The Choice That Is The Producer’s Choice Written by Ben Robertson on April 17, 2024 | 4 Comments

The European Broadcasting Union have revealed changes for how the running order of the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final will be coordinated.

In the years since 2013, the Song Contest running order has been decided in part by producers, with each country that is not the host nation drawing first half or second half, and from that constraint producers have created their best running order for the show. This was also the case for this year’s Semi Finals.

That restriction still exists. After each Semi Final (and after the second rehearsals for the Big Five) the participants who have qualified will draw for their start position slot. They can draw a place in the first half or the second half.

Or they can draw the new kid on the block, the Producer’s Choice.

All About The Producer’s Choice

In total of the 25 different options available to draw six of them will be for the first half and second half of the show, leaving thirteen of the draw positions will say Producer’s Choice when the draw is revealed.

The Producer’s Choice gives the production team the freedom to decide exactly where in the running order they can place – from as early as second (as Sweden randomly drew position number one) to all the way to being the show closer.

As per usual, the Grand Final running order will be announced in the early hours of Friday morning in Eurovision week once the production team has worked through their decisions.

Obviously this rule change increases the freedom for the production team, constraining only half of the selected songs to be performed in one half or the other. This change therefore gives the production team more power to decide on the type of running order that they are wish to create.

Of course it is no coincidence that this change comes once again now the Eurovision Song Contest is on Swedish soil. It was in Malmö in 2013 that the first steps away from a fully random running order were made, and it is once again an SVT-produced Eurovision in Malmö that sees the running order control being given increasingly to the producers.

It so happens that the producer in question is the same one as in 2013.

Christer’s Production Thoughts

Christer Björkman is the Contest Producer for Eurovision 2024, a role which includes setting the the running order of the Song Contest, a task that has been on his job description at five different Contests prior to 2024.

Speaking to the EBU, Christer Björkman explains his rationale for this change in structure.

“It’s all about creating the best TV show possible and giving all artists a chance to shine….

Adding the flexibility of Producer’s Choice gives me the ability to create an even better flow of different tempos and an even more thrilling Grand Final.”

These words are very similar to those from then Executive Supervisor Jon Ola Sand in 2012 when the decision was made to first allow producers to decide the running order.

“We want to make great television. For our viewers, but also for the participants. Allowing the producers to determine the running order will help to make more exciting television shows and allows each contestant to stand out, instead of being surrounded by entries in similar style or tempo.”

The focus is as valid now as it was then. The belief and the arguments in favour of a producer-led running order are that it will allow producers to curate the show to mix up different genres and styles of performance throughout the night easier, leaving the viewing audience hooked on waiting for the next performance. The theory goes that more people stick with the Song Contest as the pace weaves through the gears on Saturday night, and therefore more people stay tuned and more of the performances are seen and heard.

However Christer Björkman believes that the running order rule shift from 2013 did not go far enough. Speaking to the EBU, Christer speaks about how with “just” the draws as previously for the first half and second half “you might find many ballads end up in the same part”, and as such the flow of the show still risks the momentum drag he wishes to avoid.

Christer Björkman also notes that the current system may have created situations where “many favourites were drawn to perform in the same half.” Part of the producers’ power to create a strong viewing experience he interprets as a factor not purely about tempo that needs to be spread throughout the competing songs, but also spreads out the anticipation and the storylines across the competition.

How We Think This Changes The Contest

It has been well researched and written about that running order position does statistically have an impact on your finishing position at the Eurovision Song Contest, with the basic answer being that later running order positions are an advantage. That advantage is of course much smaller than the actual quality of songs and performances, but in a tight year the impact of running order may dictate who wins the Song Contest.

With this change there is more scope from any producer to amplify any linear effects of running order bias in the Eurovision Grand Final. With half the songs now receiving a Producer’s Choice running order slot, that increases the opportunity for those popular songs to be placed later in the running order to ensure they lure as many viewers as possible to stay tuned.

While juries have been evidenced to feel running order bias, the rationale from Christer Björkman is fully focused not on the competition but on the TV viewing experience and enjoyment. We could therefore expect a small shift to bias towards the televote big hitters with the running order, and as such give those songs as much room as possible to shine, and therefore every chance to do well with the public vote.

We can add to this that this may help make the Contest element of the show more predictable. Should the producer look to spread out the favourites across the show to make the show more entertaining, the risk is lower that a favourite for that year’s Song Contest will suffer from a poor draw.

It is also said that an aim of this change is to further help the flow of the show, ensuring similar songs are further separated within the 26 competing acts. We have worked on theories that, certainly for the top of the leaderboard, there is an argument that being back-to-back with similar songs and singing styles to yourself is competitively high-risk, but also high-reward. If you have the better ballad or more powerful vocal in a head-to-head you are the act that may “steal” votes from the other artist. It sounds like this change is going to reduce the opportunities for such moments to appear in the show even further.

