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Eurovision 2016 Semifinal One: Hear Them Falling Written by on May 10, 2016 | 8 Comments

Ok, everybody…exhale. We’ve got the results in, and Samantha Ross is here to take you through some of tonight’s finer points and statistics.

Congratulations and Celebrations

Well, we have our first ten winners…and, sorry to say, our first eight losers. Let’s take a look at this year’s Semi One qualifiers and their histories in the Semifinal era, in order of the announcement of their qualification tonight:

  • Azerbaijan
    • They maintain their perfect qualification record, going 9 for 9.
  • Russia
    • They also maintain their perfect qualification record, going 9 for 9.
  • The Netherlands
    • After a year’s absence from the Final, the Netherlands return to Saturday, making this their third qualification in 4 years.
  • Hungary
    • Hungary have now qualified six years in a row, or every year since returning to the contest in 2011.
  • Croatia
    • Croatia will be making their first appearance in the Finals since 2009’s ‘Lijepa Tena’.
  • Austria
    • This is only Austria’s third qualification to a final.
  • Armenia
    • This marks Armenia’s 8th appearance in the Grand Final.
  • Czech Republic
    • This marks the Czech Republic’s very first appearance on a Saturday night show. Congratulations!
  • Cyprus
    • This is Cyprus’s fifth qualification to the Final.
  • Malta
    • This is Malta’s sixth qualification, and first since ‘Firelight’ in 2014.

Keep in mind, some of these nations have appeared in additional Finals, but those Saturday night performances were due to high scores or victories the previous year, rather than having been voted in via a semifinal.

Drawing the First Half tonight are:

  • Hungary
  • The Netherlands
  • Czech Republic
  • Azerbaijan

Drawing the Second Half tonight are:

  • Croatia
  • Armenia
  • Russia
  • Cyprus
  • Austria
  • Malta

That means that, once you factor in the Big Five and Sweden, five spots remain in each half of the Grand Final.

Absent Friends

Out of this year’s non-qualifiers, we say goodbye to:

  • Finland
    • This is now their second consecutive non-qualification, which has not happened since 2004 and 2005.
  • Greece
    • This is the first time that Greece has failed to qualify from the Semifinal. This will be the first Final without Greece since 1999 and 2000.
  • Moldova
    • This is Moldova’s third consecutive non-qualification, their longest cold streak in the delegation’s history.
  • San Marino
    • San Marino has now failed to qualify for two years running. They’ve only made it to the Finals once in 2014.
  • Estonia
    • Estonia falls at the Semifinal hurdle after qualifying last year. Since the Semifinal system started, they’ve qualified five times for the Finals.
  • Montenegro
    • After two consecutive years qualifying, Montenegro misses the Final this year.
  • Iceland
    • This is now Iceland’s second consecutive non-qualification.
  • Bosnia & Herzegovina
    • This is the first time that Bosnia and Herzegovina has failed to qualify to the Finals in their history.

Other Tidbits of Information

  • This year, five of this year’s qualifiers were performed in the first half of the Semifinal, with the other five performed in the bottom half.
  • Out of the four returnees performing in this semifinal, only one, Malta, qualified. Congratulations, Ira!
  • Bands and collaborations in this semifinal had a 25% qualification rate tonight (with only Cyprus making it through, with Bosnia & Herzegovina, Greece, and Montenegro all missing out).
  • Out of the nine female soloists performing tonight, six qualified, with Finland, Moldova, and Iceland failing to make the Top Ten.
  • Out of the five male soloists tonight, two (Estonia and San Marino) failed to qualify, and three continue on to Saturday.
  • Songs performed largely in other languages also faced a 66% elimination rate (Austria remains, while Greece and Bosnia & Herzegovina are out).

About The Author: Samantha Ross

Vaguely aware of the Contest since childhood, a fanatic since 2008, and an ESC blogger since 2009, Samantha Ross made her first sojourn to Eurovision in 2011, and was quickly welcomed into the fold at ESC Insight. Over the years, she's been interviewed by BBC World News, SVT, LBC Radio, and many others. She was a semi-regular contributor to Oystermouth Radio's weekly dedicated Eurovision program, "Wales 12 Points". Furthermore, Samantha contributed to BBC Radio 2's coverage of the Copenhagen contest, and was a member of the official JuniorEurovision.tv web team in 2014 and 2015. She also worked as a member of the Bulgarian Delegation, serving as Assistant Head of Press in Kyiv and Lisbon. She is also the creator of the podcast "12 Points from America", an irreverent look at Eurovision from a US point of view. When not at Eurovision, Samantha is a regular on the Twin Cities pub quiz circuit, and has volunteered as a moderator for the local high school quiz bowl for over ten years. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but is wistfully looking for opportunities to get geographically closer to the heart of the Eurovision action. You can follow Samantha on Twitter (@escinsider).

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Have Your Say

8 responses to “Eurovision 2016 Semifinal One: Hear Them Falling”

  1. Spot the ace headline writer – it brings me no joy to read it though, Greta was my 2016 #1 pick…

  2. Robert says:

    Cheers Samantha!
    Agree – excellent headline! – and probably the main shock of the night. Very sad.
    PS… I love your thoughtful insights and opinions on the podcast!

  3. Marcumo says:

    Thanks for publishing this so fast. Great and straigh to the point comments.

  4. Jake says:

    5 of 10 qualifiers were written or co-written by Swedes.
    In fact, all “Swedish” songs but Moldova made it to Final.

  5. Karl says:

    Excellent article. I was cheering Iceland on and I was shocked that Malta were called over Iceland. Excellent facts and figures, love to see breakdowns after the semis.

  6. Mark Butler says:

    Highly unusual (I think) for all of the penultimate three songs to miss out. So much for second half advantage.

  7. Nathan says:

    Cracking round-up, that’s exactly what I was looking for this morning.

    Also, my hat is firmly off to the headline writer (Ewan? Samantha?) for that brilliant bit of word play.

    Thanks for putting this together!

  8. Shai says:

    Copy/paste my comment from esctips.com

    Qualifiers are spread even.5 from 1st half and 5 from the 2nd half.

    Only 2 of the last 6 qualified, which is quite unique and basically resetting the statistics.
    It does support SVT/EBU claim that every song stand a chance and the running order is less meaningful.

    Greece 100% qualification has been broken.I would have also wished the same fate to Azerbaijan, but hey you can’t ask too much.

    Iceland – I was never a fan of the song, but I thought she did reasonably well.On the other hand,I think she missed some of her marks during the performances,and some of the camera shots weren’t correct, which made it look very awkward,

    Songs 4 -7 and 9-12 have qualified. That is 8 songs out of 9. I think it’s quite unusual and is against any statistical probability but it did happened. Again another rule is broken.

    8/10 not bad-missing Azerbaijan and Croatia

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