Voting at The Eurovision Song Contest - Nul Points

Nul Points

Since each of the participating countries casts a series of preference votes, under the current scoring system it is rare that a song fails to receive any votes at all (for example, if the points in the final of the 2010 Contest had been randomly allocated, with 39 countries voting on the 25 entries, the probability of scoring no points would be approximately 1 in 530 million). Under the modern rules this means that the song failed to make the top ten most popular songs in any country.

Under the second-most-used scoring system, however (see below), jurors gave points individually and only to their single favourite song, a system which might be expected to result in songs regularly not being awarded any points. Even so, it was not until 1967 that that occurred under that scoring system — the seventh year of its operation.

When it does happen, it is often referred to in the British populist media as nul points (pronounced as if it were French, although the phrase is meaningless in French). In fact the phrase nul points is never actually read out during the presentation of the Contest. French for "no points" is pas de point and zéro point, and none of these phrases are used in the contest as no-point scores are not announced by the presenters.

Entries which received no points, since the introduction of the current scoring system in 1975 are as follows:

• In 1978, Norway's "Mil etter mil" by Jahn Teigen.
• In 1981, Norway's "Aldri i livet" by Finn Kalvik.
• In 1982, Finland's "Nuku pommiin" by Kojo.
• In 1983, two entries: Turkey's "Opera" by Çetin Alp and The Short Waves and Spain's "¿Quién maneja mi barca?" by Remedios Amaya.
• In 1987, Turkey's "Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne" by Seyyal Taner and Grup Locomotif.
• In 1988, Austria's "Lisa Mona Lisa" by Wilfried.
• In 1989, Iceland's "Það sem enginn sér" by Daníel Ágúst.
• In 1991, Austria's "Venedig im Regen" by Thomas Forstner.
• In 1994, Lithuania's "Lopšinė mylimai" by Ovidijus Vyšniauskas.
• In 1997, two entries: Norway's "San Francisco" by Tor Endresen and Portugal's "Antes do adeus" by Célia Lawson.
• In 1998, Switzerland's "Lass' ihn" by Gunvor.
• In 2003, United Kingdom's "Cry Baby" by Jemini.
• In the 2004 semi-final, Switzerland's "Celebrate" by Piero & The MusicStars
• In the first 2009 semi-final, Czech Republic's "Aven Romale" by Gypsy.cz.

In his book Nul Points, comic writer Tim Moore interviews the first twelve of these performers (he wrote the book before 2009, and only counted artists who received no points in the main contest, thus ignoring semi-finalist Piero) to find out if their Eurovision score was the end of their music career or just the beginning.

Since the creation of a semi-final in 2004 and two semi-finals in 2008, more than thirty countries vote each night - even the countries eliminated or already qualified. Thus occurrences of scoring no points become rarer; it would require a song to place less than tenth in every country. In the 2004 semi-final, Switzerland's "Celebrate" by Piero Esteriore & The MusicStars received no points, but only 32 countries out of 36 voted, and in the first 2009 semifinal, where only 20 countries voted, Czech Republic's "Aven Romale" by Gypsy.cz received no points.

In 2003, following the UK's first Zero Score, an online poll voted on the Zero pointers to date with Spain's Remedios Amaya (1983) winning the poll as the song that least deserved a zero. Austria's Wilfried from 1988 ended up last in the Poll taking the wooden spoon as the song that best deserved zero.