Once more, the Eurovision Song Contest has conducted a live Semi Final Draw to decide who sings when. Many factors go into winning the Song Contest. Clearly, the song and the staging are significant components of a victory. Others can have an impact on the final score and potentially impact a close-run Contest; the running order is one of those moments.
But is the Semi Final Draw one of them?
The Semi Final Basics
The Semi Final Allocation Draw has been something of a ritual. In its current form (which has been stable for many years), delegations are drawn into one of four groups: those that are singing in the top half of Semi Final One, those singing in the bottom half, those in the top half of Semi Final Two, and those in the bottom. There’s also the allocation of the Big 5 and our Host Broadcaster into the Semi Final they will both vote and guest perform in, but we’re not looking at that area in this article.
One of the biggest reasons for the Draw is to deal with logistical issues such as the rehearsal schedules. Those who are in the first group will rehearse first, and so on down the line. Rather than an entirely random draw, the producers will decide the order in each half to ensure variety throughout the show (for example, two songs that want deep red lighting won’t run back to back).
And with very little to go on, the Eurovision community latches on to the Semi Final Draw to decide, along with historical precedents and national voting relationships, who’s going to qualify.
But what about the eventual winner? Where do you want to sit to pick up the glass microphone?
The Methodology
Putting aside 2010 and 2021, which saw the automatic qualifiers of Germany and Italy win the Contest, thirteen winners have progressed through the Tuesday and Thursday night shows. That’s not a lot of data points, but it’s enough to see if something significantly stands out.
I’ve taken each winner’s Semi Final finishing positions from 2009 through to 2024 and converted their running order position into a depth percentage of the running order. If you open up the Semi Final your depth is zero percent, and if you close it is 100 percent.
Roll that together, and you get this…
Semi Final Running Order positions (R/O Depth) of each year’s winning songs (image: ESC insight / Ewan Spence)
Six of the thirteen winners performed in the top half of their Semi Final, while seven performed in the bottom half. The average running order position is ninth, with an average field of seventeen songs in a Semi Final.
If we’re hoping to pick out a winner from the Semi Final Draw, then I’m completely comfortable in saying that we won’t… the eventual winner is not going to be impacted by a random allocation in January.
Is Singing Second To Be Avoided?
One quirk that does stand out is the spread of winners and the lack of winners, not just in the mythical ‘running second’ spot but anywhere in the first three songs.
Part of this will come down to the small sample size – with 13 winners and an average of seventeen songs in the Semi Final, some running order spots will be missing.
But it’s also one of the by-products of the running order being decided in part by the production team. Thanks to social media, reaction videos, song review podcasts, streaming numbers, and more, the team putting on the Song Contest is going to have a fair idea of which songs are going to be eagerly awaited. Those songs are going to be placed further into the running order to keep the viewers’ interest high throughout the show.
Where The Semi Final Draw Might Matter
The Semi Finals are used to cut down the number of songs to allow for a Saturday night show that can run comfortably in four hours… at least on the printed script.
For smaller broadcasters, getting their delegation through to the Saturday night show is a win in itself. With a small competitive benefit to singing in the second half, those songs which are ‘on the bubble’ and expected to finish in the ‘eighth to twelfth’ window will be looking at that small benefit that has been gifted to them or their competitors.
As for our eventual winner, the Semi Final Draw is going to be more about how early you need to arrive in the host city than a fence you might fall at.
Interesting stats. I still think semi “draw” could make a small difference. If you’re more likely to notice a song drawn late in a semi, you might be more likely to vote for it on the Saturday night too. But clearly this advantage isn’t usually going to be enough to make a difference to who actually wins.