TOP 67 Eurovision Years by Average Camera Shots

I counted the number of camera shots in every single Eurovision performance (other than 1956 and 1964 for obvious reasons), and in this video, we will find out the top 67 contests by average camera shot count!

A camera shot refers to a continuous recording by one camera. When the scene cuts from one camera to another, that makes a second camera shot.

The songs shown for each year have the highest amount of camera shots in their contest. Ties in the rankings by year have been left in chronological order of when the country performed, but if there's a tie for the most, then I chose the shortest song (as it's more fast paced to cover the same amount of shots in less time).

With the advancement of technology, Eurovision performances (and televised music in general) have evolved into a complex setup using many different cameras, aided by software which automates each camera cut (the contest first used CuePilot in 2014, switching to LiveEdit in 2024). This has resulted in recent years being full of very elaborate and slick camerawork, allowing for more eye-catching moments that enhance the energy of the action on stage.

Before embarking on this journey through all contests, I thought counting camera shots would be much more straightforward than intro lengths. For the most part, it was, but there are things I never realised weren't so clear, such as the start and end of each performance. I decided not to be so strict on this- if the camera cut away from the orchestra/stage ready routine only milliseconds after the music started, I didn't count the first part as a shot (I only did if enough music actually happened in that time, which I decided on a case-by-case basis for each performance). Similarly, if a song ended with the music fading/a reverb tail and there was a camera cut during this, I only counted this as a shot if it started early enough in the fade (again, decided case-by-case, as you can't enforce one strict amount of seconds for everything).

Just some other things about my criteria to clear up- if two (or more) shots appear on screen at the same time (you'll see it a few times in this video, but it also happens a lot more in old contests than you think), those are counted as two (or more) shots. However, shots with a mirror/kaleidoscope effect only count as one shot, as the same camera picture has simply been duplicated. On-screen graphics generally don't count (as they're not being filmed by a camera) unless they take up the whole screen and fully replace what would've been a shot. Some performances contain rapid zooms which have the effect of a camera cut (e.g. the intro of Slovenia 2018) but as it's all from one camera, it's just one shot.

Any other questions, don't be afraid to ask in the comments!

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