The jury points and thus half of all points had already been awarded early on Sunday morning when the camera caught the German delegation's sofa in the Green Room.

Malik Harris wasn't overwhelmed, he was laughing, had a glass in his hand and made a victory sign when he noticed the camera.

There was still hope.

Peter Philipp Schmitt

Editor in the department "Germany and the World".

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He and his "Rockstars" were the only ones who received zero points from the juries from the 40 countries participating in this year's Eurovision Song Contest (ESC).

But now the audience points followed, and the German could have jumped far ahead - like maybe Zdob și Zdub & Frații Advahov from Moldova, who were awarded by the juries for their funny folk-rock-punk number "Trenulețul". only 14 points, but received 239 points a little later from the spectators and ended up in seventh place.

Good face to the not necessarily bad game

There was a rude awakening for Malik Harris: only six points from the viewers.

That must be sobering for an artist who wants to inspire his audience, especially during live performances.

But he continued to make a good face for the not necessarily bad game.

The fact that some countries have very few and some with a particularly large number of points at the ESC also has to do with the rating system.

Both the jury and the audience ratings are converted into points.

It works like this: Each jury member, five in a jury, has to put the entries they are allowed to vote on in an order.

From what he thinks is the best to the worst.

From this, an overall order (place one to 25) is determined.

From this, together with the overall order of the viewer voting, the national score is determined.

Each country can give a participant up to 24 points - twelve by the jury, twelve by the spectators.

However, points can only be awarded ten times, i.e. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ten and twelve.

A country that comes eleventh, which isn't really bad, gets zero points.

So if Malik Harris finished 11th 80 times, he ended up with zero points.

Since usually a few countries - this year in the jury's evaluation above all the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, Ukraine, Portugal, Greece and Italy - received a particularly high number of points from all of them, there is a high probability that the rest of the finalists with very few points at the end.

Nobody wants to punish Germany for anything

The German jury - Michelle, Max Giesinger, Tokunbo, Jess Schöne and Christian Brostoch - awarded their 12 points to the UK, followed by Ukraine, Spain, Sweden, Azerbaijan, Australia, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Romania, who watched German TV viewers Ukraine at the top, followed by Moldova, Poland, Serbia, UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Norway.

Here you can see very well that the same six countries benefited from points in both cases.

But of course it's not just because of the points awarded that the German contribution has been last three times and second last twice since 2015. In between, Michael Schulte's fourth place ("You Let Me Walk Alone") in 2018 stands out.

The talk that other countries just don't like Germany or punish it for something is complete nonsense.

Certainly there are sensitivities, as the war against Ukraine gave this year's winners Kalush Orchestra a boost.

But that 40 countries from Iceland to Australia allied against us is very far-fetched.