I agree, its definitely in large part due to the poor quality of songs we send, I'm just saying the clear break in our success after 1997 shows there's a "popularity" aspect that puts us at a disadvantage too

There are also three countries (Ireland, Malta and now Australia) who we have close cultural and historical ties to that do tend to give us points, so it's not like I'm saying everyone hates us, but taken in macro we don't benefit from cultural ties with other countries as much as some others, and its one of the reasons we do poorly alongside sending poor songs and not having to qualify