TellyStats 2018 In Review

With falling ratings, the axing of Big Brother, the X Factor on life-support - is the era of Reality TV drawing to a close? Perhaps, but TellyStats has had an incredibly strong year all the same. This article is simply to tell you where we are now and what's in the pipeline for 2019 and beyond.

Right Now

Even up to halfway through this year we were still very niche, known to only the most hardcore Specials punters. When Eurovision rolled around we had just 300 Twitter Followers. We upped our social media presence, added new features (like Twitter Live which is hugely popular) and put more work into the site's development. We now have just over 1,600 Twitter Followers, 600 of those followers came in the past 2 months alone. TellyStats is now known to be used by Reality TV lovers, punters, producers, contestants and bookies. At our peak, our Tweets reached over 700,000 impressions in a single month.

Our Sept 2018 hits were 4x higher than our Sept 2017 hits, our Oct 2018 hits were 4x higher than our Sept Oct hits, we received 2.5x the number of hits in Nov 2018 compared to the same period in 2017 and even though we're only halfway through the month, Dec 2018 is 3x higher than Dec 2017. Really positive figures and we're confident that next year will be even bigger. We've been so successful in fact that 2019 will have to feature some degree of scaling as the website/database has died a few times under load. We've been working to optimise various resources to try and eke out as much value out of our meagre infrastructure for as long as possible.

TellyStats has also proven itself a reliable source of insider information, providing the X Factor song list, running order and spoilers that no one else can provide. We've also recently posted I'm A Celebrity spoilers that no one has ever had before as well as the hugely-popular Strictly spoiler. We've watched markets shift on the posted information and we remain committed to maintaining our reputation as a reliable and unbiased source of accurate information for everyone.

2019 And Beyond

We're very near the point where we've provided all the useful information it's possible to get about Reality TV contestants and the focus now should be on presentation. Even so, there's still more to come. We're conscious that some social media stats (such as those for I'm A Celebrity or Big Brother) are fairly limited in usefulness besides a few select posts, as such, we're hoping to introduce Comments Analysis very soon, this will provide much-needed qualitative data to TellyStats. We're also looking to add iTunes Stats in time for Eurovision. In terms of front-end design, the website is still rough around the edges with a few design bugs and some features that are perpetually under construction! We have a huge to-do list written up which is a good year of development at least.

Beyond 2019 we're looking to branch out and incorporate Political monitoring to TellyStats, starting with the 2020 US Election. We have the infrastructure and code ready and don't think anyone out there can provide as much insight into individual runners from a social media perspective as we can.

For now at least, TellyStats doesn't advertise or ask for donations or subscriptions. We use our own stats to bet on the outcomes of Reality TV to fund the site, we've had a very profitable year indeed and hope that you've been equally successful also. The biggest rush comes from seeing people use the site and making money from the information it provides. We're still small but absolutely have our sights on surpassing the giants such as Wiwibloggs and TellyMix and feel we'll be up there in the next couple of years.

Daniel Gould

At the very end of the year, we received the sad news that Daniel Gould of Sofabet.com had passed away. Daniel's role as a pioneer in the Specials world can't be overstated - he was one of the few individuals who worked to understand the 'science' behind Reality TV, particularly with regards to the subtle, yet significant ways that audiences are subconsciously primed to feel a certain way about specific contestants. These ideas such as 'Red and Black' staging, the importance of the pimp slot, close-ups vs long shots, sunglasses/distracting costumes on contestants and much more are now common knowledge and largely originate from Daniel's insight.

Prior to creating TellyStats, I'd followed Sofabet's Specials coverage for many years, including the times he featured on the William Hill Specials Podcast. Daniel and I were in contact and I gave him the running order to the 2017 X Factor every week simply to try and repay him in a small way for the help his blog had given me. He offered to let me be a guest author for Sofabet. Daniel was a courteous fellow to me and from what I hear from others in the Specials community, just as decent to everyone else he knew. A huge loss at a tragically young age, my thoughts are with Daniel's friends and family at this difficult time.

And Finally...

Thank you for using TellyStats, have a fantastic Christmas and New Year - let's do it all over again in 2019!

Strictly 2018: Who Do We Think Will Win?

Strictly season is finally upon us again! In this article we go over each contestant and see if we can predict their finishing position. We've also put our money where our mouth is and submitted our prediction to the Prediction Game.

As time passes, we've got better at predicting Strictly winners, they all seem to share a common element - and that is that they have a journey. Contestants fit into a specific bracket in terms of their dancing ability. If they're absolutely rubbish, obviously they won't stand a chance of winning - but conversely if they're too good too soon they put themselves at a distinct disadvantage as we've also seen many times before.

