After weeks of speculation on social media – would Chanel keep her first place, will it be Loreen again or someone else after all – the full 2023 ESC250 ranking list has finally been revealed. After checking all the votes, we can confirm that Käärijä is now in first place. In this article we give you some facts and figures about the top of the past New Year’s Eve.

Most entries by country

Entries from as many as 48 countries have made the list. If we know that 52 countries have participated throughout Eurovision, this means that barely four countries do not have an entry in the list. They are Andorra, Morocco, Monaco and Belarus.

Last year, Belarus did have an entry in the ESC250, the one of 2005 (Angelica Agurbash with Love Me Tonight). However, that one dropped 1067 places, from 240th to 1307th place, making it only the 13th highest noted Belarusian entry.

Sweden‘s supremacy seems waning in the ESC250. In 2021 it still had 25 entries in the list (a whopping 10% of the total), in 2022 that number dropped to 17 and in 2023 four more Swedish songs disappear from the list. They are Take Me to Your Heaven (1999), Move (2020), Främling (1983) and I Can’t Go On (2017).

Italy now has the most entries in the list with 16, Greece follows with 14 with then Sweden.

Gustaph in, Jérémie out

Among the Benelux countries, Belgium has seven entries in the list, one more than last year. Sandra Kim enters the list, as does, of course, Gustaph. Jérémie Makiese disappears from the list after just one year with Miss You.

The Netherlands has to be satisfied with five entries in the list, two less than the previous edition. Edsilia enters the list with Hemel en aarde, Xandra disappears, as do Maxine & Franklin Brown, Harmony was still on 250 last year but now loses heavily (-1228 places). Mia & Dion do not make the list. There are three entries from Luxembourg in the list. They are Tu te reconnaîtras (1973), Poupée de cire, poupée de son (1965) and Après toi (1972) – three of their five winners, incidentally.

Entries by decade

50s: 1 (last year 3 so -2)
60s: 3 (=)
70s: 7 (+1)
80s: 5 (-1)
90s: 28 (-5)
00s: 43 (-4)
10s: 82 (-9)
20s: 81 (+21)

So about all decades lose heavily or remain roughly status quo, in favour of the ’20s.

Entries by language

As might be expected, the English language is the big gobbler in the list. No fewer than 138 songs are (at least partly) in English. Far behind are Italian with 16 and French with 13.

There are two songs in Dutch in the list, De diepte and Hemel en aarde. There is also a song in a made-up language in the list, with Sanomi by Urban Trad, the Belgian runner-up from 2003.

Non-finalists

In the ESC250, of the songs that had to survive a semi-final since the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, only 12 entries can be found that failed to do so. All the others date from before or were automatically qualified for the final or did qualify for the final from the semi-finals.

Latvia 2023 is the highest ranked non-qualifying entry, coming in at 31st place. As a Belgian website, we would of course like to mention Kate Ryan, who is 182nd despite an early elimination in 2006. She has gained another 26 places compared to last year.

Most 12 points

If we were to make the ranking based on who got the most 12 points, a few things would change slightly. Käärijä remains at one, Chanel would come in at two, just ahead of both of Loreen’s entries, with Cornelia Jakobs still at five.

In the top 20, we would see, in order of appearance, Joker Out (2023), Helena Paparizou (2005), Hatari (2019), Secret Garden (1995) and Marco Mengoni (2023).

Rise, fall and newcomers

No fewer than 47 new songs turn up in the 2023 ESC250. 26 of them are Eurovision songs from the last edition, which means that from 2023, 11 songs do not make the list. One of them, remarkably, is TVORCHI from Ukraine, which finished sixth in the final at Liverpool.

Strongest descenders who were still in the list last year are Netherlands 1978 (-1228 from 250 to 1478), Belarus 2005 (-1067 from 240 to 1307) and Netherlands 1996 (-944 from 244 to 1188). Looking also outside the list, Sweden 1992 loses the third most number of places (-1011 from 263 to 1274).

On the risers‘ side, we have Israel 2000 (+794 from 1029 to 235), Montenegro 2008 (+719 from 1344 to 625) and Denmark 1957 (+540 from 1288 to 748).

This is followed by 14 more entries that rise sharply but still not enough to enter the ESC250. The next to do so is Spain 2007 in 123rd place, thanks to 452 place gains.

Despite all the newcomers, 155 songs out of all 1721 entries ever remain without points and so are not even found outside the overall ESC250.

Multiple listings for same artist

Throughout the history of the Song Contest, quite a few artists have popped up on the contestant list several times, some with more success than others when taking part again.

Elisabeth Andreassen, for instance, has participated four times, including as a member of Bobbysocks, but still does not make the list a single time. The same fate awaits four-time contestants Fud Leclercq, Peter, Sue & Marc and Valentina Monetta.

Of the multiple contestants, only Helena Paparizou (also as part of Antique), Lena Meyer-Landrut, Loreen, Marco Mengoni, Gjon’s Tears, VICTORIA, Daði og Gagnamagnið, Roxen, Go_A and The Roop are in the ESC250 with both their participations.

Winners

The ESC250 features 36 winners, five more than last year. Loreen is the highest of these with Tattoo. In contrast, one winner disappears, namely Charlotte Nilsson with Take Me to Your Heaven.

Three winners are in the top ten. Duncan Laurence loses his top ten listing but remains among the first 20. In that top 20, we find six Song Contest-winning songs. Helena Paparizou loses one place and is now at 21. The lowest ranked winner is Gigliola Cinquetti with 1964’s Non ho l’età at 249, with just above that Ireland 1994. Those two enter the list this way, as do Belgium 1986, Luxembourg 1972 and Italy 1990.