, which was hosted by “IngvildBryn” and “MortenHarket”, kicked off at 21:00 CET and lasted until 22:21 when the winner was announced.

ChatVote 2007
Belarus won the ChatVote 2007 with the song “Work Your Magic”, sung by Koldun. The song reached a final score of 87 points. Serbia’s “Molitva”, the winning song at the Eurovision Song Contest, came 2nd with 79 points, while France came third with “L’amour à la française”. Last place was shared by Austria (“Get A Life – Get Alive”) and Poland (“Time To Party”).

ChatVote 2006
Germany won the ChatVote 2006 with the song “No No Never”, sung by Texas Lightning. The song reached a final score of 172 points. Belgium came 2nd with “Je t’adore” (122 points), while third was shared by Iceland’s “Congratulations” and Romania’s “Tornero” (103 points each). Israel and Cyprus share the last place with no points at all. The annual event took place on 30th April, and 33 chatters participated. Unfortunately, the full scoreboard graphic has been lost in the mists of time!

ChatVote 2005
Hungary won the “#esc verdict 2005” with the song “Forogj világ”, sung by NOX. The song reached a final score of 100 points. Switzerland came 2nd with “Cool Vibes” by Vanilla Ninja (98 points), while Norway finished 3rd with “In My Dreams” by Wig Wam. Monaco came last with “Tout de moi”.