Take 2016's Danny Mac, in this video we see him dancing the Cha-Cha to 'Cake By The Ocean' in Week 1, a routine packed with content. Yet Danny performs it at a level that could easily be at Grand Final standard. It's almost impossible to tell which dancer is the professional! Unfortunately for Danny, that was his key mistake and he ended as a runner-up. We've seen it many times though, Natalie Gumede, Denise Van Outen, Alexandra Burke to name a few - all arguably the best dancers of their series, all ended as runners-up. If you start off flawlessly then you can only either match or disappoint people's expectations from there - it's incredibly difficult to exceed them.

Almost all Strictly winners have been mid-table in the first few weeks, dancing ability is one thing the voting public take into account - but the journey of watching someone blossom into a natural dancer before your eyes is what the public really like. Abbey Clancy, Joe McFadden, Louis Smith all fell into this category. Obviously there are other considerations such as their image with the public but by-and-large, the journey is what matters.

15th Place: Seann Walsh
Seann appears to be at a disadvantage in many important ways. Firstly early indications suggest that he isn't a natural dancer and may struggle to have that wiggle in the Latin dances or grace in the Ballroom dances. Unfortunately he's also one of the least well-known celebrities so may not have a significant fanbase to call on. Finally he can't even get the middle-England mums in a tizzy - Lee Ryan is their eye candy this year. Katya is one of the best choreographers though, will she have something up her sleeve to save him?

14th Place: Kate Silverton
While she seems like a lovely person, again, early footage suggests that Kate is very much an amateur with a long way to catch up to the rest of the pack. At 48 years old age isn't on her side, particularly for learning a new skill, most winners tend to be between the ages of 20 and 40. Watching the group dance threw us a few hints that she may not be in the competition very long. She's been partnered with Alijaz who is a popular professional, Kate may need to hope Alijaz's shirt comes off ASAP.

13th Place: Susannah Constatine
Partnered with Anton already means Susannah is widely expected to be a duffer. Anton is said to be the gran's favourite though which should see them safe for a few weeks. As a contestants though you'd wonder what kind of person (especially women) would vote for Susannah - a celebrity who's made a living from telling women they look crap. Susannah has been quite open about her lack of dancing ability and although the idea of her being this year's joke act has been thrown about, we're not biting.

12th Place: Graeme Swan
Unknown to us at TellyStats and a likely unknown to most viewers up until now, Graeme looks every inch the dad-dancer. Oti is a fabulous dancer and choreographer though and we suspect she'll be likely to be able to squeeze some blood out of this stone. Graeme could easily be imagined to be the comedy act this year if he really is terrible. Graeme's not a bad looking chap either so that works in his favour - but at 39 years old we reckon beyond a comedic Salsa, he may be quickly shown the door.

11th Place: Katie Piper
To suffer what she's suffered and to go onto achieve great things, Katie is an inspirational figure, no doubt. It's likely she'll have a ton of goodwill directed her way too. We originally had high hopes for her dancing ability but Katie's protestations that she's not a natural dancer may prove to be true. Many of this year's female celebrities appear to be young women with a degree of dancing experience, dance experience that Katie lacks, early footage suggests that they may have an insurmountable headstart over her.

10th Place: Lee Ryan
Anyone that watched Lee in the Celebrity Big Brother house knows he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if Kem Cetinay of Dancing on Ice taught us anything it's that you don't need brains to be a good dancer. Blue never did any real dance routines besides the odd side-to-side shuffle so no advantage there, however he did attend Sylvia Young and Italia Conti theatre schools so may be able to bust some decent moves. Women watching Strictly are likely to be the perfect age-range to be Blue fans so we may end up eating our words by placing Lee 10th.

Fuming about our predictions? Submit your own!

Predict the finishing position of all of this year's Strictly celebrities and compare the accuracy of your prediction to all other submissions, will you top the leaderboard?
Click here to make your prediction!

9th Place: Stacey Dooley MBE
Of all the celebrities, Stacey is a difficult one to place. Much of her performance in the group dance was off camera and when in-shot she tended to be dancing on the spot. There are individuals who have high hopes for Stacey in the competition however we're not wholly convinced. Stacey does have the advantage of being paired with Kevin from Grimsby who knows how to extract the potential from celebrities on the dancefloor. Stacey looks pretty but as an individual she's very switched on and it wouldn't be a surprise if she displayed a strong determination to do well in this competition.

