British dreams of winning the Eurovision song contest are likely to be disappointed with a potential repeat of the "nil point" fiasco of 2003, according to forecasts from Bing Predicts.
Analysis from Microsoft’s analytics tool gave the British act Electro Velvet a 0.1% chance of winning the contest, on par with neighbours from France and Ireland but well behind the frontrunners Italy who have been given an 18% chance of victory.
More distressingly Australia, whose entry into the contest has provoked wry criticism from BBC’s Eurovision presenter Graham Norton, has been named the third most likely winner, with Guy Sebastian given a 13.3% chance to take to trophy to the antipodes.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said: "Through a combination of the social media sentiment of every country involved (including Australia!) and historical voting patterns from years gone by, Bing can now predict each competing nation’s chances of winning.
"Unfortunately, it’s looking like another poor performance for the UK as Bing Predicts that this year’s entrant, Electro Velvet, has just a 0.1% chance of bringing home the trophy."
For the last decade the UK has repeatedly failed to perform at Eurovision, regularly finishing near the bottom of the scoreboard and claiming last place three times since the turn of the millennium.
This is in contrast to the two decades after the singing competition’s 1959 inauguration in which Britons regularly picked up gold and silver medals.
The Austrian capital of Vienna is set to host this year’s contest, in what is the 60th edition.
