EUROVISION SCOREBOARD
Eurovision zero points
“Nul points” is one of Eurovision's best-known phrases, but a zero on the scoreboard has meant different things under different voting systems.
What does “nul points” mean?
In the simplest sense, it means an entry finished with zero points. Under modern split voting, however, a country can receive zero from the juries or zero from the public and still have a non-zero overall score. A true total zero means neither component contributed any points.
Zero points were common under some early systems
Luxembourg 1962 produced four zero-point entries: Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. London 1963 also had four: Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Copenhagen 1964 and Naples 1965 each produced another four zeroes, followed by two in 1966 and one in 1967.
1962 results → · 1963 results → · 1964 results → · 1965 results →
James Newman: zero from both sides in 2021
The United Kingdom's James Newman finished the Rotterdam 2021 Grand Final with zero jury points and zero televote points for “Embers”. That produced a total score of zero under the split jury/public system.
Notable Eurovision zero-point results
This is a selection of well-known Grand Final examples, not a claim to be an exhaustive list of every zero in every historical voting format.
Why point totals cannot be compared blindly
Eurovision has changed its jury sizes, scoring rules, qualification system and public-vote structure many times. A zero from the 1960s or 1980s and a zero under today's split scoreboard are historically related but not statistically identical situations.