We ran several predictive articles as of late. It is time to keep ourselves honest. *sadtrombone*
The top 5 from each of the juries and televotes are guaranteed finalists
Our cheap-and-cheerful method to predict qualifiers from the semi-finals to guess surmise the entries likely to be in the top five of either the jury or the public (both is good too, like obvs.).
Here’s the top five from Semi-Final One:
| Televoting | Jury | ||
| Country | Points | Country | Points |
| Ukraine | 164 | Malta | 174 |
| Malta | 151 | Russia | 117 |
| Lithuania | 137 | Ukraine | 103 |
| Russia | 108 | Israel | 99 |
| Israel | 93 | Cyprus | 92 |
Indeed, all of these entries qualified: but there’s only six of them, since Malta, Ukraine, Russia and Israel were all on both lists. So how did the other four who qualified do with juries versus televoters?
Sweden qualified 7th overall (142 points) having been ranked 6th by the juries and 10th by the public. Azerbaijan qualified 8th overall (138 points) having been ranked 6th by the public and only 11th by the juries. Belgium qualified 9th (117 points) having been ranked 7th by the juries and only 11th by the public. Norway grabbed the last slot (110 points) having been ranked 8th by the public and 12th by the juries.
Croatia missed qualifying by 5 points-despite being 9th with the public and 10th with juries. Because it is a points game rather than an ordinal ranking one. Still, it must sting in Zagreb.
Here’s the top five from Semi-Final Two:
| Televoting | Jury | ||
| Country | Points | Country | Points |
| Finland | 150 | Switzerland | 156 |
| Iceland | 148 | Bulgaria | 149 |
| Switzerland | 135 | Iceland | 140 |
| Moldova | 123 | Portugal | 128 |
| Portugal | 111 | Greece | 104 |
There was less agreement here: only Switzerland, Iceland and Portugal featured in both top five lists, but all seven entries above did qualify.
As well, Serbia qualified in 8th place overall (124 points) having been ranked 9th in both the public and jury tallies. San Marino were 9th overall (118 points) having been ranked 7th with the juries and 10th with the public. Albania grabbed the last slot (112 points) having been ranked 8th by the juries and 11th by the public. Denmark missed qualifying in 11th place overall, but by a rather large 23 points.
Overall, the method works…but it’s still too coarse. So next year we will try to ascertain the likely top six and see if that works a bit better.
Momentum coming out of the Semi-finals
We had identified Malta, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Norway, Cyprus and Lithuania and Russia from iTunes, and Russia, Ukraine, Cyprus, and Azerbaijan from YouTube.
Ukraine, Malta, Lithuania, Russia all finished top 10. Cyprus were 16th, Norway 18th and Azerbaijan 20th.
Meh.
Discerning the top Semi-Finalists from their Grand Final draw performance order
The top three from each semi-final were Switzerland (1st SF1), Iceland (2nd SF1), Bulgaria (3rd SF1), Malta (1st SF2), Ukraine (2nd SF2), and Russia (3rd SF2):
| Country | SF rank | Slot | Previous SF Winner Slot? |
| Switzerland | 1 | 11 | Yes |
| Iceland | 2 | 12 | Yes |
| Bulgaria | 3 | 17 | No |
| Malta | 1 | 6 | No |
| Ukraine | 2 | 19 | No |
| Russia | 3 | 5 | No |
So performing number 11 in the running order has again been given to a semi-final winner (Switzerland), but the other one semi-final winner (Malta) were given slot six. Ukraine was the only semi-final “medal winner” to get a second half draw.
It is perhaps time we stop using at this as a reliable indicator of semi-final victory.
Coming up
New results means lots of data. So much data. Sheets of it in our mother of all spreadsheets. A Some of the thing we will analyse in the coming weeks:
- A deep dive in the Grand Final results, overall and with juries versus the televote
- Drilling down into each semi-final’s data
- Looking at momentum
- Consider the question of the pre-qualified finalists
- Pots and blocs and stuff
- Possibly something about potential social or political impacts on scoring
These might be more than six articles. We will write where the data lead us.