8th Place: Joe Sugg
Poor Joe, no one under the age of 20 had a clue who he is and now that they do know, they say he isn't enough of a celebrity to compete. Joe has no dancing experience at all however his professional partner, Diane Buswell has expressed surprise at how quickly he's picking it up which suggests some potential. Joe is used to making prerecorded videos but will he be able to exude confidence live on TV? He has millions of social media followers however reality TV history tells us that that won't help him much here.

7th Place: Faye Tozer
As an ex-member of Steps, Faye may be expected to be a good dancer, and she is likely have an advantage. However Steps dance routines had little to do with disciplined dances such as those shown on Strictly so we don't buy the idea that her headstart falls into unfairness. The footage we've seen suggests a little stiffness in her movements as she practices the Cha Cha. As with Lee Ryan, the Steps fanbase fit the age bracket of the Strictly demographic so she should make it a decent way through the competition. However, we don't have nearly as much confidence for her compared to many.

6th Place: Lauren Steadman
Fresh from her gold medal win at the ITU World Championships, Lauren, who was born without her right forearm competes this year. As a paralympian, you can be certain she has a hugely competitive streak and a hunger to win. To her disadvantage though, not having a forearm will make it incredibly difficult for her to create the lines required for dances such as the Rumba, the hands are an expressive part of many dance styles. Furthermore she's been partnered with AJ who is one of the less-popular professionals, his choreography for his partners has also left much to be desired in the past.

5th Place: Dr Ranj Singh
Dr Ranj is another unknown for us as an individual so we had to research him and his dancing ability. He appears to show promise in his 'First Steps' video released by Strictly for each contestant. Janette declares that he has rhythm and can smile throughout the whole routine which suggests a degree of ease. Dr Ranj isn't likely to have to many qualms about glamming it up on the dancefloor and he seems to have a positive, can-do attitude. We're fairly confident he'll end up on the upper end of the final tally.

4th Place: Charles Venn
We're now entering joint runners-up territory and Charles Venn is our punt to make it to that level. Being partnered with Karen may be a disadvantage though as she's had negative publicity following her divorce with Kevin from Grimsby. The early footage we've seen in both the group dance and Charles' 'First Steps' video suggest someone who will not only dance well, but also pick things up quickly. Charles fits the 'journey' demographic but may simply be a bit too old to keep up with some of his more youthful competitors. A good looking guy and probably a good dancer, we're happy to place him up here.

3rd Place: Danny John-Jules
At 58 years old, Danny is this year's oldest contestant. However we see him walking the same path as Pamela Stephenson and Debbie McGee of the older contestant who suprises everyone with the natural dancing ability. In truth, Danny is a trained dancer so already has a significant advantage - indeed in his 'First Steps' video alone we see him do a triple spin. Time may be catching up with Danny though as reports are that he's already got a swollen foot. Some have questioned whether Danny's personality will be a good fit for the show, that remains to be seen. We see Danny doing well as he exceeds audiences expectations.

2nd Place: Ashley Roberts
As a member of the Pussycat Dolls, with their focus on dancing (certainly wasn't singing) as well as having been a judge on Dancing on Ice, Ashley is probably considered to be the contestant with the biggest starter advantage this year - we expect her to have the highest marked score on the first show. Ashley came 2nd in I'm A Celebrity, losing out by just 0.5% of the vote, she lost to Eastenders legend Charlie Brooks, no mean feat at all, she has a lovely personality. That she's American shouldn't be too big an issue with the Strictly audiences, Anastacia was treated fairly by the voting public. The biggest problem for Ashley is what we detailed at the beginning of the article, she's likely to just be too good too early - with nowhere left to go she may struggle to excite the audiences and create a moment.

Winner: Vick Hope
An unknown celebrity to most people, what we've seen on Vick so far suggests she's highly competent, despite having no dance training. As well as being a gorgeous young woman, she's Cambridge-educated which implies a thirst for learning and improvement - reports are that she has been practicing 8 hours day. The footage of her in the group dance and in the 'First Steps' video is promising. She's likely to hit the right spot on the good-but-not-too-good measure in the early weeks, setting herself up for the journey ahead. Vick has been paired with new professional Graziano Di Prima who seem to have the enthusiastic approval of the ladies too. All in all, we think she stands the best chance this year and we'd be surprised if she isn't among the top 4 nervously waiting behind the Glitterball trophy at the end of the series.

That's our prediction, now it's time for yours!

