spokespeople Archives – Six on Stage blog

There are lots of roles at the Eurovision Song Contest and plenty of people have taken on more than one – not least every songwriter who’s delivered their own song on stage. But who has performed the most roles at Eurovision?

First, some caveats. We’re talking about people representing their country. There are lots of roles at Eurovision beyond this – in TV production, website and social content, stage management, etc. But when it comes to countries’ participation, Six on Stage identifies the following specific roles:

Lead artist – the credited singer or group for an entry
Backing performer – dancer, backing vocalist, puppeteer – anyone performing an entry on stage who’s not the lead artist
Songwriter – you’ll see this broken down into composers and lyricists on song pages (and where that information isn’t available we list credited writers as both), but for this analysis we’re considering the role of writer as a single one
Jury member – someone who has been a member of a country’s professional jury
Spokesperson – someone who has announced the country’s scores (or, in the current format, their jury’s 12 points)
Host – slightly different as it’s not linked to any entry and only the host country provides these each year, but we record this not least because so many hosts have also been involved in other ways
Other – we’ve started trying to note creative directors, choreographers, stylists… This is pretty much unlimited and dependent on suitable sources so is never going to be complete. That’s why it’s a generic “Other” category.

Lots of people fall into three or four of these categories as it’s common for a singer-songwriter to also serve on their country’s jury and sometimes be a spokesperson too, but two people in the Six on Stage database fall into five categories.

Germany’s Stefan Raab has a long history with the Eurovision Song Contest and that’s reflected in the number of roles he had between 1998 and 2011. He was his country’s named artist in 2000 with Wadde hadde dudde da?, which he also wrote; he wrote and was a backing performer for Max Mutzke‘s 2004 entry; he wrote the legendary Guildo Hat Euch Lieb and turned up to “conduct” the orchestra (who weren’t playing); and finally in 2011 he was one of the Contest’s hosts in Düsseldorf.

The only person who can match this is Slovenia’s Lea Sirk, and arguably her six roles count more strong as they don’t include hosting. Her first involvement was actually in 2012 as a jury member before going on to provide backing vocals for Tinkara Kovač in 2014 and ManuElla in 2016. She’s best known for her own entry in 2018, Hvala, ne!, which she also co-wrote, and returned a year later to reveal her country’s jury scores.

Now if Stefan could come back and sit on Germany’s jury or Lea could host for Slovenia, they could complete the set…

I’ve added the names of voting spokespeople from their first year, 1957, to the present day – so now we can pull out some stats and facts.

Caveats: some of the sources for earlier spokespeople have conflicting information, so I’ve done my best to untangle it, and there are 30 occasions for which I have no data (spokespeople for Denmark 1963; Germany 1980-82; Luxembourg 1960-61, 1963-65, 1967-75 and 1992-93; Malta 1975; and Monaco 1959-1970). If you can fill in any gaps or have any corrections, please let me know.

Spokespeople who became hosts

Eleven people who gave their countries’ votes have gone on to host a subsequent Contest – 10% of all hosts.

Helga Vlahović, who co-presented Yugoslavia’s only time hosting the Contest, in 1990, was the country’s jury spokesperson in 1969, 1974 and 1981.
Israel’s 1999 host Yigal Ravid announced their votes in the year before.
Renārs Kaupers of Brainstorm gave Latvia’s votes in 2001 before hosting the Contest in 2003.
Korhan Abay, who hosted the 2004 Contest, read Turkey’s scores in 1990 and 1992.
Pavlo Shylko – who also wrote the lyrics to Tina Karol’s Show Me Your Love – hosted 2005 in Ukraine having been their spokesperson in 2004.
Jovana Janković hosted in Belgrade in 2008 having given Serbia & Montenegro’s unique non-participant votes in 2006.
Leyla Aliyeva revealed Azerbaijan’s votes in 2008 and presented from Baku in 2012.
Copenhagen 2014’s Lise Rønne previously announced the Danish votes in 2011.
Filomena Cautela, one of the four hosts of the 2018 Contest, was the Portuguese spokesperson the previous year.
Similarly, Lucy Ayoub from Tel Aviv 2019 gave Israel’s votes in 2018.
And 2020/21 host and two-time entrant Edsilia Rombley has given the scores for the Netherlands on three occasions: in 1999, in 2015, and – following her failure to qualify for the final that year, in 2007!

The first performer to become a spokesperson

Edsilia nearly leads us on the next question. Spokespeople initially tended to be TV station employees, radio presenters, commentators, newsreaders and the like, calling in their votes unseen. So who was the first entrant to go on to announce a country’s votes? And what about the first winner?

The answer is Luxembourgish singer Camillo Felgen. He represented his country in 1960 and 1962 and went on to call in their jury’s scores in 1966.

It was nearly 30 years before another entrant gave their country’s votes, when Switzerland’s 1994 scores were announced by their 1991 singer Sandra Simó.

But since 1996, every Contest has featured at least one former entrant calling with the votes. In 2019, no fewer than 11 of the jury spokespeople were prior entrants, the earliest being Izhar Cohen from 1978 and 1985.

The first winner to present her country’s votes was Corry Brokken, who did so for the Netherlands in 1997 – and only a few minutes later, Marie Myriam did the same for France. Corry Brokken also hosted the 1976 Contest, making her the first entrant and first winner to present in a subsequent year.

Who were the most frequent spokespeople?

Over the years we’ve come to recognise familiar faces like Alexis Kostalas of Greece. So who’s given their country’s votes most often?

It may not be a surprise that the answer by some margin is Colin Berry, who announced the United Kingdom’s votes on 24 occasions.

Michel Stocker of Switzerland is the runner-up with 20 occasions, followed by Sverre Christophersen of Norway with 18.

The highest woman on the list is Anna Partelidou of Cyprus, who is sixth with 13 occasions.

Alexis Kostalas, in case you’re wondering, presented the Greek votes 11 times – which is a lot of occasions to have to say “12 points to Cyprus” with a straight face.

Which countries have been the most consistent?

In other words, which countries have had the fewest number of spokespeople per year participating?

Albania has had only three spokespeople across 16 Contests so is the clear leader with 5.3 years per spokesperson.

Next is Turkey with 10 spokespeople over 34 Contests (3.4 y/s), Luxembourg and Austria with 3.3 y/s, and Greece with 3.1 y/s.

The most fickle countries are Andorra and Serbia & Montenegro, who switched up the spokesperson every time they took part, followed by Latvia with 19 spokespeople for 20 Contests.

And finally… what’s the most simultaneous spokespeople a country has had?

Three! On two occasions, a country’s votes have been given by three people at once – when Alcazar, in a trio phase, announced Sweden’s scores in 2014 and when O’G3NE did so for the Netherlands in 2018.