Last week the European Broadcasting Union had it's first showpiece event of 2011 as the semi-final "allocation" draw was held. The purpose of this was ostensibly to allocate countries to each of the two semi-finals which take place in the week of the contest. Yet, to rabid Eurovision watchers it was also a line in the sand as countries whose 2011 participation had been unclear (hello Bratislava) had to put up or shut up.
The semi-finalists were drawn into careful pots, based upon recent friendly voting patterns, and then half of each pot was assigned to the first semi and half to the second. The EBU did not draw the order of performance for each semi, only which half of the draw order each country would fall into, as they clearly know that Eurovision fanatics can only take so much excitement in one day or they would lapse into a catatonic fit chanting Evridiki songs.
So what of the "allocation draw" then? Actually the outcome is quite fascinating. Since the televoting era began certain countries by virtue of their ex-pats have had an in-built advantage as their diaspora has dutifully phoned in to vote regardless of the tunefulness of their homeland entry. After several years of the EBU ignoring this, presumably due to political expediency, they belatedly acknowledged it a couple of years ago and brought in 50/50 televoting and juries. This has reduced the effect of this sort of voting but it is still a major factor.
The 2011 draw is intriguing in that virtually all the major vote-hoovering countries have been placed in the first semi: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Greece, Russia, Serbia and Turkey. The only ones in the other semi are Ukraine and maybe Romania. Now the implications of this are twofold: first of all, six final places in semi-one are already probably stitched up so bad luck to the rest; secondly, anyone with a half-decent song in the second semi is laughing, and countries who haven't had a sniff of a Eurovision final for a while, like the Netherlands and Austria, have a great chance. Game On!.
BACK TO NUL POINTS NET
The first semi is actually even tougher than this entry suggests. In addition to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Greece, Russia and Serbia, there's Albania (who have missed out on the finals only twice and have support here from Greece and Serbia) and three Scandinavian countries (Iceland, Finland and Norway). Admittedly, we probably won't see all the Scandies pass this crucible, but it certainly won't be easy for any of the other nine either.
ReplyDeleteThe second semi, now that's more interesting. Ukraine, Romania and maybe Sweden are the only shoo-ins here. How nice of you, NDR, to let us Germans vote in the semi that's actually of interest. ;)