Finally we note that such changes may increase the bias that any production team may have. I commented after seeing the Semi Final running orders for the 2024 competition that the production then was a very Swedish viewpoint of what Eurovision should look like, and the countries placed late in each Semi Final were Western in style or origin, whereas 2nd and 3rd in each were from the other side of Europe. Increasing the range for a producer to create the running order does expose the competition more to the mercy of said person’s belief about how the Song Contest should look, and the types of sounds Eurovision is there to foster and develop.

The Worst Sin Of All

Since 2013 we have had a critical eye at ESC Insight over the impact of the running order on the Eurovision Song Contest and how producers have manipulated the running order in the modern Song Contest. Yet if producers argue that limiting their freedom makes the show less entertaining and therefore less people watch our Eurovision artists perform, it is an almost impossible act to argue against that.

Ultimately that experience is what the Song Contest is all about.

However, the worst sin of all is the way this has now been formulated. If the EBU agree with SVT’s team that the running order for the Eurovision Song Contest is still too compromised with its now previous first half/second half split, then the solution should have been to give SVT the full freedom to produce the running order (or, at worst, a system like Junior Eurovision where the sacrosanct positions of first and last in the show are randomly drawn). What we are left with is an awkward compromise of a system which doesn’t do the image of the Song Contest any favours.

For a start, each of these artists are going to have to draw their running order degree of freedom just like before live via TikTok (or Reddit for the Big 5). Yet in the previous world saw half of the acts draw the first half, and half the second half. On a toss-of-a-coin probability could artists see their Eurovision fate unravel before them, and as such any disappointment about the first half placing was rational to manage. Now receiving a first half slot ‘feels’ like you have scored one of the worst 25% of options, and that immediate reaction will be overly negative and not something that feels right for the Song Contest experience.

You also have the fact that this adds an extra layer of complication to something that significant numbers who are less inclined to follow the Song Contest at the ESC Insight level. The Big 5 will draw their option on the Saturday before the Grand Final. Say Olly Alexander draws his start position as “Producer’s Choice”, how are the mainstream media going to report on that? This change requires an unnecessary and convoluted extra sentence or two to get across what is a very simple outcome, but one that doesn’t do the Contest any reputational favours for being overly complicated and confusing.

And this leads on to the issue of the branding of this itself. There’s no need for this to be labelled as the producer’s choice when “free” or “any half” could be used as an alternative. We don’t need to bring in during this process any talk of said producer and frankly speaking any talk about a show producer steals the limelight away from the artists who should be receiving it. The way that “producer’s choice” will now appear thirteen times throughout Eurovision week is unnecessary egotistical messaging. We still live in a world where I’m quite certain that the majority of the Saturday night audience don’t know that such a draw exists, its outcomes nor its art, and it is for the good of the competition that it stays this way.

The more we draw attention to the slight of hand that is the running order creation process, the more unhealthy the process looks and feels to those from outside.

Allowing any producer full freedom to produce the running order would take all of this away, and would mean we could have the final running order quicker on Friday morning. More energy can then be focused on what we should be discussing, the artists and their music, rather than a obligatory nod to randomness that even we note is of minimal value.

Even More Swedish, Again

Christer Björkman is the producer who will now have more freedom to create the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest the way he believes is best for the TV show. Not only is this his sixth Eurovision Song Contest but he has twenty editions of Melodifestivalen behind him as well as the one stint at the American Song Contest to perfect his craft in producing the most entertaining music competition show he can.

I think it is noteworthy how while this shift moves more power to the producers, the end product is a manufactured half-way house between full freedom and yesteryear’s split system. While producer-led running orders have been the norm in Sweden now for a whole generation and nothing is threatening their existence here, in this National Final year alone have Serbia, Albania, Ukraine and Spain all organised National Finals where the running order was decided by pure randomness. While running order creation may be the norm in these cold Scandinavian climates, that isn’t the reality that all of Europe wishes to share.

What this type of change does is put the flag down more than any of the previously announced changes to Eurovision exactly what SVT’s vision is for the modern day Song Contest. In asking where Eurovision lies on the spectrum of contest vs. entertainment, or sport vs. art, the swingometer in Sweden is firmly swinging to the art/entertainment side of any debate. SVT wants to create a Eurovision Song Contest that generates excitement, ramps up to the wow moments and is so entertaining that more people are sticking with them through the four hour long haul that is the Grand Final.

Whenever Sweden gets their hands on the Eurovision Song Contest, we know they use said opportunity to put their version of how a modern Song Contest should look to the continent in ways few other broadcasters would dare to consider. Manage the extra responsibility of this well and when the Contest inevitably returns to Swedish soil I suspect at that the fully producer-led running order will once again be on the agenda.