After Austria’s zero points: Other failures when hosting Eurovision

This year’s host country, Austria, became the first in the Eurovision history to not earn one single point in the year they were hosting it. They aren’t the first host country however that fails to deliver a decent result.

It is often mentioned that you get a few extra points for hosting the Eurovision Song Contest. That however didn’t count for Austria this year as they ended on a tied last position with zero points, together with neighbour country Germany. A host country has never before ended with zero points, and as such Austria made new history with The Makemakes who represented them on homefield with the song I Am Yours. This wasn’t the first time Austria hosted, and it wasn’t the first time they scored bad in that situation eiher. In 1967 when Vienna also hosted the show, Austria came second to last on a tied 14th position with only two points, which came with one from two different countries, Portugal and Yoguslavia.

Previously we have seen other host countries scoring low. In I958 the Netherlands ended on a tied last place as well, but Corry Brokken did score one single point which was given to her by Switzerland.

This year’s winning country Sweden has also failed on homefield; in 1992 Christer Björkmann, who is now their Head Of Delegation, ended on a 22nd place – with 23 countries taking part. His entry, I Morgon Är En Annan Dag, scored 9 points which came from Denmark (4 points), France (1 point) and Yugoslavia (4 points).

Latvia has won the Eurovision Song Contest once, in 2002, and their Hello From Mars entry on homefield the year after surprised many back then with only scoring 5 points.

We would have liked to bring you a Top 10 over the worst scoring homefield countries we have seen in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest, but when you on a sixth place find Ukraine which in 2005 ended on a tied 19th place of 24 participants with 30 points, you are already so high that we no longer consider it a directly bad placement.

The worst scoring hosts

Year Host country Score
 2015 Austria 26/27 placement of 27, Zero points
 1958 The Netherlands 9/10 placement of 10, 1 point
 1992 Sweden 22 placement of 23, 9 points
 1967 Austria 14/15/16 placement of 17, 2 points
 2003 Latvia 24 placement of 26, 5 points

Note:

We kept 1956 out of our list as each participating country competed with two songs each.

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