The Statistical Reality Behind Malta’s Eurovision Dream
Unless something truly exceptional happens, it is mathematically very difficult for Malta to win the Eurovision Song Contest.
This isn’t just about taste or patriotism, it’s also a matter of numbers. Every year, Eurovision, especially the public voting part favours countries with large populations, strong diasporas, or major cultural influence. Malta, with just over half a million people and few citizens living abroad, simply doesn’t have the numbers to compete equally.
When people vote from home, their votes are not adjusted based on population size. One vote from Malta counts the same as one vote from Germany, Ukraine, or Poland. But the difference lies in how many people from each country are actually voting and more importantly, how many of their citizens are living abroad and able to vote from outside their own borders. Countries like Israel, Ukraine Poland and Romania, for example, have millions of citizens living across Europe, many of whom reliably vote for their home country each year. This gives them a massive advantage in the public vote.
Malta, on the other hand, has a small population to begin with and only a limited number of Maltese people living abroad, most of them concentrated in a few countries. That’s why we sometimes manage to pick up public votes from places like Australia, where there’s a significant Maltese community. But in most other countries, there simply aren’t enough Maltese people to make a difference. Without that diaspora support, it becomes much harder for our entry to stand out in the televote, especially when competing against countries with strong voting networks across the continent.
Some people believe the jury vote balances this out by focusing on quality. In theory, yes. But in practice, juries also tend to favour countries they feel close to geographically, culturally, or politically. And recently we’ve seen a growing gap between jury votes and the public vote. This shows that voting is becoming more about who you support or feel connected to, rather than which song is objectively the best.
This kind of voting isn’t necessarily unfair or malicious, it’s just human nature. People are more likely to vote for countries they identify with or have some link to. That means bigger countries, or countries with lots of influence, have a constant advantage. Smaller nations like Malta start from behind, every time.
Of course, amazing songs can sometimes break through. Portugal did it in 2017. But these are rare cases. Most of the time, Malta would need everything to go perfectly great song, brilliant performance, strong story, and just the right moment to have a real shot.
In recent years, another factor has come into play: online visibility. Songs now build momentum weeks before the final through platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify. The more people interact with a song early on, the more the algorithms promote it, leading to even more attention.
This can help small countries, and this year Malta saw some success here. Our entry picked up a good amount of attention online before the contest, with a lot of shares and reactions from Eurovision fans. But there’s a catch. The people who drive online hype are often hardcore fans, not the average viewer at home who watches the show once a year and decides in the moment.
So while early buzz can help, it doesn’t guarantee success. In fact, it can sometimes backfire if the live performance doesn’t meet expectations. And on the night, it’s still the public and the numbers that decide. Countries with bigger populations and more support across Europe still have the upper hand.
In short, the rise of social media and streaming hasn’t changed the basic problem. Malta is still at a disadvantage, simply because we’re small. To win, we’d need to overcome both demographic and digital hurdles something that’s possible, but statistically very unlikely.
We should keep trying, of course. But we should also be honest about how the system works, and how far the odds are stacked against us. Not out of negativity but out of realism.
Photo credit: Sarah Louise Bennett/EBU