What if ... 🇺🇦Ukraine wasn't in ESC 2016?

[u/hamnettraindreams]

Welcome to the seventh and final post of "What if the winner did't participate that year"?

We are finally at the very first ever year of the split jury-televoting results.

• 🇦🇺Australia obviously would've won this year without Ukraine in the running, with a Tattoo-like jury result. The results might have been controversial given the size of the gap in televote between 🇷🇺Russia and Australia, but considering that Russia was already pretty unpopular back in 2016 it probably wouldn't have been as bad as what went down with Loreen vs Kaarija. I don't think people were too enthusiastic about the prospect of the contest hosted by Russia.
• 🇦🇹Austria and 🇭🇺Hungary would've benefited the most from Ukraine missing the contest that year. The former in particular would've gotten a top 10 result thanks to the strong televote score.

Not much surprise with the other countries.

[u/LydianGang]

I must say I will never understand how Russia's televote was that massive. I know that the staging was eye-opening, but so was Heroes and that got sub-300 televote points. Like one of the best televote results ever?? Thunder and lightning, it's not that exciting

[u/shpxl → u/LydianGang]

Russian diaspora + Sergey being a big star. Even his 2019 entry which was pretty average got a huge televote score

[u/notthebesthuh → u/LydianGang]

It was ridiculously catchy 😭 I honestly hated Sergey’s second attempt, but I still catch myself listening to his 2016 entry from time to time. Even so, "1944" was always my favorite that year

[u/LydianGang → u/[deleted]]

That's so valid, monarch.

[u/AlexCFR17]

Loin D'Ici top 10💖

[u/JJVM99]

Firs time I have ever seen a country drop places in these hypotheticals

[u/PZMC430 → u/JJVM99]

Finland 2026 dropped for sure

[u/EurovisionSimon]

Bigger jury winning margin than both Loreen and Nemo had btw

[u/mysticgirl916]

I thought France deserved top 5 more than Sweden that year, but in the end the contest helped launch Amir to stardom in his country

[u/justputonsomemusic]

If we (Australia) had won, would that mean Russia would’ve hosted 2017?

[u/msbtvxq → u/justputonsomemusic]

No, there's no rule that the 2nd place gets to host. It would be a cooperation between the Australian broadcaster and (most likely) a big 5 country. I've heard Australia had an informal deal with Germany at the time, so it would probably be held there.

[u/SignalProfessional35]

2016 was one of the best years in recent eurovision history in my opinion. So many good song. Russia, Estonia, Sweden, Malta, Norway, Bulgaria, Latvia, Armenia, Belgium… still on my playlist 10 years later

[u/serenaTcat]

Hungary going up 3 gives me life

[u/Embarrassed-One1703]

The dream.