GOD and Eurovision judges agree: the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

A study by researchers in America has found that those who appear later in the annual singing contest have a better chance of winning. Judges consistently rank those who perform at the end higher than those at the beginning.

“It is a linear effect,” said Wandi Bruine de Bruin, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who analysed almost 50 years of Eurovision results as part of a wider study into the psychology of decision-making. “People who perform later get higher scores on average.”

The finding means that the secret to Ireland’s record tally of Eurovision wins may be out. The republic has won the contest seven times, and most of the victories were secured by late performers.

Six Eurovision winners in total have performed last and on a further eight occasions the winners performed one of the last three songs.

Bruine de Bruin says people may have a tendency to focus on the unique features of whoever they just saw. “If you do that, then every new person with something unique and positive will look better than the ones before,” she said.

“In Eurovision one may have a great voice, the next one may do a great dance. Every new person will look better. Of course if someone misses a note then you would give them a lower score but on average the scores go up.”

Ireland first won in 1970 when Dana, appearing last of 12 entries, sang All Kinds of Everything. “You can generally prove things one way or the other,” she said yesterday. “Whatever happened I’m just delighted the song won. I would have preferred to have gone on earlier to get it out of the way. I was a nervous wreck waiting and watching everybody else.”

On both occasions that Johnny Logan won the competition, he was third-last on stage. In 1980 he won with What’s Another Year after singing 17th out of 19. Seven years later he again won after performing 20th out of 22.

Shay Healy who wrote What’s Another Year said the late placing “probably helped but I think equally on that particular occasion Logan’s youth helped, his fresh-faced appeal also worked in his favour. The simplicity of the song connected with people”.

Both Linda Martin, with Why Me? in 1992, and Eimear Quinn, who won four years later singing The Voice, appeared late in the running order, 17th of 23 countries.

Martin agrees that performing late in the proceedings gave her an advantage. “It is true. I was happy with that placing. People do complain if they are on first. Most people want to go on near the end,” she said.

Niamh Kavanagh, who appeared midway through proceedings in 1993, bucks the trend, as do Charlie McGettigan and Paul Harrington, who won the following year despite going on third. For the rock’n’roll kids as well as Kavanagh, other proven Eurovision advantages may have come into play. Singing in English and being the host nation gave them an edge.

“Ireland also has the advantage of the language and once you win you get to perform at home which also adds to your probability of winning,” admitted Bruine de Bruin.

The bias was evident throughout the history of Eurovision even though different scoring systems have been in place over the years. Judges tended to favour the last competitors they saw whether they gave their marks straight after each performance or after they had seen all the contestants. Audiences using televoting, introduced in 1998, show the same bias towards later performers.

Bruine de Bruin said the competition was currently unfair because it was favouring later performers.

“If that’s the case, then yeah, that’s the case and that’s why we do have a draw (to decide the order of appearance) which is totally open,” said Svante Stockselius, the executive supervisor of Song Contest EBU, the event’s organisers.

The draw to decide the running order for this year’s contest, which will be held in Kiev, Ukraine, will take place on March 22.

Amazingly, Bruine de Bruin found no evidence that countries were favouring their neighbours in their votes, although recent contests were not included in her research.

Published in the journal Acta Psychologica, the study includes an analysis of the world and European figure- skating championships which found the same trend. Her findings also have implications for everyday life, such as job interviews, wine-tasting and teachers grading papers.

“I have a friend who was looking for a job and she knew about my research so she asked to go last when they were scheduling interviews and she got the job,” said Bruine de Bruin. “I don’t know whether that was because she went last. Hopefully it was because she is just good at what she does.”

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