Predict the finishing position of all of this year's Strictly celebrities and compare the accuracy of your prediction to all other submissions, will you top the leaderboard?
Click here to make your prediction!

Britain's Got Talent 2018: Grand Final Predictions

So after 7 audition shows and 5 semi-finals we've finally reached the Britain's Got Talent final. Our stats have been mostly accurate so far this series (with one notable exception, damn you semi-final 5), we hope the final won't throw up any unexpected surprises and anyone using TellyStats can walk away a little better off than they were.

Anyone who's watched BGT in the past knows how crucial the running order is in the final - so any predictions made before that's known are speculative at best - this is more of a guess at where the contestants stand at the present moment. It's worth noting that last year's semi final results didn't particularly reflect the voting in the final. We'll have a go at guessing who will win and do our best to provide justification. If you look at previous year's Britain's Got Talent, acts below the top 5 tend to be separated by a couple of percent or less, so take that with a pinch of salt - but please comment below and let us know your thoughts.

11th Place: Calum Courtney
Semi 2 appeared to have decent acts that would go on to head the market, Ronan Busfield, Magus Utopia and Andrew Lancaster, in the end though all three of those acts flopped and made the heat much more open. Calum sang a truly horrendous version of "Isn't She Lovely?" dedicated to his mother, certain to haunt him in school corridors in a few years time. Calum's voice was flat throughout but he surprisingly came 2nd on the public vote, given the dearth of talent, it was likely the mums that gave him those extra votes. Had B-Positive Choir not sung first, it's likely they would have gone through instead. We, like most people have Calum a solid last.

10th Place: B-Positive Choir
Wildcards for the final never do particularly well considering they've already been once rejected by the voting public and so it shall be for the B-Positive Choir. Standing for a good cause is obviously important so we welcome their inclusion. A choir is always difficult to connect to, their singing isn't anything to write home about and there isn't anything particularly special about this act altogether. Easily near the bottom.

9th Place: Donchez Dacres
Again from the second semi, Donchez topped the public vote reprising his self-penned "Wiggle n' Wine" song. Looking at the social media stats, Donchez received among the fewest Likes of all winners. Crucially though in his victory speech, Donchez stated that he would not be singing "Wiggle n' Wine" (singing acts normally reprise their audition song in the Grand Final, but the producers probably didn't think he'd make it that far). This new song will have to be something special to hit the same spot. Furthermore, Donchez got through his audition thanks to David Walliams' golden buzzer, Donchez made it through his semi because he was the only one who knew full-well how crap he was and embraced it whereas the rest of the contestants tried in earnest to convince us they weren't.

8th Place: Giang Brothers
The only foreign act in the final and that being the case, inevitably the victim of morons complaining the show is called Britain's Got Talent. Attraction managed to get over the line a few years ago despite being foreign, but their act was something special, clever and played on the emotions - the Giang Brothers unfortunately do not. They're further encumbered by being one of the few acts in the final with low repeatability value, a singer can sing a different song - there's only so much you can do with two gymnasts. Finally, they re-did their audition trick in the final which suggests they may not have much material. It's a shame because their act is actually quite excellent. We feel though that a low-placing awaits them in the final.

7th Place: Jack & Tim
Originally showing the strongest stats of the auditions, Jack and Tim lost their momentum in the semi with a song that really didn't match the quality and emotion of the first. Jack's voice in particular wasn't great. The Goodacre family have history in showbiz, Jack was part of School Of Rock in the West End and was also on The Voice Kids, his ease in front of the camera though has given him an air of precociousness which has been picked up by commenters. We've placed Jack and Tim here because we think they'll reprise their audition song "Lucky Ones" which, if sung well, should do better than their semi performance.

6th Place: The D Day Darlings
If you wanted a masterclass in how the producers can ruin an act, here you have it. The pushed "patriotism" so hard down the audience's throats that it actually became distasteful to many watching, British flags were everywhere as you'd expect, but it was done in more of a kind of "nineteen eighty-four" nationalistic dystopia way, it reminded me of the North Korean Moranbong Band. The wheeling out of the war veterans felt exploitative and really had no connection to the performance (see Richard Jones' performances for the correct use of war veterans). Finally, Rule Britannia never sounded so outdated, it's actually feels like a bit of a dig to sing it, we don't rule the waves - or indeed anything anymore. The D Day Darlings had the pimp slot in the first semi, with patriotism cranked to 11 and still didn't win the public vote. The performance for the final should be stripped back with a focus on their commendable charity work instead.

