A pre-dress rehearsal ranking- spots 14-8 could still change about significantly. The only further bet I’m taking at the moment is Israel not to qualify at 1.91 with BetVictor.
Not going into much depth here...
18th – San Marino – last
17th – Montenegro – No money, no mates, no chance. Not even the monetary break dance can save this one.
16th – Austria – Not qualifying – lowish in the televote, even lower in the jury vote.
15th – Israel – Not qualifying – it goes in the books as a ‘zany’ entry, but typically they need to be zanier than this in order to engage the televoters and offset the loss of jury points.
14th – Switzerland – middle of the road, middle of the draw, and something tells me that after Romania this one will be overlooked by televoters and juries in equal measure. Not qualifying, even though I think it deserves to.
13th – Hungary – it’s in the Swiss bracket – a little too middle of the road to make much of a televoting impact. Will the juries rescue it? I’m thinking perhaps not, but it’s marginal. Ahead of the Swiss on draw alone.
12th – Albania – It’s marginal, but not qualifying IMO. I think the jury-friendly aspect of this song is over-played, and amongst televoters it’s pretty forgettable. I don’t think I could hum the tune after ten listens.
11th – Finland – strikes me as too traditional to qualify – I don’t think it will receive the jury support required and it’s not accessible enough for televoters.
10th – Latvia – I’m not counting this out – the vocal performance is strong enough to merit some jury votes, and the melody annoying enough to persist in voters brains for the hour until the lines open.
9th – Belgium – a potentially solid jury score in store – it looks like a Austria 2011-lite and the jury support for that was enough to see it through from spot 2. This isn’t quite as well presented, but it’s accessible for viewers in it’s cheesiness and simple melodies. Sneaking through due to juries balancing things up for the less fancied countries
8th – Greece – In danger – it’s going to be largely ignored by the juries, and comes so early that it may suffer a similar fate amongst the neutral televoters. Down to the diaspora to rescue it.
7th – Ireland – the draw gives this one a Get Out Of Jail Free card, otherwise it might be in danger. As it is the two have just enough energy to paper over the dodgy vocals, and it should look good on screen.
6th – Cyprus – not completely convinced by this entry and I can’t see the juries going for it, but it already has an existing fanbase and coming after SM is enough to have this one back for Saturday night.
5th – Moldova – good draw with a well sung and enjoyable song = qualification. Despite their best efforts to sabotage it with that choreography.
4th – Russia – for me it’s not the contender that the market makes it out to be. Ultimately it’s a novelty entry and while it sounds like they will use their biggest vote winner(the wee granny) as much as possible it doesn’t strike me as one that will dominate the televote in this semi.
3rd – Iceland – Jonsi isn’t sounding at his best this week, but otherwise this ticks enough eurovision boxes to have it sailing through with some to spare.
2nd – Romania – a televoter magnet and given the good vocals may well threaten the top 3 amongst the juries too. Through at a canter.
1st – Denmark – Perfect contrast to Cyprus before it, and the faultless vocal/instrument on stage could well have this winning the jury vote.