5th Place: Gruffydd Wyn Roberts
With a horrifically manufactured audition, Gruffydd received a golden buzzer and had Robert White not played an absolute blinder in the 3rd semi, Gruffydd would probably have taken the win there too. We've never been convinced by this young man's voice, to our (unprofessional) ears, he sounds like an amateur attempting to imitate opera, it sounds rather low quality. He will probably be singing Nessun Dorma in the final which is one of around 2 or 3 opera songs that exist in the world of Simon Cowell. To his credit, he did sing a relatively unknown song in the semi-finals and still got through so perhaps we're being overly harsh. Gruffydd has the backing of Wales behind him, though the Welsh support has been shown to be made of paper in the past.

4th Place: DVJ
Who'd have thought an act with close ties to Simon Cowell would be in the final..? However, we don't think Simon even wants them to win - it would scream blatant favouritism and damage the BGT brand, plus Diversity have already won the show once, having effectively the same act win twice isn't good either. A respectable top-5 finish should give them the boost they need while keeping Cowell in the clear.

3rd Place: Micky P Kerr
Of all the semi finals, Micky's win took everyone by surprise, most thought it was between Mandy Muden, Giang Brothers and Father Ray Kelly - Micky was hardly on the radar and certainly not on it to win. He was matched at 50/1 to win his semi (that's a 2% chance). None of our stats had him close, we even checked a few places not reflected on TellyStats for more of an idea - again, nothing we could find could justify Micky's win. We can normally look back and see where we went wrong, not this time though. This makes Micky the hardest person to predict as he clearly has a well-hidden voter base somewhere, a win from mid-running order behind 3 other well-received acts is no mean feat.

Cowell has said that the winner will perform at the America's Got Talent final, we wonder how Micky's brand of comedy will go down over there given our different comedy styles. He's fairly funny but is he world class? Will the Americans be amused or bemused? Isn't Micky the kind of person you find at a regular comedy night anywhere?

2nd Place: Robert White
Of the 3 comedians, we definitely prefer Robert the most, Robert's stats are second only to Lost Voice Guy's. But did Robert's excellent Wednesday performance steal a bunch of Lost Voice Guy's votes rendering the stats less useful? Robert is also certainly more creative than Lost Voice Guy, who's subject matter is rather singular. Robert's comedy is also rather quick, every line is a zinger - audiences tend to be a little more forgiving of Lost Voice Guy whereas Robert has to work much harder, this quickness though means that if he has a sequence that doesn't hit the mark and breaks the rhythm then it looks a lot worse than it does for Lost Voice Guy who doesn't need to worry about comedic timing or tone.

A big question for us is also about which comedian Simon Cowell would want to work with more - Robert appears to be quite humble and self-deprecating which are both attributes that Cowell dislikes, Cowell likes to see himself as someone who 'saves' people and elevates them, the opportunity isn't so much there with Robert. I also feel Robert's aspergers could make him a little more difficult for Simon - who demands absolute compliance - to work with. Finally, there's the question of the suitability of Robert's material for the royal family as they would likely become his subject matter.

Britain's Got Talent normally places acts they want to win towards the end of the running order in the final, but we suspect - perhaps wrongly - that Robert will not be the last comedian to perform.

1st Place: Lost Voice Guy
In Lost Voice Guy's semi final performance, one of his jokes was: "I was invited to do a radio interview, but I couldn't be bothered going, so I sent my computer and a note saying 'Press Play'." - all we can say to that is: Indeed. So it's safe to say we aren't fans of his comedy - the jokes are samey, not that great (in our opinion) and as he says, he is basically just a man pressing play, as well as a bit of shrugging and smiling. However, like Jack Carroll before him, this was never about the quality of the jokes. Lost Voice Guy is undeniably something new that people haven't seen before and that's valuable. Cowell is a big fan of the emotional message and Lost Voice Guy is inspiring considering the hand he's been dealt. Disabled people are often spoken down to or ignored in society and Lost Voice Guy shows that his despite the disability, he is as deserving of time and respect that anyone able-bodied would take for granted. I think he would be particularly popular in the US too.

Lost Voice Guy got by far the most Likes and Retweets on his "Finalist" video, his stats across all social media were impressive too. We suspect he'll take a decent chunk of what TellyStats would regard as the 'silent' vote and likely grab the attention of viewers who only watch the Grand Final (usually around 1-2 million more). It's quite likely he'll be on late in the running order too, we think either last or second-to-last.

"Finalist" Tweets Stats

For each semi, the Britain's Got Talent Twitter feed posts a "Finalist" video of each qualifier. We took the Likes and Retweets count of those 35 minutes after each one was posted for each contestant throughout the week. Let's have a quick look at those numbers.

With a few exceptions, we feel this is a decent representation of each contestant's popularity, Lost Voice Guy clearly leading by a long way, however he had much less competition in his semi, as opposed to Robert White who had a few stronger challengers. While we think there will be a significant transfer of votes from Lost Voice Guy to Robert White, we're not sure it'll overturn his lead. This is a semi in which only 3-4 people could realistically win and I regard the 3 comedians to all be in with a chance.

Ultimately, the majority of the buzz has really only focussed on Robert White and Lost Voice Guy who we suspect will be the final 2 individuals standing on stage. While we much prefer Robert's comedy, we reckon that for other reasons mentioned above, Lost Voice Guy might take the win. We really aren't sure, if you want a fairly safe bet, stick a tenner on them both now, switch off the TV and by the time you wake up in the morning, you're quite likely to have doubled your money.

Eurovision 2018: Grand Final Review

What a final that was, and what a Eurovision overall! Israel came out on top in the end. We couldn't be more thrilled with the result and in particular, the accuracy of our stats. If you'd been following the TellyStats articles with tips on how to read the stats as well as hints as to where diaspora may be influencing the counts, you should have done well.

The TellyStats website was packed with punters and Eurovision fans checking the stats, the server was running over a stable capacity at some points but luckily it still chugged along, albeit a little slower than normal. At 10:44pm after all acts had performed but before the results were called, we posted:

How did we make that call? Admittedly they were both favourites so hardly rocket-science but our call was based on the stats too. Often after an event we get people messaging us pointing out individual stats that don't fit the result, occasionally the stats are completely off, but most of the time it's the individual not taking enough information into account. If read holistically with context in mind, the stats are highly accurate. We are working on ways that will make it easier for people to discount obviously misleading stats but we'll go through some simple methods in this article.

How Did We Do?

The table to the left shows the average stats share for all countries across all social media platforms. So if Country X got 5% on Facebook, 5% on Twitter, 5% on YouTube and 17% on Instagram, that would total 32% divided by 4 categories, giving an average of 8%.

We first want to point out that there are still other considerations that need to be made, but doing things by this method is far superior to just looking at Facebook stats, or just looking at Twitter stats. If one set of stats is extremely different to all others, averaging them out helps to minimise that difference.

Looking at the table on the left, in a field of 26, just a few percent can make a big difference - and what do we see? The top 3 by a decent margin are Cyprus and Israel followed by Italy.

Now we hit some interesting results, the average odds have Lithuania, the UK, Ukraine and Spain next, followed by the Czech Republic and Albania. Here's where we have to start thinking smart.

Context: First off, let's immediately discount the United Kingdom from this list. The only reason it got the stats it did was because of the stage invasion, so let's throw that one away.

Outliers: Lithuania and Albania topped our Facebook stats in both the final and their semi, but did MUCH worse in all other platforms. This suggest that Facebook is highly popular in those countries and it would be wise to discount the Facebook stats. Across Twitter, YouTube and Instagram Lithuania would then get an average of 2.75% and Albania would get an average of 2.67%. One of our priorities will be to make a page that makes it clear which stats should be treated with suspicion based on one set of stats vastly outweighing others. On this basis, Lithuania and Albania can now be discarded.

Diaspora and Social Media Presence: This is the hardest one to verify on stats alone and your own judgement needs to come into play. We'd mentioned Spain in our previous articles getting incredibly high social media stats. In our last article though, we speculated that Spain's diaspora was pushing things up. We then watched Spain's performance in the live final. It was abysmal and yet, up went the stats. That's when you know something's wrong and to be extremely wary of placing money on Spain.

With the UK, Lithuania, Albania and Spain discounted, you're now left with a pretty accurate representation of the televote. But wait, there's more, why is Cyprus still beating Israel? This is where we have to get really mathematical. I'm not going to go into the extreme details but the basic premise is that Israel's average percent was 7.68%. They got 5.92% on Facebook, 7.93% on Twitter, 9.83% on YouTube and 7.06% on Instagram. None of their stats on ANY platform veered too far from their average which gives them a high degree of reliability.

Now let's look at Cyprus, their average was 9.64%, but their Facebook average was 5.52%, Twitter was 7.07%, YouTube was 15.92% and Instagram was 10.05%. So their stats, despite being higher overall were much more unstable and therefore less reliable than those of Israel, still high enough to be a threat - but enough wiggle room in the uncertainty for Israel to be winning. By the way, who tops the list of unstable stats by this measure? Lithuania and Albania...

These are very simplistic methods that can help you to improve your reading of the stats. People with stats-based backgrounds are probably tearing their hair out right now but I'm trying to explain this in as much of a 'mass-market' way as possible so that it's easy for anyone to pick up. As the site develops we'll be implementing pages that make it clear which stats are more reliable so that you don't have to do the maths.

What We Got Right and Wrong

So with all this in mind, we were able to confidently say that the televote would be between Israel and Cyprus - but we didn't know which. In our previous article we wrote: "...despite all the craziness in the market, it will most likely come down to Israel or Cyprus. We think Israel will have a high jury vote and a medium televote whereas Cyprus will have a high televote and a medium jury vote...", we flipped a coin and guessed Cyprus would win out of the two but in the end, Israel beat Cyprus on both jury and televote.

My personal feeling was that it was Netta's best performance and Cyprus' worst. On that basis and on the stats, I dutched both countries heavily but also made one large bet on Israel that would break-even if Cyprus won. TellyStats ended the night with 3 grand profit, which considering how crazy this year was, we're happy with - though last year we won 15 grand. Austria topped the jury vote, I knew that it'd be decimated in the televote but still put down a little money to reduce my red. Just goes to show that you can spend 2 years developing a site all about stats and still have a moment of weakness...

As for other entrants outside of Cyprus and Israel, we really didn't have much of a clue, Ireland hitting 6/1 was utterly ridiculous and I believe had more to do with punter's panicking and covering yet another red. This kind of FOMO (fear of missing out) is something you see all the time in financial markets, people buying on market movements rather than fundamentals - and fundamentals is what we try to focus on at TellyStats. Norway, missed the mark, Bulgaria had long been dismissed, I think our article on France turned out to be accurate too. Beyond the two frontrunners it felt like a bit of a lottery, very few people would have had money on Austria to place 3rd, even if Cesar does have an excellent voice. I believe around 11 contestants hit 2nd favourite this year, in a field of 26 that's a remarkable event. We predicted in our previous article that Italy was a good bet for Top Big 5 based on it's YouTube video hits - it was a good shout but sadly missed, Italy did beat Germany in the televote, but Germany just topped it thanks to the juries.

Once again, we do have to take the good with the bad. Our stats completely missed the Ukraine, it's YouTube stats are the only reason it has a high average on the table above. I suspect it may be because it was the very first act on and people hadn't opened up Twitter/Facebook etc by that time whereas there's more of a delay with YouTube. Similarly, the stats missed Moldova entirely, it's success may reflect the Westernised social media platforms we monitor. Aside from those two though, everything is broadly in the right place and we have good reason to be pleased.

What Next?

TellyStats has been in (often hurried) development since it's inception, we still consider the stats we show to be 'basic' and the information that we can eventually display with more time is far more accurate than what's currently here. This was the first year though that we went 'mainstream' and people really hit the website, used it as a source of information, referenced it and talked about it in blogs and chatrooms. Our Twitter followers are constantly going up and we suspect things will be even crazier next year too.

For the Eurovision Final we launched Twitter Live stats. They've successfully predicted the winner of every reality TV show since Strictly 2017 and Eurovision was no exception - we do need to work on the back-end of that though to get a larger set of data. We're also going to be launching a few new stats metrics this year including Followers for Twitter/Instagram and Spotify as well a iTunes tracking for Eurovision next year. There's still so much basic work to do on the site such as the Contestants page but please stick with us for other reality TV shows and if not, we hope our website was useful to you and hope to see you again for Eurovision 2019.

Eurovision 2018: Semi-Final 2 Review

Pop, rock, country, electronic and more brown envelopes flying about than an explosion at a Royal Mail sorting depot. The second semi final came and went with what we'd describe as mostly-expected results.

The quality of our stats matched those of the previous semi, of the 10 qualifiers across the 4 platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram), the stats correctly had 32/40 qualifiers in the Top 10 for both semis. Not a bad result but there was one big downer for us last night, compared to the first semi. Although we have no control over the numbers on social media, we want to be seen as a place people can go for quality info and to make money rather than lose it - so we'll explain why we were unsatisfied below. First, let's take a quick look at our results:

How Did We Do?

On the face of it, pretty good, 6 contestants qualified across all platforms with another 2 contestants qualifying on 3 out of 4. Right now, Twitter is leading in terms of accuracy having correctly predicted 9/10 qualifiers in both semis now. This is followed by Facebook which correctly predicted 9/10 in the first semi and 8/10 in the second.

What We Got Right and Wrong

Considering this is a semi-final with a bunch of ex-Soviet countries it's probably an achievement we managed to predict so many correctly, though to be fair, Georgia, Russia and Romania were so terrible that no amount of bribery could get them over the line this year. A big deal was made about Russia's qualification record but we weren't concerned, the stats had Julia way down the bottom, the only exception was YouTube which - as we mentioned in a previous article - we suspect was more 'car crash' viewers than people watching for pleasure.

Many Eurovision pundits were also dismissive of Australia's chances, while Jessica's vocals weren't fantastic, she had a strong showing across the stats and was our biggest winner. For reasons outside of the performance, there was always a decent chance Australia would make it to the final. Norway, despite giving an solid performance and also progressing, was still a disappointment for it's backers according to the stats, nowhere near the top of any of the tables - and certainly not justifying it's then-second favourite position in the market. Norway went from 7.4 to a high of 32.

We'd written on another forum that we suspected Slovenia's technical 'fail' might fool enough people into giving them a sympathy vote - coupled with an excellent running order slot they just about managed it. The big mystery for us was Serbia's qualification, maybe our ignorant Western ears don't hear what the Balkanites hear as for us it was as dreadful as ever. Indeed we have to eat our words when in our review of the song we said that "if this song was the only performance at Eurovision the judges would sooner toss the trophy into the crowd than award it to this mess". Clearly we got that wrong...our unsubstantiated suspicion is a few brown envelopes were strategically gifted from the Serbia delegation.

As in the last semi-final, there was one result that got us down and this time it was Poland, qualifying in all of our stats platforms and top of the table on Facebook (that one hurt the most and the main reason we weren't as satisfied as we could have been last night). We thought the performance was pretty good and had placed a decent bet on them progressing but started to get cold feet and lay it off a little. We ended up breaking-even on the night as a result of Poland not qualifying. We suspect they were top 10 in the televote but were brought down by the jury votes. There may have been a few people who were caught out by Poland's non-qualification so apologies to anyone who came undone like we did on the stats. As an aside, Malta got an excellent Facebook result but bombed everywhere else - as to an explanation for that one we have no idea, maybe just an anomaly.

Big 5 + Portugal

Before we talk about the final, these are the YouTube stats for the Big 5 + Portugal. As mentioned in our previous article, Spain has a strong showing on these stats but we're starting to suspect that diaspora is playing a big part in them. Couple that with the fact they're singing 2nd in the final means we have to (reluctantly) write-off their chances.

The result that surprised us was Italy, beating France and Germany despite them being 3rd and 4th favourites in the market right now (not that that means much, most entrants have been 3rd or 4th favourites by this point...). Furthermore, Italy have taken the very last slot in the running order whereas France and Germany perform right in the middle of the final. This in my mind makes Italy a decent bet for Top Big 5.

What Next?

First off, this needs to be made absolutely clear - there are plenty of cocky and dismissive people in this space and many of them will confidently say that country X will win - they're lying and should be treated with suspicion. This market has to be the most erratic ever seen in Eurovision - anyone placing big money on short-priced favourites has been burned badly this year. Punters getting burnt only serves to make the market more erratic as they then pile onto the next hyped country in an attempt to recover their losses - only for the cycle to repeat. This is why we suspect many of the acts at the top of the market aren't there out of merit, but out of punter's panic.

We've not had any serious money in the Outright yet and we don't have any particular affinity to any song or country so we reckon our predictions are about as objective as you'll find anywhere. Our suspicion is that despite all the craziness in the market, it will most likely come down to Israel or Cyprus. We think Israel will have a high jury vote and a medium televote whereas Cyprus will have a high televote and a medium jury vote - it wouldn't surprise us if the result is a close one. You're out of luck if you want to wait for either of their stats to come in on the night, both Israel and Cyprus perform late in the show so you'll have the 10 - 20 minute stats available at best (that is, if you're a registered user). At a stretch we think Cyprus will get a greater share of the jury vote than Israel will get of the televote, Cyprus' semi-final numbers have also been stronger than Israel's on all metrics which suggests this is likely to be true. Our best guess for now is that Cyprus wins.

Our advice to you would be to not get too invested in the Outright market and instead target the Top 10 and Top 5 markets. The stats are likely to be too close to call for Israel and Cyprus in the final either way. You should be able to get a reasonable indication of whereabouts countries have placed by analysing the stats and focus your efforts in making money on the Top X markets instead.